Tuesday, July 15, 2025

"Their voice" in Mosiah 15:29 and 3 Nephi 20:32

Isa 52:8 (KJV) reads:

 

Thy watchman shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion.

 

This verse is quoted/paraphrased in the following passages in the Book of Mormon:

 

Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion. (Mosiah 12:22)

 

Yea, Lord, thy watchmen shall lift up their voice, with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. (Mosaiah 15:29)

 

Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing, for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion. (3 Nephi 16:18)

 

Then shall their watchmen lift up their voice, and with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye. Then will the Father gather them together again, and give unto them Jerusalem for the land of their inheritance. (3 Nephi 20:32-33)

 

 

3 Ne. 20 is part of [Jesus's] speech. It begins with the addition of the words "Then shall" (cf. Abinadi's addition, "Yea, Lord", in Mos. 15). The last part of the vs. ("when the Lord shall bring again Zion") is unchanged in all except 3 Ne. 20, where Jesus expands on it as follows (vs . 33): "Then will the Father gather them together again, and give unto them Jerusalem for the land of their inheritance." (Q) (P)

 

KJV reads "the voice", and is followed by Mos. 12 and 3 Ne. 16. Here, MT has qwl, "a voice". The Peshitta agrees with MT, as does LXX by its absence of article and pronoun. Mos. 15 and 3 Ne. 20 both have "their voice", which corresponds perfectly to IQIsa (qwlm) and TR (qwlhwn). For version support, see (B), but concerning the divergency of the BM versions, see (P). (John A. Tvedtnes, The Isaiah Variants in the Book of Mormon [Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1981], 90)

 

With respect to the above abbreviations:

 

B. Version Support for BM.

. . .

P. Internal Variations in the BM Quotes of Isaiah.

Q. Paraphrases of Isaiah in BM. (Ibid., 96)

 

The reading קולם qwlm does indeed appear in Col. XLIII line 23 of 1QIsaa. The following image comes from The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa): A New Edition, ed. Donald W. Parry and Elisha Qimron (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 32; Leiden: Brill, 1998), 86:

 


This is followed by the translation of Isaiah 52:8 one finds in Martin Abegg Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English (New York: HarperOne, 1999):

 

Listen, your watchmen lift up their voices, together they sing for joy; for in plain sight they will see the return of the Lord to Zion with compassion. (Logos Bible Software edition)

 

A note following “their voices” reads “Literally, their voice 1QIsaa. Literally, the voice MT.”

 

Targum Jonathan to the Prophets also reads “their voices” as opposed to “the voice(s).” The Aramaic reads:

 

קָל פַרנָסַך דִמרִימִין קָלְהֹון כַחדָא מְשַבְחִין אְרֵי בְעֵינֵיהֹון יִחזֹון גְבוּרָן דְיַעְבֵיד יוי כַד יָתִיב שְכִינְתֵיה לְצִיֹון׃

 

קָלְהֹון in Aramaic is קָל (voice) coupled with the third-person plural possessive suffix הֹון. Bruce Chilton, in his translation of the Targum, renders Isa 52:8 thusly:

 

The voice of your guardians, who lift up their voice, together they sing for joy; for with their eyes they will see the prodigies which the LORD will do when he will return his Shekinah to Zion. (The Isaiah Targum [trans. Bruce D. Chilton; The Aramaic Bible 11; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1990], Logos Bible Software edition)