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)