Sunday, October 8, 2023

Royal Skousen on 2 Nephi 19:3 (= Isaiah 9:3)

  

Isaiah 9:3 thou hast multiplied the nation and not increased the joy

 

2 Nephi 19:3 thou hast multiplied the nation and    increased the joy

 

The Masoretic scribes interpreted the original Hebrew לא /lo’/ ‘not’ in this line as an error for לו /lō/ ‘for him’. Modern translations of Isaiah [9]:3, such as the Revised Standard Version, read “thou hast multiplied the nations // thou hast increased its joy”, without any negative and with its representing the conjectured ‘for him’. The Book of Mormon reading, where the not has been omitted, may simply represent its own conjectural emendation since the rest of the verse consistently refers to the joy of the people in a positive way: “they joy before the according to the joy in the harvest and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil”. (Royal Skousen, The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon, Part 5: The King James Quotations in the Book of Mormon [Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies; Brigham Young University Studies, 2019, 148)