�鶹��ý

May 19, 1842

Hiram S. Kimball was a wealthy merchant and early settler of Commerce, Illinois (later known as Nauvoo). Although not a member of the Church at the time Joseph Smith received this revelation on May 19, 1842, he was married to Sarah Granger Kimball, who had joined the Church before their marriage in 1840.[1] Sarah was influential in the creation of the Female Relief Society,[2] and Hiram was a man of influence who served as the Nauvoo City alderman beginning in 1841.[3]

This present revelation condemns Kimball for “insinuating” and “forming” what are deemed “evil opinions” against Joseph Smith and others. Although this language is stark, it is not entirely clear what it means or may be referring to. It could be referring to Kimball’s competing business interests that were hindering the Saints’ ability to build Nauvoo. The Prophet had railed against local merchants on occasion, and Kimball’s competition may have been the cause of his insinuations against the Prophet.[4] The practice of plural marriage, which Joseph Smith had begun privately practicing and introducing to others in Nauvoo by this time, might have also catalyzed Kimball’s murmuring (and it is of course also possible that it was a combination of both issues).[5]

In the months preceding this revelation, rumors surrounding the practice of plural marriage were spreading throughout Nauvoo. By the time this revelation was given in May 1842, the Prophet had expanded his practice of the principle by being married or sealed to at least seven women besides his first and only legal wife, Emma, and introducing the practice to a small group of trusted friends, including members of the Quorum of the Twelve.[6] At the same time, however, John C. Bennett, the mayor of Nauvoo and an assistant church president in the First Presidency, had begun seducing women into illicit sexual relationships by claiming such were divinely sanctioned as long as they were kept secret. He promised women that having extramarital sex was approved by Church leaders and that if there were any sin in it, he would take the blame upon himself. Once his behavior came to light following a litany of allegations and subsequent investigations, Bennett was excommunicated and resigned from his position as mayor.[7]

Bennett’s resignation occurred two days before this revelation was received. The Prophet dictated this revelation while the election of a new mayor was ongoing. Willard Richards wrote in Joseph’s journal that the Prophet “received and wrote the following revelation and threw it across the room to Hiram Kimball.”[8] After Joseph was elected as the new mayor of Nauvoo, he spoke in a council meeting about many of the evil reports circulating about himself and other Church leaders and the need to stamp them out.[9] Fortunately, the relationship between Joseph and Kimball remained amicable even after this revelation was received.[10] A little over one year later, Kimball received baptism on July 20, 1843, and remained a faithful member of the Church until his tragic death en route to a mission to the Sandwich Islands.[11]

❋ ❋ ❋

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph Smith by the voice of my Spirit—Hiram S. Kimball has been insinuating evil and forming evil opinions against you with others, and if he continues in them, he and they shall be accursed. For I am the Lord thy God and will stand by thee and bless thee. Amen.

Notes

[1] JSP, D10:76.

[2] Sarah M. Kimball, “Auto-Biography,” Woman’s Exponent 12, no. 7 (September 1, 1883): 51.

[3] JSP, D10:511.

[4] JSP, D10:77. See JSP, J2:52, 273, for examples of Joseph complaining against local merchants.

[5] JSP, D10:77.

[6] JSP, D10:xxvi–xxxi. By May 1842 the Prophet had, based on current documentary evidence, been married or sealed in plural marriage to Fanny Alger, Louisa Beaman, Zina Diantha Huntington, Presendia Lathrop Huntington, Agnes Coolbrith, Mary Elizabeth Rollins, and Patty Bartlett. See Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: History and Theology, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2013), 1:219–76; Don Bradley, “Mormon Polygamy Before Nauvoo? The Relationship of Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger,” in The Persistence of Polygamy: Joseph Smith and the Origins of Mormon Polygamy, ed. Newell G. Bringhurst and Craig L. Foster (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2010), 14–58; Joseph B. Noble, Affidavit, June 26, 1869, Affidavits about celestial marriage, 1869–1915, 40 Affidavits on Celestial Marriage, Book number 1, 1869, 3, MS 3423, CHL; Zina Diantha Huntington, Affidavit, May 1, 1869, Affidavits on Celestial Marriage, 40 Affidavits on Celestial Marriage, book Number 1, 1869, 5, MS 3423, CHL; Presendia Lathrop Huntington, Affidavit, May 1, 1869, Affidavits on Celestial Marriage, 40 Affidavits on Celestial Marriage, book Number 1, 1869, 7, MS 3423, CHL; Brigham Young, Journal, January 6, 1842, CR 1234 1, CHL; Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, Affidavit, March 23, 1877, MS 2673, CHL; Patty Bartlett, Diary, June 1860, in Donna Toland Smart, ed., Mormon Midwife: The 1846–1888 Diaries of Patty Bartlett Sessions (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1997), 276. In the summer of 1841, the Prophet introduced plural marriage to trusted friends including Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, John Taylor, and George A. Smith. Brigham Young, “Secret of Happiness—Self Examination—Joseph Smith a Man of Obedience to God—Baptism for the Dead—Temporal and Spiritual One—a Dream—Order of Enoch, the Order of God—a Good Word for the Women,” in Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: Joseph F. Smith, 1877), 18:241, June 23, 1874; Helen Mar Kimball, “Scenes in Nauvoo,” Woman’s Exponent 10, no. 6 (August 15, 1881): 42; John Taylor, Speech, June 27, 1854, in LaJean Purcell Carruth and Mark Lyman Staker, “John Taylor’s June 27, 1854, Account of the Martyrdom,” BYU Studies 50, no. 3 (2011): 43; George A. Smith, to Joseph Smith III, October 9, 1869, MS 1322, CHL. Incidentally, Sarah Granger Kimball herself refused a plural marriage proposal from Joseph Smith. See Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:274–76.

[7] On John C. Bennett’s unauthorized and illicit practice of “spiritual wifery” in contrast to the plural marriage system taught and authorized by Joseph Smith, see Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 1:515–93; “John C. Bennett and Joseph Smith’s Polygamy: Addressing the Question of Reliability,” Journal of Mormon History 41, no. 2 (April 2015): 131–81; Jill Mulvay Derr et al., eds., The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History (Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2016), 10–13. See also Andrew F. Smith, The Saintly Scoundrel: The Life and Times of Dr. John Cook Bennett (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 78–128.

[8] JSP, J2:58.

[9] JSP, J2:58.

[10] JSP, D10:78.

[11] JSP, D10:511.