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Servants Named in the Calls

A combined home for the men named in the short personal revelations — most of them too small for their own pages, gathered here. Each entry reports only what the verse text says at the references cited, and gives each name exactly as the text gives it.

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it. Names are reproduced exactly as the verse text supplies them — a bare first name where that is all the text gives, a full name where the text gives one. The wiki does not supply surnames the text withholds, and it does not join a bare first name in one section to a full name in another. See A caution about names below; that caution is the reason this page exists as a roster rather than as a set of biographies. Dates, places, and occasions are not in this wiki’s source text and are not stated.

Account

The scale of the naming

Across the thirty-three sections gathered here, 44 distinct persons are named with both a given name and a surname (counting rule: distinct personal names in the verse text of D&C 23, 24, 25, 30–37, 39, 40, 44, 47, 53–56, 60–62, 66, 69, 71, 73, 75, 79, 80, 99, 100, 108, 111; divine titles, peoples, and place names excluded). A further sixteen distinct first names appear as bare addresses, with no surname anywhere in their own section. Three of these sections — 44, 62, and 111 — name no person at all, addressing a body of elders or an unspecified “you” instead.

The single densest passage is the closing pairing list of D&C 75:30–36, which names fourteen men in seven pairs and does nothing else: D&C 75:30: “Wherefore, let my servant Simeon Carter and my servant Emer Harris be united in the ministry;” — and so on through 75:36, closing on Micah B. Welton and Eden Smith. No task is stated for any of the seven pairs beyond the pairing itself.

A caution about names

Sixteen distinct first names appear in this cluster as bare addresses — a name, and then the text stops. Several of those first names also occur elsewhere in the same cluster attached to a surname — and in two cases, to two different surnames.

  • D&C 34:1 addresses “My son Orson”. Two men named Orson are given full names later in the cluster, in adjacent verses: Orson Hyde at D&C 75:13 and Orson Pratt at D&C 75:14. The verse text nowhere identifies the Orson of section 34 with either. This page makes no identification.
  • D&C 55:1 addresses “my servant William”. Two men named William are given full names elsewhere: William W. Phelps at D&C 61:7 and William E. McLellin at D&C 66:1. Again the text joins none of them, and neither does this page.
  • D&C 33:1 addresses “my servants Ezra and Northrop”. An Ezra Thayre is named at D&C 56:5 and 56:8. Northrop is never given a surname anywhere in the frozen corpus. The two bare names of section 33 are left as the text leaves them.
  • The same restraint applies to the David of D&C 30:1, the Peter of 30:5, the John of 30:9 and 47:1, the Thomas of 31:1, the Sidney of 35:3, the Edward of 36:1, the James of 39:7, the Lyman of 108:1, and the four men addressed in a row at D&C 23:1–5 as Oliver, Hyrum, Samuel, and Joseph.

Where a section does identify a bare name with a full one, it does so inside its own verse, and the wiki follows it. D&C 56:5 names Thomas B. Marsh and then, in the same verse, gives “a new commandment unto my servant Thomas” — one verse, one identification. D&C 66:1 names William E. McLellin and 66:3 continues to “my servant William” within the same revelation.

One section names its recipient not at all but describes him by relation. D&C 24 opens D&C 24:1: “Behold, thou wast called and chosen to write the Book of Mormon, and to my ministry;” and identifies him only obliquely nine verses later — D&C 24:10: “And thy brother Oliver shall continue in bearing my name before the world, and also to the church.” The addressee is the brother of an Oliver. That is the whole of what the verse text supplies, and the wiki supplies no more.

The roster

Named with a surname

Given as the verse text gives them, in order of first appearance.

