In this passage we have two original instances of the verb awake; each one has undergone textual variation. In the first case, the earliest text has the simple past-tense form awaked, which was changed to awakened in the 1840 edition; that is, the verb awake was replaced by awaken. This change entered the LDS text in the third printing (in 1907) of the 1905 LDS edition. The verbs awake and awaken can be found in the original text of the Book of Mormon, including transitive examples for both verbs. Some of the other examples of transitive awake have been edited to awaken (as here in Alma 5:7), but not all:
But all the original examples of transitive awaken have been left unchanged:
In Alma 5:7, the critical text will restore the original form of awake (namely, the simple past-tense awaked ). For discussion of the competition between the past participial forms of awake and awaken, see under Mosiah 24:23.
The second case of variation in this passage deals with an instance of intransitive awake. The printer’s manuscript reads awake in the clause “and they awake unto God”, but this present-tense reading seems to be an error since the preceding text is in the past tense: “yea he awaked them out of a deep sleep”. The 1830 typesetter interpreted awake as an error for awoke. And there is manuscript evidence that scribe 2 of 𝓟 sometimes miswrote o as a: correct spelling scribe 2’s spelling in 𝓟
| correct spelling | scribe 2’s spelling in 𝓟 | |
| Alma 1:3 | labor | labar |
| Alma 9:17 | period | periad |
| 3 Nephi 20:43 | extolled | extalled |
But another possibility is that the awake in 𝓟 for Alma 5:7 is an error for awaked. And there is manuscript evidence that scribe 2 of 𝓟 sometimes omitted the past-tense d:
(For another possible instance of the loss of the past-tense d by this scribe, see the discussion under 3 Nephi 28:3.) Thus we can find scribal evidence to support in Alma 5:7 either awoke or awaked as the original reading for awake, the reading in 𝓟.
Internal evidence, however, supports awoke as the correct reading in Alma 5:7. Elsewhere in the text, we always get awoke as the simple past-tense form for awake (five times), not awaked:
Thus the internal support is stronger for awoke rather than awaked as the original reading for “and they awake unto God”, the reading in 𝓟.
Summary: Restore in Alma 5:7 the original awaked in “yea he awaked them out of a deep sleep”; also maintain in Alma 5:7 the 1830 typesetter’s emendation of awake as awoke since all other instances in the text of the simple past tense for the intransitive verb awake read as awoke rather than awaked.