Chariots

The word chariot is used seven times in the Book of Mormon text (two are in passages quoting from the King James Bible):

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In every one of these passages, except one, chariot(s) is uniquely paired up with horses in parallel lines in borrowings from Hebrew poetry or in simple paired conjunction in the Book of Mormon text proper:

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The one that doesn’t fit (in 3 Nephi 3:22) has a whole series of conjoined nouns where the emphasis is on moving the people and all their property (“all their flocks and their herds and their grain and all their substance”), which might lead one to think that chariots is the wrong word I the list, that what we expect is that they took their wagons (or perhaps carts) in order to move the families, food supplies, and property.

The Oxford English Dictionary indicates that there is an archaic, obsolete meaning for the word chariot that will work here, namely ‘a vehicle for the conveyance of goods; a cart or wagon’ (see definition 1a in the OED). In the second edition of the OED, citations range from the late 1300s to the end of the 1600s, with these three examples from Early Modern English (here I give the citations with modernized spelling):

1480, William Caxton, The Chronicles of England

Other jewels as many as eight chariots might carry

1569, Richard Grafton, A Chronicle . . . of the Affairs of England

chariots laden with victual[s] and artillery

1693, Jean Le Clerc (translator), the Memoirs of Emeric Count Teckely

the regiment of dragoons of Buquoi

which conveyed 200 chariots of provisions

This meaning for chariot has since died out in regular English usage, although there are some isolated relic uses that still exist in specific contexts, as in this citation from the mid01800s that was added under definition 1a in the online, third edition of the OED:

1849, Message from the President of the United States to Congress

[the ore] is sent down on a chariot which runs upon a tram-road to the platform

The term continues to be used in mining to refer to the small ‘coal chariots’ running on the narrow-gauge iron tracks that are used to carry the just-mined coal out of the mines; they are also referred to as ‘coal wagons’ and ‘coal cars’. The OED should have listed coal chariot under its own entry dealing with coal chariots rather than simply adding it to the more general (and earlier) citations already listed under definition 1a for chariot.

In modern English, of course, chariot is generally restricted to referring to a two-wheel vehicle used in ancient warfare (see definition 1c in the OED) or in processions (see OED definition 1b) or for races and swift travel. Its use in 3 Nephi 3:22 seems to be referring to four-wheel vehicles used for moving goods and people, a definition that does not seem to have survived much past the early 1700s.

In the current King James Bible, there are 177 instances of chariot(s), and all but two of these seem to take on the meaning that we expect in modern English (as found in definitions 1b and 1c of the OED), where basically the word refers to a two-wheeled vehicle used in battle or for swift travel. The two exceptions use the word within a list of items involving the shipping of goods or produce:

Isaiah 66:20

and they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations

upon horses and in chariots and in litters and upon mules and upon swift beasts

to my holy mountain Jerusalem

Revelation 18:11-13

and the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her

for no man buyeth their merchandise nay more:

the merchandise of gold and silver and precious stones

and of pearls and fine linen and purple and silk and scarlet

and all thyine wood and all manner vessels of ivory

and all manner vessels of most precious wood

and of brass and iron and marble

and cinnamon and odors and ointments and frankincense

and wine and oil and fine flour and wheat

and beasts and sheep and horses and chariots

and slaves and souls of men

The Hebrew word in the Isaiah passage is one of the two general words (both deriving from the same consonantal stem r-k-b) used throughout the Old Testament. However, the Greek word in Revelation 18:13 is rhedē (a four-wheel carriage for riding, according to the standard Greek dictionaries), and it differs from harma (the two-wheel war chariot), the word used for the four other instances of chariot in the New Testament. The word chariot in 3 Nephi 3:22 seem to be equivalent to the same word found in Revelation 18:13, which implies that here the Book of Mormon should be interpreted as equivalent to wagon rather than war chariot.

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