The Word Sea—What Did it Mean? Part I

When Joseph Smith translated the gold plates between April and July, 1829, Noah Webster had just completed his American Dictionary of the English Language—in which in his preface, he stated: “A great number of words in our language require to be defined in a phraseology accommodated to the condition and institutions of the people in these states, and the people of England must look to an American Dictionary for a correct understanding of such terms. The necessity therefore of a Dictionary suited to the people of the United State is obvious.” Noah Webster was an American lexicographer, textbook pioneer, English spelling reformer, political writer, editor, and prolific author. He has been called the "Father of American Scholarship and Education," and his blue-backed speller books taught five generations of children in the United States how to spell and read.
Webster was born in West Hartford, Connecticut. His father farmed 90 acres, was justice of the peace and deacon of the local Congregational church, and was captain on the "alarm list" of the local militia, and was a descendant of Connecticut Governor John Webster. Noah’s mother Mercy Steele was a descendant of Governor William Bradford of Plymouth colony. A religious man, and one who felt inspired of God to write his dictionary, Noah Webster said of his educational primers and dictionary: “In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government, ought to be instructed—no truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people.”

Living in New England around the same time of Joseph Smith, who was born in Sharon, Vermont, about 150 miles north of West Hartford, where Noah Webster was born, the language they both knew would have been quite similar, and the meanings and definitions the same. Therefore, the usage of language Joseph used to translate the Book of Mormon, would have been the same language as understood by Noah Webster and used in his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language. Thus, for clearer meaning, uncluttered by today’s changes, we can know what Joseph understood by looking up the words he used in Webster’s 1828 dictionary.
Let’s take the word SEA, which is used several times in the Book of Mormon. Despite the fact that “yam” in Hebrew means “sea,” we do not know what word Alma, Mormon, Nephi and others used for sea in Reformed Egyptian—but the Reformed Egyptian in which they all wrote, was understood by Joseph in his own wordage and verified by the Spirit in his translation. Therefore the word “sea” would have the same meaning as the word “sea” as defined by Noah Webster in 1828, which is: “A large body of water, nearly inclosed by land as the Baltic or the Mediterranean. Seas are properly branches of the ocean, and upon the same level. Large bodies of water inland and situated above the level of the ocean, are lakes. The appellation of sea, given to the Caspian lake, is an exception, and not very correct. So the lake of Galilee is incorrectly called a sea, from the Greek.” He also refers to SEAS in the plural as “the common highway of nations.”

Thus, the term Red Sea, as used in 1st Nephi, would be correct, since the Red Sea empties into the Arabian Sea, which is contiguous with the Indian Ocean, etc., and though almost, is not entirely enclosed by land. Nor can we suggest that the Hebrew word for sea, or the fact that the Hebrews called the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea by the words “sea” which, in both cases are Greek words, they would have had no application to the use in the Book of Mormon of the word “sea” since the Book of Mormon was not written in Hebrew. But most importantly, that the Spirit verified Joseph’s use of the word “sea” and that the Lord talks to us in our language for our understanding. Thus, we do not have to make a mystery out of the scriptures, or the translation Joseph Smith gave the gold plates to understand the meaning of words used in the Book of Mormon.