Sidney Rigdon & Daniel 9

I am of the belief that most, if not all ancient prophecies are fulfilled in multiple ways and times. The more vague a prophecy is, the more likely it is to have multiple fulfillments—that’s what I always say.

This rule definitely applies to Daniel chapter 9, a prophecy for which I have seen many different proposed fulfillments (including this one fascinatingly suggesting it was fulfilled during the restoration in the 1830s). Here are the verses in question for context:

24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

25 Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and three score and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.

26 And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

In playing around with Daniel 9 numbers, I believe I may have stumbled upon TWO MORE potential fulfillments of that ancient prediction within the timeframe of the Mormon restoration.

The first originates from the dedicatory prayer of the Kirtland temple (D&C 109). In it, Joseph Smith, who claimed this prayer was written by revelation, said the following:

61 But thou knowest that thou hast a great love for the children of Jacob, who have been scattered upon the mountains for a long time, in a cloudy and dark day.

62 We therefore ask thee to have mercy upon the children of Jacob, that Jerusalem, from this hour, may begin to be redeemed;

63 And the yoke of bondage may begin to be broken off from the house of David;

64 And the children of Judah may begin to return to the lands which thou didst give to Abraham, their father.

I wondered if this passage, verse 62 especially (hey a Daniel 9 number!) satisfied Daniel 9:26–“the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem.” And so I took the date this prayer was shared, 27 March 1836, and added 69 weeks to it, per Daniel 9:25, and this is the exact date the calculator gave me:

23 July 1837

This jumped out at me immediately.

Flip through your copy of the Doctrine and Covenants, and you will verify that section 112 was received on that very date. This is a VERY important section for the last days.

But not only was July 23, 1837 significant because of D&C 112; but that just also happened to be the very same day that the Mormon missionaries, under the leadership of the apostles Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde, preached their very first sermon in England (or any other foreign/transatlantic country for that matter). Ostensibly, Sunday, July 23rd, 1837 was the day when the gospel was first taken to the Jews, as the risen Lord prophesied in 3 Nephi 16:5-12.

Now, it is likely that some more explanation is required at this point, so allow me to present a case for this according to my understanding (read this for a more original explanation of this theory).

The gist of it is that while most Latter-day Saints would call themselves and their pioneer ancestors as Ephraimites, they may actually be more accurately referred to as “the children of Judah” mentioned in the Kirtland temple’s dedicatory prayer.

The Book of Mormon makes it clear that in the latter days, the gospel would go to the Gentiles first, and then to the Jews. The Twelve apostles were specifically told by revelation in March 1835 that they were called to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, “first unto the Gentiles and then unto the Jews” (D&C 107:33-35). The coming forth of the Nephite record brought thousands of American Gentiles into the Church of Christ, which became headquartered in Kirtland, Ohio. This was the Gentile phase, which lasted about 7 years, from 1830 to 1837.

Around the end of that time period, things started to get really rough for the church in Kirtland. In response to these difficult circumstances, the following event happened, as described in Joseph’s history, in his own voice:

“In this state of things, and but a few weeks before the Twelve were expecting to meet in full quorum (some of them having been absent for some time), God revealed to me that something new must be done for the salvation of His Church. And on or about the first of June, 1837, Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve, was set apart by the spirit of prophecy and revelation, prayer and laying on of hands, of the First Presidency, to preside over a mission to England, to be the first foreign mission of the Church of Christ in the last days.”

Compare this quote from 1837 to the Lord’s statement in Jacob 5:37 (interesting to note the common 37s there):

37 But behold, the wild branches have grown and have overrun the roots thereof; and because that the wild branches have overcome the roots thereof it hath brought forth much evil fruit; and because that it hath brought forth so much evil fruit thou beholdest that it beginneth to perish; and it will soon become ripened, that it may be cast into the fire, except we should do something for it to preserve it.

It appears that in order for the Church to survive, the gospel needed to be taken from the Gentiles and given to the children of Judah. In my opinion, this event and subsequent time period correspond to verses 51-57 of the allegory in Jacob 5, where the natural branches of the tree are grafted back into the mother tree for a time (before the actual time of fruit). The reason for this action? The Lord gives the answer:

“53 And this will I do that the tree may not perish, that, perhaps, I may preserve unto myself the roots thereof for mine own purpose.”

So, was the commandment (“decree” in some translations) to restore and build Jerusalem (which D&C 109:62 seems to indicate is synonymous with “the children of Jacob”) given on 27 March 1836? It certainly could be one fulfillment of it!

But what then is the significance of the 69 weeks after that landing on 23 July (the first day of Leo, by the way) 1837? Daniel 9 seems to say that that should be the point where “the Anointed One, the ruler, comes” (NIV). Well, if what I’ve written in the above paragraphs is true, then that is what happened for the early convert saints in England, right? The day that the gospel of Jesus Christ began to be preached to them.

Amazingly, that might not be the extent of its significance, as I will show later.

Daniel’s prophecy goes on to say that after 62 weeks, the Messiah will be cut off. I added 62 weeks to 23 July 1837, but the date (30 Sep 1838) held no apparent importance… and so, not satisfied, I got creative.