  • Joseph Knight — D&C 23:6: told he “must take up your cross, in the which you must pray vocally before the world as well as in secret, and in your family, and among your friends, and in all places” (D&C 23:6), and at 23:7 to “unite with the true church” (D&C 23:7).
  • Emma Smith — D&C 25:1. She has her own page: Emma Smith.
  • Joseph Smith, Jun. — named in fourteen verses across the cluster, most often as a companion in a journey or as the hand under which another is ordained; he has his own page: Joseph Smith.
  • Oliver Cowdery — named in twelve verses across the cluster; his own page: Oliver Cowdery. Notable here: D&C 47:3: “And again, I say unto you that it shall be appointed unto him to keep the church record and history continually; for Oliver Cowdery I have appointed to another office.” — a handoff of the record-keeping charge, with the new office left unstated.
  • Parley P. Pratt — D&C 32:1: “as I live I will that he shall declare my gospel and learn of me, and be meek and lowly of heart” (D&C 32:1); sent at 32:2 with Oliver Cowdery and Peter Whitmer, Jun. “into the wilderness among the Lamanites” (D&C 32:2).
  • Peter Whitmer, Jun. — D&C 32:2, in the same sending.
  • Ziba Peterson — D&C 32:3: “And Ziba Peterson also shall go with them; and I myself will go with them and be in their midst; and I am their advocate with the Father, and nothing shall prevail against them.” (D&C 32:3).
  • Sidney Rigdon — named in ten verses; most often paired with Joseph Smith, Jun. in a shared commission (D&C 71:1, 73:3, 60:6, 61:23).
  • James Covel — D&C 40:1, the cluster’s one whole section devoted to a man’s failure; see Commissions Revoked and Changed.
  • Sidney Gilbert — D&C 53:1, and again at 61:7, 61:9, 61:12, sent in haste upon an errand.
  • Newel Knight — D&C 54:2: “you shall stand fast in the office whereunto I have appointed you” (D&C 54:2); at 56:6–7 a commandment concerning him is revoked and he is told to remain.
  • Joseph Coe — D&C 55:6.
  • Thomas B. Marsh — D&C 56:5, 75:31.
  • Ezra Thayre — D&C 56:5, 56:8, 75:31; see Commissions Revoked and Changed.
  • Selah J. Griffin — D&C 56:5, 56:6.
  • Edward Partridge — D&C 60:10: told to “impart of the money which I have given him, a portion unto mine elders who are commanded to return” (D&C 60:10).
  • William W. Phelps — D&C 61:7, 61:9.
  • Reynolds Cahoon and Samuel H. Smith — D&C 61:35, where the text singles the pair out: they are to “be not separated until they return to their homes, and this for a wise purpose in me” (D&C 61:35) — the purpose left unstated. Samuel H. Smith is named again at 66:8 and 75:13; Reynolds Cahoon at 75:32.
  • William E. McLellin — D&C 66:1, 75:6; see Commissions Revoked and Changed.
  • John Whitmer — D&C 69:2, 69:7: to “continue in writing and making a history of all the important things which he shall observe and know concerning my church” (D&C 69:3), and to “travel many times from place to place, and from church to church, that he may the more easily obtain knowledge” (D&C 69:7).
  • Luke Johnson — D&C 75:9. Orson Hyde — D&C 75:13, 100:14. Lyman Johnson and Orson Pratt — D&C 75:14. Asa Dodds and Calves Wilson — D&C 75:15. Major N. Ashley and Burr Riggs — D&C 75:17.
  • The seven pairs of D&C 75:30–36 — Simeon Carter and Emer Harris; Ezra Thayre and Thomas B. Marsh; Hyrum Smith and Reynolds Cahoon; Daniel Stanton and Seymour Brunson; Sylvester Smith and Gideon Carter; Ruggles Eames and Stephen Burnett; Micah B. Welton and Eden Smith.
  • Jared Carter — D&C 79:1, 79:4: sent “in the power of the ordination wherewith he has been ordained” (D&C 79:1), with the promise “I will crown him again with sheaves” (D&C 79:3).
  • Stephen Burnett and Eden Smith — D&C 80:1–2, paired a second time in a section of their own; see the note below.
  • John Murdock — D&C 99:1, sent “from house to house, from village to village, and from city to city” (D&C 99:1), but not until “your children are provided for, and sent up kindly unto the bishop of Zion” (D&C 99:6).
  • John Gould — D&C 100:14.

A pairing repeated across sections. Stephen Burnett and Eden Smith are paired at D&C 75:35–36 inside the long pairing list, and then again as the two figures of a short section of their own: D&C 80:1: “Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Stephen Burnett: Go ye, go ye into the world and preach the gospel to every creature that cometh under the sound of your voice.” — D&C 80:2: “And inasmuch as you desire a companion, I will give unto you my servant Eden Smith.” The second section grounds the pairing in a stated desire rather than an assignment. Reported as a textual fact; the wiki does not explain the repetition.

Addressed by a first name only

Oliver, Hyrum, Samuel, and Joseph (D&C 23:1–5); David, Peter, and John (D&C 30:1, 30:5, 30:9); Thomas (31:1); Ezra and Northrop (33:1); Orson (34:1); Sidney and Joseph (35:3, 35:17, and again together at 100:1 and 100:9); Edward (36:1); James (39:7); John and Joseph (47:1); William (55:1); Lyman (108:1).

