Isa 29:19 in the KJV reads:
The meek also shall increase their joy in the
Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.
2
Nephi 27:30, which is based on Isa 29:19, reads a bit differently:
And the meek also shall increase and their joy
shall be in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of
Israel.
David
P. Wright offered the following criticism of the Book of Mormon reading:
Isaiah 29:19//2 Nephi 27:30: The KJV reads "The meek also shall
increase _their joy in the Lord." The BM reads:
"And the meek also shall increase and their joy shall be in the
Lord." Though both texts have the word "increase," they require
two different Hebrew words. The verb behind the KJV, weyäsepû, is transitive and takes the term çimxâ "joy" as a direct object. Quite
literally it means "they shall add joy." This verb is not used
intransitively in the sense of "increase" with reference to the
subject, as in the BM. Another Hebrew verb must be used (e.g., rbh). A further sign that this is a revision of the
KJV is the italicized pronoun "their" with which the variant seems
associated. The BM variant also upsets the parallelism in the poetry
(Isaiah in the
Book of Mormon...and Joseph Smith in Isaiah: Part 4: Disparities with Hebrew
Language, Text, and Style)
However,
once one realises that 2 Nephi 27 is a Midrash of sorts of Isa 29, a lot of the
problems Wright sees disappears. As my friend Matt Bowen wrote in his article “And
the Meek Also Shall Increase”: The Verb YĀSAP in Isaiah 29 and Nephi’s
Prophetic Allusions to the Name Joseph in 2 Nephi 25–30:
Midrashic Use #7:
“And the Meek Also Shall Increase and Their Joy Shall Be in the Lord”
(2 Nephi 27:30 ≅ Isaiah 29:19)
Just as Isaiah 29:19 represents a
climactic moment in Isaiah’s prophecy of the sealed book, Nephi’s use and
adaptation of this text in his midrash of Isaiah 29 also stands as a climactic
moment. Nephi’s text also renders Isaiah’s text here somewhat differently:
|
Isaiah 29:19 |
2 Nephi 27:30 |
|
The meek also shall
increase |
And the meek also shall
increase |
|
and the poor among men shall rejoice |
and the poor among men shall rejoice |
Nephi’s midrash makes the verb yāsap an intransitive verb — i.e., a verb with
no object — rather than reading “joy” as the object. Thus while Nephi
emphasizes that the “joy” of the meek will be in the Lord, he stresses
particularly that the “meek shall increase” not simply in just that one sense.
The “book” that Yahweh would yôsīp —
“add,” “proceed” — to bring forth as a “miraculous miracle” through a
latter-day Joseph would enable and empower the “meek” to yāsap — to “add” or “increase” in manifold senses.
Much could be written here on the class
of persons called “the meek” or the ʿănāwîm,
derived from the verb ʿānâ, which can mean “to humble,” “afflict,”
or even “rape” somebody. Numerous Hebrew Bible passages reflect a special
concern for the ʿănāwîm and their plight.[61] An
earlier prophecy by Isaiah that Nephi particularly ties to Isaiah 29 declares
that the Messianic figure would “reprove with equity for the meek of the earth [ʿanĕwê ʾāreṣ]” (Isaiah 11:4), a passage that Nephi quotes two
other times in 2 Nephi 21:4 and 2 Nephi 30:9. Jesus famously quotes the promise
of Psalm 37:11 (“the meek shall inherit the earth”) in his Beatitude in Matthew
5:5 (3 Nephi 12:5; see also especially D&C 88:17). Jacob and Nephi
make additional references to the ʿănāwîm in
2 Nephi 9:30 (“they despise the poor and they persecute the meek”) and 2 Nephi
28:13 (“they rob the poor because of their fine clothing; and they persecute
the meek and the poor in heart”), texts which both appear to have connections
to Isaiah 29:14.
[61]
E.g., Isaiah 11:4;
29:19; 32:7; 61:1; Amos 2:7; 8:4; Zephaniah 2:3; Job 24:4; Psalm 9:18; 10:7;
Psalm 22:16; 25:9; 34:2; 37:11; 69:32; 76:9; 147:6; cf. Psalm 9:8; Proverbs
3:34; 14:21; 16:19. Both the Essenes and the early Christians called themselves
“The Poor” (ʾebyōnîm or ʾebyônîm), a synonym of ʿănāwîm: “It is important to see the extent to which the
terminology Ebionim (‘the Poor’) and its synonyms penetrated Qumran literature.
Early commentators were aware of the significance of this usage, though later
ones have been mostly insensitive to it. The use of this terminology, and its
ideological parallels, ʿAni (‘Meek’) and Dal (‘Downtrodden’), as
interchangeable terms of self-designation at Qumran, is of the utmost
importance. There are even examples in crucial contexts of the published corpus
of an allusion like ‘the Poor in Spirit’, known from Matthew’s Sermon on the
Mount in both the War Scroll, xi. 10 and the Community Rule, iv.3.”
(Robert H. Eisenman and Michael O. Wise, The
Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered [Shaftesbury, Dorset; Rockport, MA: Element,
1992/Penguin, 1993], 233).