You see, the actual Hebrew word they translated as “weeks” really is more accurately rendered as “sevens.” A week, of course, is a set of seven units of 1 day each. You could conceive of a ‘seven’ that was twice as long, built of seven 2-day periods, or one of seven 3-day periods, etc. Well, turns out, that if you have seven groups of 6 days (42 days total), and multiply that by 62 (thus making 62 ‘sevens’), you get 2,604 days. Adding 2,604 days to 23 July 1837 lands you precisely on

8 Sep 1844.

Now, I know how unconventional it is in the Bible prophecy world to assume the “sevens/weeks” in Daniel 9 are anything other than 7-year time periods… but when I saw that 62 x 7 x 6 days after the reception of D&C 112 took you to the 8th of September, 1844, I knew I had stumbled upon something huge, because, being a church history nerd, I recognized that date.

Sunday, the 8th of September, 1844 was the very day that Sidney Rigdon was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Could it also be the day that the Messiah was “cut off, but not for himself?” Could it be that in this fulfillment of Daniel 9, Sidney Rigdon is the Anointed One?

I knew this date because I had previously read (and immensely enjoyed) the minutes of Sidney’s excommunication trial—a hearing for which he was not present. The language in this document actually supports the hypothesis that Daniel 9 has something to do with Sidney Rigdon! Check out these two quotations from the minutes:

“He [Sidney] says he has known ever since before he left Pittsburgh, that this same blessed people would cut him off before he left them.” –Parley P. Pratt

“Elder W. W. Phelps arose and offered a motion, that Elder Sidney Rigdon be cut off from the church, and delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until he repents. Bishop Whitney then presented the motion to the High Council, and the vote was unanimous in the affirmative.”

Fascinatingly, before his excommunication, Sidney had claimed to have had foreknowledge that he would fulfill at least one Old Testament prophecy: 

“He [Sidney Rigdon] proclaimed himself to be the stone that the Prophet Isaiah said the builders rejected; he professed to have received the keys of David…” -Jedediah Grant

Isn’t that amazing? I know my Daniel 9 math is weird, but come on!–How much more perfect could this alignment of dates be?? 

But then there’s the issue of 23 July 1837. If the Messiah of Daniel 9:25 is Sidney Rigdon, then how did he fulfill that role in the writing down of D&C 112 or in the first mission to England? He did not go to England ever in his life.

The answer may be found in section 112 itself.

This revelation was given to Thomas B. Marsh, president of the Twelve. In it, the Lord explains the following to him:

16 Verily I say unto you, my servant Thomas, thou art the man whom I have chosen to hold the keys of my kingdom, as pertaining to the Twelve, abroad among all nations—
17 That thou mayest be my servant to unlock the door of the kingdom in all places where my servant Joseph, and my servant Sidney, and my servant Hyrum, cannot come;
18 For on them have I laid the burden of all the churches for a little season.
19 Wherefore, whithersoever they shall send you, go ye, and I will be with you; and in whatsoever place ye shall proclaim my name an effectual door shall be opened unto you, that they may receive my word.
20 Whosoever receiveth my word receiveth me, and whosoever receiveth me, receiveth those, the First Presidency, whom I have sent, whom I have made counselors for my name’s sake unto you.

The Lord specifically tells the president of the Apostles that they are representatives of the First Presidency, who are in turn representatives of Him. Sidney Rigdon was in the First Presidency at the time, and therefore the arrival of the Apostle missionaries to the British children of Judah was not only the arrival of Christ unto them, but also the arrival of Sidney Rigdon. Considering how perfect these dates line up, it appears that Sidney was the Anointed One to the dispersed of Judah that joined the Church between 1837 and 1844… And then they cut him off.

Now, what about the rest of Daniel 9, specifically verses 26-27?

It’s a great question, and not one that I have a solid answer to. However, consider this: 

Nauvoo became the gathering place for the new British converts, many of whom worked on the construction of the Nauvoo temple. Within 7 years of Sidney’s excommunication, the Mormons in Nauvoo had begun performing ordinances in the Nauvoo Temple (10 Dec 1845), they had stopped ordinances in the same temple (7 Feb 1846), they had experienced the conflicts of what is now called the Mormon War of 1844-1846 (including the Battle of Nauvoo, 10 Sep 1846), the interior of the Nauvoo temple was destroyed by fire (9 Oct 1848), and most of the remaining walls of the temple were destroyed by a tornado (27 May 1850). By all this, you could say that Daniel 9:26-27 was fulfilled at least in part.

To recap: 69 weeks to the day after Joseph Smith called for the redemption of Jerusalem and its people, the house of Israel, the gospel was first taken to the dispersed of Judah, under the direction of the First Presidency, starting in England. 62 sevens after that, Sidney Rigdon was excommunicated by the Twelve. Considering the prophecy of Daniel 9, this suggests that Sidney was “the anointed one” to the Israelites who joined the Church after 1837.

Sidney Rigdon was a special, highly underestimated character. I could go on and on about his pivotal role in the restoration of the southern kingdom of Judah, but I will save that for another place. Suffice it to say that the evidence presented in this article shows the likelihood of Sidney Rigdon being far more important to the story of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints than we have given him credit for.

You may recall my statement at the beginning that I had found TWO possible fulfilments of Daniel 9 in the 1830s Restoration Movement… keep reading my future blogs to find out who the other one is.