One further first name is not an addressee at all but a location: D&C 30:10: “And your labor shall be at your brother Philip Burroughs’, and in that region round about, yea, wherever you can be heard, until I command you to go from hence.” The named man is where the labor happens; nothing else is said of him.

Clauses in these sections worth checking against the corpus

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The opening of the revelation to Sidney, against a clause of Alma’s: - D&C 35:1: “Listen to the voice of the Lord your God, even Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, whose course is one eternal round, the same today as yesterday, and forever.” - Alma 7:20: “…he cannot walk in crooked paths; neither doth he vary from that which he hath said; neither hath he a shadow of turning from the right to the left, or from that which is right to that which is wrong; therefore, his course is one eternal round.”

The four-word run stands at exactly five frozen verses: these two, 1 Nephi 10:19, Alma 37:12, and D&C 3:2 — the last of which is registered against both Alma verses on Joseph Smith. Divergences: Alma reaches the clause through a chain of negations about crooked paths and turning; the revelation reaches it through the Alpha-and-Omega title and closes on a different constancy formula, “the same today as yesterday, and forever” (D&C 35:1).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 35:11: “But without faith shall not anything be shown forth except desolations upon Babylon, the same which has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.” - Revelation 14:8: “And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”

The run “made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication” stands at four frozen verses: these two, D&C 88:94, and D&C 88:105; Revelation 18:3 carries a fourth build of the same figure. Divergences: the apocalypse names Babylon and pronounces her fallen; the revelation names Babylon as the object of desolations and makes the whole clause conditional on faith.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 35:13: “Wherefore, I call upon the weak things of the world, those who are unlearned and despised, to thresh the nations by the power of my Spirit;” - 1 Corinthians 1:27: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;”

The four-word run stands at exactly three frozen verses — these two and D&C 1:19. Divergences: the epistle pairs weak things with foolish things and gives the purpose as confounding; the revelation gives the purpose as threshing the nations, and adds a description of the called that the epistle does not carry, “those who are unlearned and despised” (D&C 35:13).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 35:14: “And their arm shall be my arm, and I will be their shield and their buckler; and I will gird up their loins, and they shall fight manfully for me…” - Psalms 91:4: “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.”

Divergences reported: the psalm’s shield and buckler is his truth, in the third person about God; the revelation’s is God himself, in the first person, and the pair is split by a repeated possessive (“their shield and their buckler” — D&C 35:14). The martial continuation of the revelation’s verse has no counterpart in the psalm.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 35:16: “And they shall learn the parable of the fig tree, for even now already summer is nigh.” - Matthew 24:32: “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:”

The revelation compresses: the gospel verse supplies the parable’s content (the tender branch, the leaves) and the inference drawn from it; the revelation names the parable, asserts the season, and stops. The run “parable of the fig tree” stands at four frozen verses — these two, Mark 13:28, and Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:38, which reads “Now learn a parable of the fig tree—When its branches are yet tender, and it begins to put forth leaves, you know that summer is nigh at hand” (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:38). Disclosed; the Matthew verse is the one paired, as the closer of the two on the second run.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The named parable stands at four places in the frozen corpus — Matthew 24:32, Mark 13:28, Luke 21:29, and Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:38 — and the pairing is not silently narrowed to one gospel. The Mark attestation: - D&C 35:16: “And they shall learn the parable of the fig tree, for even now already summer is nigh.” - Mark 13:28: “Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:”

Mark shares the imperative-plus-fig-tree opening and the summer clause, but reads “summer is near” (Mark 13:28) where Matthew carries the revelation’s exact “summer is nigh” (Matthew 24:32); Joseph Smith—Matthew reads “summer is nigh at hand” (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:38).

[Textual] — paraphrase / allusion. () The Luke attestation is the thinnest of the four: - D&C 35:16: “And they shall learn the parable of the fig tree” - Luke 21:29: “And he spake to them a parable; Behold the fig tree, and all the trees;”

Luke names the fig tree but adds “and all the trees” (Luke 21:29) and carries no summer clause in its own verse, so it shares less wording with the revelation than the other attestations do.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The close of section 35: - D&C 35:27: “Fear not, little flock, the kingdom is yours until I come. Behold, I come quickly. Even so. Amen.” - Luke 12:32: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The address stands at exactly three frozen verses — these two and D&C 6:34, registered on Oliver Cowdery. Divergences: the gospel’s kingdom is a future gift resting on the Father’s pleasure; the revelation’s is a present possession with a stated term, “yours until I come” (D&C 35:27).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The signs given to Orson: - D&C 34:9: “But before that great day shall come, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon be turned into blood; and the stars shall refuse their shining, and some shall fall, and great destructions await the wicked.” - Joel 2:31: “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.”

