In his exhaustive study and critique of the Isaiah text in the Book of Mormon, David P. Wright noted the following about the use of Isa 2:9 in 2 Nephi 12:9:
The
BM manifests an ignorance of Hebrew terminology in 2 Nephi 12:9. The KJV reads
"And the mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth himself"
(Isa 2:9). The previous verse speaks of the people's idolatry. The people's
humility in v. 9 seems to pose a contradiction. The BM reading suits the
context better. The P and 1830 texts read: "and the mean man boweth down,
and the great man humbleth himself not." The Pc adds
"not" after "boweth," apparently for consistency.65 The
problem with the BM reading is that in the Hebrew negatives are not needed. The
"bowing" and "humbling" are themselves negative in
character. Wildberger's commentary, which renders the verbs in the past tense,
translates: "Then the human being was bowed down and the man was brought
low."66 The NJPS similarly, though in the future tense,
translates: "But man shall be humbled, and mortal brought low." The
same verbs are found in Isaiah 5:15 where the KJV renders the negative
connotation more suitably: "And the mean man shall be brought down, and
the mighty man shall be humbled." Compare also the verbs in 2:11, 17. The
BM here thus seems to be a reaction to the inadequate translation of the KJV.
But it does not realize the problem is in the translation of the Hebrew verbs.
The ironic thing is that the existence of negative particles in the original
text would have created the very contextual problem that the BM seeks to solve.
65. Cf. BMCT 1:173 n. 373. Tvedtnes (The
Isaiah Variants, 23, 115) suggests the "not" of the Pc is
perhaps a scribal error. This leaves an inconsistency. The addition is
conceptually consistent with the negation at the end of the entire phrase.
66. Wildberger, Isaiah, 98. He
notes (p. 110) that the punitive submission (from God) spoken of in this verse
plays against the idolatrous prostration in v. 8. (David P. Wright, Isaiah in the Book of Mormon...and
Joseph Smith in Isaiah: Part 4: Disparities with Hebrew Language, Text, and
Style)
With respect to Isa 2:9 in the Qumran texts, note the
following from Martin G. Abegg and Peter Flint, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible:
But humanity will be humbled and
a mortal brought low.[43]
The second half of verse 9 and all of verse 10 were a late addition to the text
by a scribe. It was not yet in 1QIsaa, though it was early enough to be in
4QIsaa, 4QIsab, the Masoretic Text, and the Hebrew text from which the
Septuagint was translated.
.
. .
[43] 1QIsaa. 4QIsaa 4QIsab MT LXX
add And you will not forgive them. (And do not forgive them MT)
Here is a table comparing the KJV and various editions of the
Book of Mormon:
|
Isa 2:9 (KJV) |
1981 Book of Mormon |
P (O not extant) |
Skousen, The Book of
Mormon: The Earliest Text(*) |
|
And the mean man boweth
down,
and the great man
humbleth himself:
therefore forgive them
not. |
And the mean man boweth
not down,
and the great man
humbleth himself not,
therefore, forgive him
not. |
and the mean men boweth
down
and the great man
humbleth himself not
therefore forgive him
not |
And the mean man boweth
down
and the great man
humbleth himself;
therefore forgive them
not. |
(*) to read Skousen’s rationale for opting for this reading,
see Analysis of
Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part Two: 2 Nephi 11 – Mosiah 16,
pp. 656-60. As he notes on pp. 658-59:
From the point of view of
parallelism and consistency, there are two possible emendations for the
earliest Book of Mormon text: (1) there were three not's, one in each
clause (as in the current text); or (2) there was only one not, in the
last clause (as in the King James Bible). The first reading works if the reader
interprets the first two clauses as a refusal to bow down and humble oneself
before God, while the second reading works if the reader interprets the first
two clauses and bowing and humbling oneself before idols instead of God. The
immediately preceding verse (2 Nephi 12:8) suggests in the language of the King
James Bible the second interpretation is the intended one since it refers to
the worshipping of idols ("their land also is full of idols/they worship
the work of their hands/that which their own fingers have made").
This interpretation suggests that
the not in the second clause is in error, possibly in anticipation of
the not at the end of the third clause. This error could have occurred
in the early transmission of the Book of Mormon text, perhaps while copying the
text to the printer's manuscript or even while taking down Joseph Smith's
dictation. Of course, it is also possible that the original manuscript (which
is extant here) had three not's, one for each clause, so that the
original reading of the printer's manuscript represent a simple loss of the not
in the first clause and Joseph Smith's 1837 emendation represents a restoration
of the original Book of Mormon text.
Elsewhere in the manuscripts, we
have examples of not being added and deleted. The more common change is
to drop the not, but there are also a few examples of not being incorrectly
added in the manuscripts . . . Mosiah 26:9 (Oliver Cowdery incorrectly edited P
by adding not) . . . 3 Nephi 7:11 (Oliver Cowdery initially inserted not
in P, then deleted it) . . . Thus Oliver Cowdery could have inserted the not in the second clause in 2 Nephi 12:9 while copying from O and P, perhaps
in anticipation of the not in the following (third) clause. Adding to
this analysis, the text here for 2 Nephi 12:9 was originally in agreement with
the King James text, with only one not (at the end of the third clause).
And the King James reading also makes sense, given the reference in the
previous verse to worshipping idols.