Sunday, November 19, 2023

Notes on Mosiah 15:21 and a Textual Variant in Isaiah 52:14

  

MOSIAH 14:1-12—ABINADI PRESENTED ISAIAH’S ‘SUFFERING SERVANT’ TEXT MESSIANICALLY

 

Abinadi recited the chapter in Isaiah that addressed the suffering servant of the Lord and elucidated it as referring to the Messiah. Interestingly, the text in Isaiah 52:14 says, “His [the Servant’s] visage was . . . marred,” but in the Isiaha scroll from Qumran, the word for marred is absent—one letter had been added, and the word was anointed, rather than marred. The word for anointed in Greek is Christos. Abinadi must have used this version because he says, “Even until the resurrection of Christ—for so shall he be called” (Mosiah 15:21). (John W. Welch, Inspiration and Insights from the Book of Mormon: A Come, Follow Me Commentary [American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2023], 126)

 

The MT (which 1QIsab agrees with) reads מִשְׁחַ֥ת while 1QIsaa reads משחתי. Commenting on this, Donald Parry wrote the following:

 

The notorious variant of 1QIsaa (משחתי) has caused much scholarly discussion. 1QIsaa may be translated to read “I anointed” (qal perf. first common sg.), which is perhaps a harmonization of Ps 45:8 (‎שִׂמְּחֽוּךָ). As Reider points out, “I anointed his appearance” dos not make sense; “Surely one anointed a person, not his appearance.” Reider concludes that “the real explanation of [1QISaa’s reading] is the fondness of the copyist for vowel letters,” i.e., there is no real variant between MT and the scrolls. Other scholars view the variant in 1QISaa as an intentional change to reflect a Messianic understanding.

 

Rubenstein sees the reading of 1QIsaa as a “hoph’al participle in the const. state with a yodh ending. Such a conclusion would link up with the reading of מִשְׁחַ֥ת, which could hardly have been transmitted without the authority of one school or another of Eastern Massoretes. The conjecture that the original MT reading was a hoph’al participle would thereby gain in plausibility.” If 1QIsaa’s reading is indeed a textual variant, then MT and 1QISab present the primary reading. (Donald W. Parry, Exploring the Isaiah Scrolls and Their Textual Variants [Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible 3; Leiden: Brill, 2020], 369)