Divergences: the prophet turns the sun into darkness, the revelation darkens it; the prophet’s day is “great and the terrible” (Joel 2:31), the revelation’s is “that great day” (D&C 34:9). The run “moon be turned into blood” stands at exactly two frozen verses — this one and D&C 45:42.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The third sign in the same verse: - D&C 34:9: “…and the stars shall refuse their shining, and some shall fall, and great destructions await the wicked.” - Joel 3:15: “The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.”

One word differs inside the run: the prophet’s stars withdraw their shining, the revelation’s refuse it. The verb “refuse” in this construction stands at exactly one frozen verse, D&C 34:9; the corpus’s other renderings have the stars falling from heaven (Matthew 24:29, D&C 29:14, D&C 45:42) or withdrawing their shining (Joel 2:10, Joel 3:15). Disclosed as a textual fact; the wiki draws no conclusion from the divergence.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The prologue of section 39 carries three consecutive Johannine clauses; each is paired separately. First: - D&C 39:2: “The light and the life of the world; a light which shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not;” - John 1:5: “And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

The divergence is tense: the gospel’s “comprehended” is past, the revelation’s “comprehendeth” present (D&C 39:2). The revelation prefixes the title “The light and the life of the world” (D&C 39:2), which the gospel verse does not carry; that title stands at seven frozen verses, including 3 Nephi 9:18, 3 Nephi 11:11, and Mosiah 16:9. D&C 34:2 carries the same compound sentence with a comma where section 39 has a semicolon — disclosed, not separately paired.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () Second: - D&C 39:3: “The same which came in the meridian of time unto mine own, and mine own received me not;” - John 1:11: “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.”

The divergence is grammatical person — the revelation speaks in the first person of itself, the gospel in the third — and one addition: “in the meridian of time” (D&C 39:3) has no counterpart in the gospel verse. That phrase stands at six frozen verses, four of them in Moses. The first-person form of the clause also stands at D&C 6:21, 10:57, 11:29, and 45:8, and at 3 Nephi 9:16 — the pairing at D&C 6:21 is registered on Oliver Cowdery.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () Third: - D&C 39:4: “But to as many as received me, gave I power to become my sons; and even so will I give unto as many as will receive me, power to become my sons.” - John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:”

Two divergences carry weight. The gospel reads “the sons of God” where the revelation reads “my sons” (D&C 39:4) — the same substitution appears at D&C 42:52 — and the revelation doubles the clause, stating it once in the past and once in the future. The parallel at D&C 11:30, which keeps the gospel’s “the sons of God”, is registered on The Call to the Labor.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () - D&C 71:9: “Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you—there is no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper;” - Isaiah 54:17: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn…”

Seven words identical. Divergences: second-person plural “you” for the prophet’s singular “thee” (D&C 71:9), and an introduced “there is” that leaves the revelation’s sentence grammatically doubled. The prophet’s following clause about every tongue has no counterpart in the revelation.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () The same clause stands in the risen Lord’s citation of the prophet to the Nephites: - D&C 71:9: “Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you—there is no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper;” - 3 Nephi 22:17: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall revile against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn…”

The run stands at exactly three frozen verses — these two and Isaiah 54:17. The Nephite and prophetic copies differ from one another in the following clause (“revile” for “rise”), a divergence the revelation reproduces neither of, since it stops before that clause.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 100:15: “Therefore, let your hearts be comforted; for all things shall work together for good to them that walk uprightly, and to the sanctification of the church.” - Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Seven words identical, and the divergence falls on the very next word: the epistle’s beneficiaries love God, the revelation’s walk uprightly. The run stands at exactly these two frozen verses. The revelation adds a second beneficiary the epistle does not have — the sanctification of the church (D&C 100:15).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () The charge to a servant named in the verse: - D&C 117:10: “Let my servant William Marks be faithful over a few things, and he shall be a ruler over many.” - Matthew 25:21: “thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”

Divergences: the parable commends a completed faithfulness in the past tense; the revelation commands a future one of a man named in the verse, and “ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:21) is shortened to “a ruler over many” (D&C 117:10). The parable’s closing invitation has no counterpart.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 106:4: “the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and it overtaketh the world as a thief in the night—” - 1 Thessalonians 5:2: “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.”

