The following entry from the scholarly lexicon of Assyrian may shed light on the use of סְאוֹן səʾôn, a hapax legomenon that appears only in Isa 9:5 (=2 Nephi 19:5). Some critics of the Book of Mormon claim that סְאוֹן is cognate with the Akkadian (note: Assyrian is a dialect of Akkadian) šēnu “boot,” ergo, the Book of Mormon (and the KJV) are in error. However, it appears that šēnu is also associated with “chariot,” and that “battle” could represent an instance of synecdoche:
Source:
The
Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago,
ed. Erica Reiner, 21 vols. (Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 1992), 17, part
2:292
