Saturday, November 6, 2021

Isaiah 5:9 in 2 Nephi 15:9

Isa 5:9 in the KJV reads:

 

In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, of a truth many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.

 

When this verse appears in 2 Nephi 15:9, it reads a bit differently:

 

In mine ears saith the Lord of Hosts: of a truth many houses shall be desolate, and great and fair cities without inhabitant.

 

The adjectives "fair and great" (Heb: ‎גְּדֹלִ֥ים וְטוֹבִ֖ים) are both masculine, and agree with "houses" (בָּתִּ֤ים [masculine]), not "cities" as "city" in Hebrew is feminine (עיר).

 

John A. Tvedntes offered his explanation for this variant:

 

After the adjective "fair", BOM adds "cities". One cannot admit the dropping of crym, "cities," from MT since - in spite of its masculine plural ending - it is a feminine noun, while all the adjectives here used are masculine, agreeing with btm, "houses". It is possible that MT means to understand "cities" as conglomerates of "houses" without writing it. Indeed, "houses" and "cities" are paralleled in Isa. 6:11; 14:17 and 64:10-11. Should the idea of cities be in the text, the desirability of adding "and" before "great" (see above) is increased. And if such were present in the original text, it would have disappeared through haplography, for the word immediately preceding gdlym ("great") ends with the letter w (the word is yhyw, "they will be"), which is the spelling of the Hebrew conjunction. I prefer to believe (using the principle of Occam's razor), in the simplest explanation, i.e., scribal error in the case of "cities", with the change from "even" to "and" having no connection therewith. (John A. Tvedtnes, The Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon, 36-37)

 

The Isaiah texts where “houses” and “cities” are paralleled with one another, referenced by Tvedtnes, reads thusly:

 

‎‎Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. (Isa 6:11)

 

That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? (Isa 14:17)

 

Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, is burned up with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste. (Isa 64:10-11)

 

Interestingly, the Book of Mormon reading is more in line with Hebrew parallelism than the Masoretic Text. As Carol F. Ellerston noted:

 

B of M replaces even with and. Also "great and fair refers to cities" instead of houses. LXX has "many and fair houses." Perhaps houses is being used in parallel position with cities. This verse in B of M is in synonymous parallel poetic construction. (See Perry, p. iii, 82). M[asoretic Text] is missing this poetic element which is pervasive in Hebrew Scripture:

 

a) many houses b) desolate

a) cities b) without inhabitant. (Carol F. Ellerston, "The Isaiah Passages in the Book of Mormon: A Non-Aligned Text," M.A. Thesis [Provo, Utah: The David M. Kennedy Center, Brigham Young University, August 2001], 104)

 

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