October 18, 1835

From May to June 1834, Joseph Smith and a group of Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, assembled and marched to Missouri to recover land and property that had been illegally confiscated from the Latter-day Saints living there. This group was known as the Camp of Israel or Zion’s Camp.[1] It was created in response to a revelation received in February 1834 that commanded the Saints to redeem Zion (Doctrine and Covenants 103). Initially, the camp planned to be escorted by the Missouri militia to recover the Saints’ stolen land. However, when that plan was no longer feasible, the Lord revealed that the redemption of Zion would come in a future day when they had more adequately prepared and after they were “endowed with power from on high” (Doctrine and Covenants 105:11).

Just as the Camp of Israel began to disband, disaster struck. A deadly cholera outbreak hit the camp, and over sixty participants, including the Prophet himself, were smitten with the illness.[2] After the disease ran its course, nearly seventy members of the camp had become ill and thirteen had died, including Sidney Gilbert, Betsy Parrish, and Jesse Smith, the Prophet’s cousin.[3] This severe bout of illness was a significant test for the Saints and provides essential context to the present revelation.

In early October 1835, the Prophet was again confronted with the mortality of a loved one due to sickness; only this time, it was his father. On October 6, Joseph recorded in his journal that he visited his father, Joseph Sr., who “was very sick with a fever.” The next day he recorded a prayer for his father to recover from his illness. On the 8th he expressed “feelings of great anxiety” for his father’s health. More urgently, two days later, the Prophet reported that his father’s health was “failing very fast.”[4]

However, on the 11th the Prophet recorded that in the morning, during prayer, he was told by the Lord that his father would live. Throughout the course of the day, he continued praying, and later that night laid his hands on his father’s head with the help of David Whitmer and “rebuked the disease.” To everyone’s “great satisfaction,” Joseph recorded, “our aged father arose and dressed himself, and shouted and praised the Lord.” The entire ordeal, wrote Joseph, “caused us to marvel at the might, power, and condescension of our Heavenly Father in answering our prayers.”[5]

This was the immediate context leading up to the present revelation received on October 18 wherein the Lord promises a mitigation of sickness among the Saints. Whether it was in response to the sufferings caused by the outbreak of cholera in Zion’s Camp, the sickness of his father, or a combination of both, the Lord revealed his awareness of the suffering of his people and promised to alleviate their ailments.

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October 18, 1835. Sabbath. This day assembled in the house of the Lord as usual, and the Spirit of the Lord descended upon Joseph Smith Jr., the seer, and he prophesied, saying: “The Lord has showed to me this day, by the spirit of revelation, that the distress and sickness that has heretofore prevailed among the children of Zion will be mitigated from this time forth.”

Notes

[1] See Marlene C. Kettley, Arnold K. Garr, and Craig K. Manscill, “Zion’s Camp,” in Mormon Thoroughfare: A History of the Church in Illinois, 1830–39 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2006), 43–62; Alexander L. Baugh, “Joseph Smith and the Redemption of Zion,” in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 151–94; “Zion’s Camp (Camp of Israel),” Church History Topics, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/zions-camp-camp-of-israel.

[2] History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], June 24, 1834, p. 505, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-a-1-23-december-1805-30

-august-1834/511.

[3] Baugh, “Joseph Smith and the Redemption of Zion,” 171–72.

[4] JSP, J1:69–71.

[5] JSP, J1:71–72.