The text of his letter from Liberty Jail was published in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, in Times and Seasons in May and July of 1840, of which Joseph was nominally editor (this was the last transcription Joseph could have overseen). It was also published in the Deseret News and the Millenial Star, about the time it was being edited and excerpted for publication in Doctrine and Covenants in 1876. The latter editorial process interests me most in regards to Section 121, which consists of five excerpts from widely-separated parts of the letter. Sections 122 and 123 are single, coherent excerpts, not the mosaic that 121 is.
The letter begins in what one commentary calls “a high scriptural style,”[i] but it is worth noting that Joseph undercuts that immediately with sarcasm:
your humble servant Joseph Smith Jr
prisoner for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake and for the saints —
taken and held by the power of mobocracy
under the exterminating reign of his excellency the Governor Lilburn W. Boggs —
in company with his fellow prisoners and beloved Brethren
Caleb Baldwin, Lyman Wight, Hyrum Smith and Alexander McRae
send unto you all greeting.[ii]
The letter veers between the anger behind that sarcasm and the sense of mission in being prisoners for the Lord’s sake, a sense of humility that comes out in what was the first excerpt. Both elements seem to me to combine in what is the first excerpt in Section 121, verses 1-6. Here I find the most straight-out poetic element in the section, which could well be a psalm or prayer, may be both:
1O God where art thou
and where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place?
2how long shall thy hand be stayed
and thine eye — yea thy pure eye behold from the eternal heavens
the wrongs of thy people and of thy servants
and thine ear be penetrated with their cries?
3yea o Lord how long shall they suffer
these wrongs and unlawful oppressions
before thine heart shall be softened towards them
and thy bowels be moved with compassion to-wards them.
4O Lord God almighty maker of heaven earth and seas
and of all things that in them is
and who controlleth and subjecteth the devil
and the dark and benighted dominion of Sheol.
Stretch forth thy hand, let thine eye pierce
let thy pavilion be taken up, let thy hiding place no longer be covered
let thine ear be inclined let thine heart be softened
and thy bowels moved with compassion toward us
5let thine anger be kindled against our enemies
and in the fury of thine heart with thy sword avenge us of our wrongs
6remember thy suffering saints oh our God
and thy servants will rejoice in thy name for ever.[iii]
I have tried to find sources in the Bible for the specific language Joseph uses, but found none so far. The language seems far more genuine that the sarcasm Joseph directed towards Governor Boggs, although the anger is still there. This excerpt comes from near the end of the second page of the letter; the reply, beginning with verse 7, comes from the beginning of page 7 of the letter, but I want to back up a bit to the bottom of page 6 to put it in context. Joseph is specifically referring to the previous day’s mail, and he says of it:
one token of friendship from any source whatever
awakens and calls into action every sympathetic feeling
it brings up in an instant every thing that is passed —
it siezes the present with a vivacity of lightning —
it grasps after the future with the fierceness of a tiger —
it retrogrades from one thing to another
until finally all enmity malice and hatred
and past differences, misunderstandings and mismanagements
be slain victims at the feet of hope —
and when the heart is sufficiently contrite
and <then> the voice of inspiration steals along
and whispers 7my son peace be unto thy soul —
thine adversity and thy afflictions shall be but a small moment
8and then if thou endure it well God shall exalt thee on high —
thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.[iv]
The process that Joseph portrays here might best be described as domestication, and accurately portrays the gentling required for the rights of the priesthood, as laid out in verses 34-46 of Section 121, what I prefer to think of as the true patriarchal order. But I call your attention primarily to the language. In trying to describe what is happening to him, as it is happening, Joseph resorts to metaphor — the lightning, the tiger, the slaying of enmity, malice and hatred. In verses 34-46, he employs analysis.
That part of the letter was written later in the day, after in fact Joseph had actually closed the letter and had everyone sign it. It bears the hallmarks of reflection, as if Joseph were learning from the first part of the letter. When resumed the letter, still I believe under the prod of inspiration, he dictated what are now verses 34-46, much more calm and reflective. He then immediately dictated what is now Section 122, and is pretty much a poem on its own. After that, and some other, uncanonized, text, he dictated what is now Section 123, which is pretty much prose. In my next post I will discuss the third, fourth and fifth excerpts that constitute the rest of Section 121. I think they deserve more space and time than I have remaining today.
Within a month Joseph was out of Missouri. On April 6th he and his fellow prisoners were removed from Liberty Jail and transported to a grand jury hearing in Daviess County, and on Monday, April 15th, 1839, he escaped custody and headed for freedom.[v] As a fugitive from the State of Missouri, he never really regained liberty nor independence after that, nor was he sheltered from further imprisonment in Illinois. And he may never have recovered the poetic strength shown in this letter — but that’s a matter for a different forum.
But hold on, I hear you say — aren’t we getting away from life in verse?
Your turn.
[i] Jessee, Dean C. and John W. Welch, “Revelations in context : Joseph Smith’s letter from Liberty Jail, March 20 1839.” BYU Studies, 39:3 (2000), pp 125-145; the quote is from p. 126.
[ii] From Personal writings of Joseph Smith. — Revised edition / compiled and edited by Dean C. Jessee. — Salt Lake City : Deseret Book ; Provo, Utah : Brigham Young University Press, c2002 (hereafter Personal writings). The letter appears on pp. 429-446 of Personal writings. This excerpt is taken from p. 430. I have, however, normalized much of the spelling (though not capitalization) and supplied my own punctuation — mostly as em-dashes — along with, of course, the line breaks.
[iii] The subscript numbers are verse numbers in D&C 121.
[iv] Personal writings, p. 434; the beginning of verse 7 is indicated by the subscripted number.
[v] Personal writings, p. 470, editor’s headnote.
One should never underestimate Joseph Smith’s range.
I’ve spent a good amount of time just trying to get my head around this one letter: years, in fact. I could write a whole book about it, and in fact may do so one day. It’s something like 28 pages of manuscript, with another 3 pages in the letter of transmittal, which Joseph write himself. For right now, the letter is best accessed through the second edition of Personal writings of Joseph Smith, edited by Dean C. Jessee; the Joseph Smith Papers project hasn’t gotten there yet. But there’s a very interesting envelope story, in the imprisonment at Liberty Jail, that also lends piquancy to the letter.
I’ve been struck before by the thought that Joseph Smith was a person who depended very strongly on “tokens of friendship” from other people. To a great degree, he seems to have been the kind of person who drew strength from his connection to others. One can’t, for example, imagine Brigham Young saying, “If my life has no value to my friends, it has no value to me.” (Brigham would have been more likely, I suspect, to say something like, “If my life has no value to my friends, I need a new set of friends.”)
Comfort from God and comfort from human sources seem closely bound in Joseph’s experience. Hence the exception: “thou art not yet as Job.”