2 Nephi 19:9 in the Book of Mormon reads:
And all the people shall know, even
Ephraim and the inhabitants of Samara, that say in the
pride and stoutness of heart:
KJV
Isa 9:9 reads inhabitant. Commenting on the difference, and how the Book
of Mormon makes better sense than the KJV (and the Masoretic Text it is based
on), Brant Gardner noted:
The Book of Mormon has “inhabitants”
(plural) while the King James Version has “inhabitant” (singular). Tvedtnes
notes that the word in the Masoretic text is singular, but plural in the
Septuagint. “There is a great likelihood that the original text had an abbreviated
w-yw(h), which could have been read as either singular or plural.”
(Tvedtnes, “Isaiah Textual Variants in the Book of Mormon,” 47) Because this
verse focuses on the people, “inhabitants” is a better translation. “Inhabitant”
is a possible reading but only if the king represents the people. Such a reading,
however, does not match the focus within each stanza. (Brant A. Gardner, Second
Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6
vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 2:273; the LXX "the
inhabitants" reads οἱ ἐγκαθήμενοι. Göttingen does not list any textual
variant for this word in the LXX manuscripts)
