The Words of Jacob

The Book of Mormon contains at least three types of summaries of the text. One is the chapter headings in italics that were not part of the book originally. The second is the headings at the beginning of the books, such as the one in front of 1 Nephi which starts with this sentence: “An account of Lehi and his wife Sariah, and his four sons, being called, (beginning at the eldest) Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi.” These are found before 1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, Jacob, Alma, Helaman, 3 Nephi, and 4 Nephi, and these were part of the text written by Mormon and others. There is a third type of summary that we see in various places that groups together a section smaller than a whole book but usually larger than a single chapter. One example is what we have before Mosiah 9: “The Record of Zeniff—An account of his people, from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until the time that they were delivered out of the hands of the Lamanites.” In this example the summary is for Mosiah 9-22, the story of the people of Zeniff, Noah, and Limhi in the land of Nephi. The non-italicized parts of these summaries were in the original text and are found before the following chapters: Mosiah 9, Mosiah 23, Alma 5, Alma 9, Alma 17, Alma 21, Alma 36, Alma 38, Alma 39, Alma 45, Helaman 7, Helaman 13, 3 Nephi 11, and Moroni 9. I don’t know exactly how it was determined which of these statements to set as these introductory statements instead of actual verses, but looking at them they do have a summary kind of style that generally distinguishes them from the rest of the text. If they had been put in a verse it wouldn’t make much sense, especially since they are generally not complete sentences. For example, Alma 4:20, the summary, and Alma 5:1 would read this way without breaking apart the summary as something different: “And thus in the commencement of the ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, Alma delivered up the judgment-seat to Nephihah, and confined himself wholly to the high priesthood of the holy order of God, to the testimony of the word, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy. The words which Alma, the High Priest according to the holy order of God, delivered to the people in their cities and villages throughout the land.  Now it came to pass that Alma began to deliver the word of God unto the people, first in the land of Zarahemla, and from thence throughout all the land.” The text in bold breaks up the flow of the story and makes more sense as a heading outside the standard text.

               I point this out to suggest that perhaps there are two current verses that were originally intended to be this kind of summary statement but were not printed that way. The first is 2 Nephi 6:1 which reads this way: “The words of Jacob, the brother of Nephi, which he spake unto the people of Nephi:” Like the other summary statements, it is not a complete sentence and perhaps it was meant to be an explanation of 2 Nephi 6-10. One indication that this might be the case is that it was written in 3^rd person, even though we know that Nephi wrote the statement. If it was meant to be part of the original text, I would have expected it to say this: “These are the words of Jacob, my brother, which he spake unto my people:” Similarly Jacob 2:1 reads this way: “The words which Jacob, the brother of Nephi, spake unto the people of Nephi, after the death of Nephi:” Again this is not a complete sentence and matches the style of the other introductory statements like before Alma 5 (both begin with “The words which…”). In this example as well it is odd that Jacob, who wrote in first person in Jacob 1, would write a single phrase in third person here. It makes more sense to me that he intended this to be a summary statement of a section of his record and so he wrote it in a different style. Comparing the printer’s manuscript for Jacob 2:1 with the summary statement before Alma 36, they are very similar. Before both come a chapter indication and after both there is a small but visible underscore. I’m guessing that the underscore meant that Oliver Cowdery intended for this to be an introductory phrase, and it may be that E.B. Grandin just missed that and stuck it in as regular text. At any rate, what matters is that we have the text, and we can understand it perfectly well as it is. Most importantly, we are grateful to have these words of Jacob as he taught his people and us powerfully about the plan of salvation.