and it came to pass that when the Lord of the vineyard saw that his fruit was good and that his vineyard was no more corrupt he [calleth >js called 1|calleth A|called BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] up his
servants and [sayeth >js said 1|sayeth A|said BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRST] unto them
Here we have the conjoining of two instances of the historical present, both of which were edited to the simple past tense by Joseph Smith. There is one other occurrence in the original text of
two historical present-tense verbs being conjoined, but in this case both verbs are the same (namely saith):
- Mosiah 7:27–28
- and because he saith unto them that Christ was the God the Father of all things and saith that he should take upon him the image of man … and now because
he said this / they did put him to death
But the conjoining of two different verbs both in the historical present tense does not occur in the Book of Mormon text except for here in Jacob 5:75. There are 26 cases where we have one or two
verbs in the past tense followed by the historical present; and in every case, the verb in the historical present is say:
- 1 Nephi 2:1 the Lord spake unto my father … and saith unto him
- 2 Nephi 4:3 he called the children of Laman … and saith unto them
- Jacob 5:41 the Lord of the vineyard wept and saith unto the servant
- Mosiah 12:9 and they took him and carried him bound before the king and saith unto the king
- Alma 14:14 and he smote them with his hand … and saith unto them
- Alma 14:19 the judge stood before them and saith
- Alma 14:24 and the chief judge stood before them and smote them again and saith unto them
- Alma 18:2 he was astonished exceedingly and saith
- Alma 18:14 Ammon turned himself unto the king and saith unto him
- Alma 20:13 his father was angry with him and saith
- Alma 20:17 but Ammon stood forth and saith unto him
- Alma 20:26 he was astonished exceedingly and saith
- Alma 32:7 but he stretched forth his hand and cried unto those …
- and saith unto them
- Alma 44:8 he came forth and delivered up his sword … and saith unto him
- Alma 45:2 Alma came unto his son Helaman and saith unto him
- 3 Nephi 13:25 he looked upon the twelve whom he had chosen and saith unto them
- 3 Nephi 15:1 he cast his eyes round about on the multitude and saith unto them 3
- 3 Nephi 17:14 Jesus groaned within himself and saith
- 3 Nephi 17:23 and he spake unto the multitude and saith unto them
- 3 Nephi 18:17 he turned again unto the multitude and saith unto them
- 3 Nephi 18:26 he turned his eyes again upon the disciples … and saith unto them
- 3 Nephi 19:35 he came again to the disciples and saith unto them
- 3 Nephi 23:8 and he cast his eyes upon them and saith
- 3 Nephi 27:2 and Jesus came and stood in the midst of them and saith unto them
- Ether 8:9 she did talk with her father and saith unto him
- Ether 8:13 Akish gathered in unto the house of Jared all his kinsfolks and saith unto them
In all these instances of the historical present, Joseph Smith substituted the past-tense said for saith in his editing for the 1837 edition.
The systematic nature of the rest of the text with respect to this use of the historical present makes one wonder if the present-tense calleth in Jacob 5:75 is a mistake for
called. Based on the 26 other examples, we should expect “he called up his servants and saith unto them”. On the other hand, there is nothing inherently
wrong with having the historical present occur throughout the sentence. In fact, when we look at how the historical present saith is used in the King James Bible, we find considerable
variation with respect to the tense of the preceding conjoined verbs. In the following classification based on usage in the four Gospels, the ending -eth stands for the historical present
and -ed for the simple past tense. For each type, I cite the first occurrence in the Gospels:
-ed and saith 16 times
- Mark 6:50
- and immediately he talked with them and saith unto them
-eth and saith 13 times
- Matthew 26:36
- then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane and saith unto the disciples
-ed and -ed and saith 8 times
- Matthew 20:6
- he went out and found others standing idle and saith unto them
-eth and -eth and saith 5 times
- Matthew 4:5–6
- then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple and saith unto him
-ed and -eth and saith 1 time
- John 1:43
- the day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee and findeth Philip and saith unto him
-eth and -ed and saith 1 time
- Mark 14:33–34
- and he taketh with him Peter and James and John and began to be sore amazed and to be very heavy and saith unto them
Thus there is considerable variation in the tense of conjoined verbs in the King James text (as also in the underlying Greek original). Note, in particular, the last example, which switches from
the historical present (taketh) to the simple past tense (began) and then back to the historical present (saith). Thus we should probably not expect the Book of Mormon
text to be fully systematic with respect to the historical present. The critical text will maintain the unique occurrence of conjoined occurrences of the historical present for two different
verbs in Jacob 5:75.
