Isa 9:3 in
the KJV reads as follows:
Thou hast
multiplied the nation, and not
increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as
men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
2 Nephi 19:3, a quotation of Isa 9:3, reads:
Thou hast multiplied
the nation and increased the joy. They joy before thee according to the joy in
harvest and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil.
Many modern translations, as with the Book of Mormon, omit “not” in Isa
9:3, such as the following:
You have
multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as
with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. (NRSV)
You have magnified
that nation, Have given it great joy; They have rejoiced before You As they
rejoice at reaping time, As they exult When dividing spoil. (1985 JPS Tanakh)
You have brought
them abundant joy and great rejoicing; They rejoice before you as people
rejoice at harvest, as they exult when dividing the spoils. (New American
Bible)
You shall multiply
the nation, You shall increase their gladness; They will be glad in Your
presence As with the gladness of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the
spoil. (1995 NASB)
George Buchanan Gray, in the 1912 International
Critical Commentary on Isaiah 1-39 rendered Isa 9:3 (v. 2 in the Hebrew) thusly:
Thou hast multiplied ‘the rejoicing,’
Thou hast made great the joy;
They have joyed before thee as men joy at
harvest,
As they rejoice when they divide the
spoil.
Commenting on this verse, Gray wrote:
Thou
hast multiplied the rejoicing, etc.] the translation rests on a very slight
conjectural emendation; see phil. n. 𝕳 reads thou hast multiplied the nation: thou hast
not increased the joy, which is obviously unsuitable; the Ḳerê
(RV) is probably an early conjectural emendation which restores sense at the
expense of style and without restoring the parallelism (see phil. n.). The two
figures which enforce the greatness of the joy both recur; see Ps 4:8; 126:6
(joy in harvest), Ps 119:162 (joy over spoil). It no more follows that the poet
expected the new era to open after a victorious battle, than that he expected
it to begin at the end of harvest. (George Buchanan
Gray, A Critical and Exegetical
Commentary on the Book of Isaiah, I-XXXIX [International Critical
Commentary; New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1912], 169)
While hardly overwhelming evidence for the
Book of Mormon (like the Arabian
Peninsula geography of the Book of Mormon), the removal of “not” in Isa 9:3 in the Book of Mormon is a small piece of evidence for
the authenticity thereof.