Divergences: the epistle’s subject is “the day of the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 5:2), the revelation’s “the coming of the Lord” (D&C 106:4); the epistle states what its hearers already know, the revelation states the fact directly and adds “draweth nigh” (D&C 106:4); the object overtaken — “the world” — is the revelation’s own.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 106:5: “Therefore, gird up your loins, that you may be the children of light, and that day shall not overtake you as a thief.” - 1 Thessalonians 5:4: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.”

Divergences: the epistle grounds the exemption in a state its hearers are already in (“are not in darkness”, 1 Thessalonians 5:4); the revelation grounds it in an action commanded (“gird up your loins”, D&C 106:5), making conditional what the epistle states as fact. The phrase “the children of light” sits in the revelation’s own verse but in the epistle’s next — “Ye are all the children of light” (1 Thessalonians 5:5) — which is why only the overtaking clause is paired.

[Textual] — paraphrase / allusion. () - D&C 106:3: “seeking diligently the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, and all things necessary shall be added thereunto; for the laborer is worthy of his hire.” - Matthew 6:33: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”

Registered as allusion: no run of four words stands verbatim in both. “the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” becomes “the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness”, “all these things shall be added unto you” becomes “all things necessary shall be added thereunto” (Matthew 6:33, D&C 106:3), and the sermon’s “first” has no counterpart, replaced by “diligently” (D&C 106:3).

Significance

The plainest fact about this cluster is how many names it contains and how little it says about most of them. Fourteen men are named in seven pairs in seven verses at the close of D&C 75 with no task attached; several sections give a first name and a single instruction and end. Set beside that, the sections that say more — the extended charge to Sidney in D&C 35, the record-keeping assignment to John Whitmer in D&C 69, the sixteen verses to Emma Smith in D&C 25 — stand out by length alone.

The second fact is the naming pattern itself, and it is the reason this page is a roster and not a set of biographies. The text names some men fully, some by a first name, and one not at all. Filling in the gaps would mean supplying identifications from outside the source text — which is exactly what this wiki does not do. What it can do is set the bare names and the full names side by side and let the reader see which is which.

The reproofs of section 93

Most of the calls on this page send a man somewhere. The close of section 93 does something the rest of the cluster does not: it names four men and reproves each of them by name, in the same breath in which it calls two of them friends. The subject in every case is the man’s household.

  • Frederick G. Williams — “you have continued under this condemnation” (D&C 93:41); “You have not taught your children light and truth, according to the commandments; and that wicked one hath power, as yet, over you, and this is the cause of your affliction” (D&C 93:42); with the remedy stated as a commandment — “if you will be delivered you shall set in order your own house, for there are many things that are not right in your house” (D&C 93:43).
  • Sidney Rigdon — “in some things he hath not kept the commandments concerning his children; therefore, first set in order thy house” (D&C 93:44).
  • Joseph Smith, Jun. — “You have not kept the commandments, and must needs stand rebuked before the Lord” (D&C 93:47), with the reproof extended to the household: “Your family must needs repent and forsake some things, and give more earnest heed unto your sayings, or be removed out of their place” (D&C 93:48).
  • Newel K. Whitney — named with his office, “also, a bishop of my church, hath need to be chastened, and set in order his family, and see that they are more diligent and concerned at home, and pray always, or they shall be removed out of their place” (D&C 93:50).

The section then generalises its own reproof — “What I say unto one I say unto all; pray always lest that wicked one have power in you, and remove you out of your place” (D&C 93:49) — and closes by sending the same men out anyway: Sidney Rigdon on his journey with the church’s prayer of faith behind him (D&C 93:51), and Joseph Smith, Jun., and Frederick G. Williams to “make haste also” (D&C 93:52). Read as it stands, the passage reproves and commissions the same men in the same paragraph; the record supplies no comment on the sequence, and neither does this page.

Two formulas, counted rather than characterised. The nine-word run “what I say unto one I say unto all” stands at five distinct frozen verses, all in the Doctrine and Covenants — D&C 61:18, 61:36, 82:5, 92:1, and 93:49. (The 92:1 carrier was a later editorial addition — the first census of four missed it.) Near-forms substituting the addressee stand at four more: “what I say unto you I say unto all” (Mark 13:37; D&C 112:14, which reads “I say unto all the Twelve”), “what I say unto thee I say unto all” (Alma 12:5), and “what I say unto one, I say unto all men” (Joseph Smith—Matthew 1:46). Because four verses carry the exact run identically, no one of them stands nearer to 93:49 than another, and no pairing is registered — the distribution is reported instead, following the tie-break practice used elsewhere in this wiki.

