Helaman 4:24 Textual Variants

Oliver Cowdery initially wrote wicked in the printer’s manuscript, but almost immediately he corrected the word to weak by crossing out wicked and supralinearly writing weak (there is no change in the level of ink flow). Oliver’s initial wicked was probably influenced by the preceding occurrences of wicked in verse 22:

• Helaman 4:22
  • and thus seeing that their laws had become corrupted and that they had become a wicked people insomuch that they were wicked even like unto the Lamanites

One could argue that in verse 24 the original manuscript (which is not extant here) read weak but that this was an error for wicked. Both words are phonetically and orthographically similar. Joseph Smith could have misread an original wicked as weak, or Oliver Cowdery could have misheard wicked /wIkßd/ as weak /wik/ .

Despite these arguments, weak is undoubtedly correct here in verse 24. Later, in verse 26, the text returns to this theme of strength and explains that the Nephites had become physically weak because of their spiritual wickedness:

• Helaman 4:26
  • for behold they saw that the strength of the Lamanites was as great as their strength / even man for man and thus had they fallen into this great transgression yea thus had they become weak because of their transgression in the space of not many years

The critical text will therefore maintain the use of weak in verse 24.