1 Nephi 2:6 Textual Variants

It is quite clear here that the earliest text (the original manuscript) has the singular tent. When copying from 𝓞 to 𝓟, Oliver Cowdery initially copied the singular tent as the plural tents, but then he immediately crossed out the plural s.

There is no doubt that the singular tent is correct here in 1 Nephi 2:6. There are 16 references to a leader’s tent in the Book of Mormon, including 13 for Lehi (such as “and my father dwelt in a tent” in 1 Nephi 2:15 and “we did again travel on our journey toward the tent of our father” in 1 Nephi 7:21). But when referring to a group of people, the text consistently uses the plural tents, such as “we did take our tents and departed into the wilderness” in 1 Nephi 16:12 and “they pitched their tents round about” in Mosiah 2:5.

The only special case of usage occurs when the text uses the name of a general to stand for his entire army. In such cases, we always get “his tents” (four times). Note in the following list that for three cases the preceding sentence has a plural subject that refers to a different army and in each of those cases we have “their tents”:

• Alma 46:31 (Moroni and his army march out)
  • and it came to pass that he took his army and marched out with his tents into the wilderness
• Alma 51:32 (Amalickiah and his army pitch their tents)
  • and it came to pass that
  • Teancum and his men did pitch their tents in the borders of the land Bountiful and Amalickiah did pitch his tents in the borders on the beach by the seashore
• Ether 14:28 (Coriantumr and his army pitch their tents)
  • and they pitched their tents in the valley of Corihor
    and Coriantumr pitched his tents in the valley of Shurr
• Ether 15:8 (Shiz and his army pitch their tents)
  • wherefore when they came to these waters they pitched their tents
    and Shiz also pitched his tents near unto them

Of course, Lehi’s party is not an army, so it would be incorrect to say “Lehi pitched his tents”.