2 Nephi 8:23 Textual Variants

Isaiah 51:23 (King James Bible) but I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee

The printer’s manuscript reads unto rather than the King James into. The 1830 typesetter restored the reading of the King James Bible, which is undoubtedly correct. The original manuscript is not extant here, but it could well have read into rather than unto. There appears to be no motivation for replacing into with unto in this verse of Isaiah, so the use of unto in 𝓟 is probably an error.

Oliver Cowdery frequently mixed up these two words, as is exemplified by numerous cases where he initially wrote unto in the manuscripts instead of the correct into:

• 1 Nephi 4:17 (in 𝓞)
  • [unto > into 0|into 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] my hands
• 1 Nephi 4:36 (in 𝓟)
  • [into 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|unto > into 1] the wilderness
• 1 Nephi 5:8 (in 𝓟)
  • [into 0ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST|unto > into 1] the wilderness
• 1 Nephi 18:8 (in 𝓞)
  • [unto > into 0|into 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the sea
• 2 Nephi 9:16 (in 𝓟)
  • [unto > into 1|into ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] everlasting fire
• Mosiah 17:9 (in 𝓟)
  • [unto >+ into 1|into ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] your hands
• Mosiah 22:12 (in 𝓟)
  • [unto > into 1|into ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] the wilderness
• Alma 46:31 (in 𝓞)
  • [unto >% into 0|into 1ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] a covenant
• Alma 54:12 (in 𝓟)
  • [unto > into 1|into ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] your own land
• 3 Nephi 10:10 (in 𝓟)
  • [unto > into 1|into ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] joy

(For a summarizing discussion of the mix-up of these two prepositions, see under 1 Nephi 7:2.) The 1830 emendation of unto to into in 2 Nephi 8:23 is probably correct.