Joseph Smith Biography

Thirty-Six (1841)

told him, “blessed and holy is he, for he is mine.”^70 This revelation endeared Wight to a
loyal and beloved memory of Joseph for the rest of Lyman’s life. Because of this, after
Joseph’s death, Wight refused to follow Brigham Young; he made no claim of standing
among the Twelve Apostles; nor did he go out West with the rest of the Saints. To fulfill the
prophecy of the revelation wherein Wight was commanded to “build a house unto my
name,”^71 Wight moved a group of Saints to Zodiac, Texas and built a temple.^72 He later
supported William Smith and Joseph’s sons as the true successors of Joseph’s authority.
Also in the “revelation,” George Miller received his ordination to replace Edward
Partridge as the Presiding Bishop. He was also called, along with Wight and John Snider, to
“build a house unto my name.”^73 However, it was not a temple as Wight later supposed, but
rather a “house for boarding, a house that strangers may come from afar to lodge therein.”^74
Nevertheless, the revelation went on to direct the building of a temple by
commanding:

all my saints come from afar...with all your gold, and your silver, and your

precious stones...[to] restore again that which was lost unto you, or which he

hath taken away, even the fulness of the priesthood.^75

Joseph (“the Lord”) would then answer the questions about the temple ordinances
that were the principle cause of the revelation in the first place. In it “the Lord” would
command that the only right place to do

your anointings, and your washings, and your baptisms for the dead, and

your solemn assemblies, and your memorials for your sacrifices by the sons

of Levi, and for your oracles in your most holy places wherein you receive

conversations, and your statutes and judgments,^76

was in a house dedicated to “the Lord.” They were not the Lord’s anointings, washings,
baptisms, solemn assemblies, memorials, oracles, statutes, and judgments; they were the
desires of the people.
Joseph made sure that enough of Isaiah’s list of “the evil of your doings”^77 was
expressed in the revelation to give the people a clue about what it was that they desired. The
clues in the revelation included telling the people that there was a chance that

instead of blessings, ye, by your own works, bring cursings, wrath,

indignation, and judgments upon your heads, by your follies, and by all your

abominations, which you practise [sic] before me, saith the Lord.^78

The Saints never understood that the very temple ordinances described were “your
abominations, which you practise [sic] before me.” The revelation condemned the enemies
of the Church as well;^79 and because Sidney Rigdon was the one who wrote most of the
revelation, Joseph could only do so much in providing the clues.
The revelation (D&C 124) gave Joseph Smith and his family a perpetual residence in
the boarding house, called by “the Lord”—the Nauvoo House. Then “the Lord” got
involved with how the house was to be financed with stocks, their exact price, and who
could buy them. After spending a great deal of concern on stocks, “the Lord” appointed
others to do specific things, to go on missions, and to otherwise serve him. The revelation