The set-your-house-in-order charge is the same case. The corpus’s other carriers are D&C 90:18 (“Set in order your houses”) and the Hezekiah twins 2 Kings 20:1 and Isaiah 38:1, which give the same scene in the same words — “Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order” — so neither stands nearer than the other, and the sense there is a deathbed instruction rather than a charge about children. Disclosed; not paired.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. The revelation calls the men friends in the words of the upper-room discourse, and gives the same servant/friend contrast: - D&C 93:45: “Verily, I say unto my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., or in other words, I will call you friends, for you are my friends, and ye shall have an inheritance with me—” - John 15:15: “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”

The next verse completes the contrast on the revelation’s side: “I called you servants for the world’s sake, and ye are their servants for my sake—” (D&C 93:46). Divergences reported: the Gospel abolishes the servant-title (“I call you not servants”, John 15:15) where the revelation keeps it and assigns it a purpose; the Gospel grounds the friendship in disclosure (“all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you”, John 15:15), the revelation in inheritance. The adjacent John 15:14, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you”, carries the revelation’s “you are my friends” (D&C 93:45) more nearly still but without the called-friends clause; disclosed rather than paired. A third carrier of the same called-friends language, D&C 84:77 (“for from henceforth I shall call you friends”), is registered against the same Gospel verse at on The Charge to the Ministry.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. The commission given to Sidney Rigdon is worded in six words of Isaiah: - D&C 93:51: “…let my servant Sidney Rigdon go on his journey, and make haste, and also proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the gospel of salvation, as I shall give him utterance…” - Isaiah 61:2: “To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;”

The run “proclaim the acceptable year of the” (D&C 93:51; Isaiah 61:2) is identical; the frozen Isaiah reads “the LORD” where the revelation reads “the Lord”. The phrase stands at exactly three distinct frozen verses in the corpus — these two and Luke 4:19, “To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Isaiah is paired rather than Luke because Isaiah shares the verb: proclaim, which the revelation uses and Luke does not. Divergences reported: what follows the shared run diverges entirely — Isaiah’s day of vengeance and comfort against the revelation’s “gospel of salvation” — and the revelation attaches the charge to a man named in the verse text, which neither other carrier does. The same Isaiah chapter’s first verse is quoted under attribution at D&C 138:42, registered as on The Redemption of the Dead.

Key references

  • D&C 23:1–7 — four men addressed in a row by first name; then Joseph Knight by full name
  • D&C 24:1, 24:10 — an addressee named only as the brother of an Oliver
  • D&C 30:1–11 — three men in one section, all by first name; Philip Burroughs as a location
  • D&C 32:1–3 — four men sent together, all by full name
  • D&C 33:1 — Ezra and Northrop; the second name occurs nowhere else in the frozen corpus
  • D&C 34:1 with D&C 75:13–14 — a bare Orson; two full-named Orsons
  • D&C 55:1 with D&C 61:7 and D&C 66:1 — a bare William; two full-named Williams
  • D&C 75:30–36 — fourteen men in seven pairs, no task stated
  • D&C 80:1–2 — a pairing from section 75 repeated as a section of its own

Emma Smith · Joseph Smith · Oliver Cowdery · The Call to the Labor · The Missionary Charge · Commissions Revoked and Changed · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants sections 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 39, 40, 44, 47, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 66, 69, 71, 73, 75, 79, 80, 99, 100, 108, 111 (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Cross-references quoted from Alma 7, Revelation 14, 1 Corinthians 1, Psalms 91, Matthew 24, Luke 12, Joel 2, Joel 3, John 1, Isaiah 54, 3 Nephi 22, Romans 8, and Joseph Smith—Matthew 1; other references are cited, not quoted, inside distribution disclosures.

Every quote is verbatim from the frozen source text, cited to its exact reference and checked character-for-character; no quote crosses a verse boundary. Twenty-two connection records are registered here, all [textual]. Nineteen are asserted_by: wiki; the three pairings on D&C 35:16’s named parable of the fig tree were minted asserted_by: "source" at the 2026-08-10 editorial review, under its named-parable ruling. Name counts and phrase distributions are counts over the verse text of the sections listed in Sources and over distinct frozen verses in the corpus respectively, derived by search at the time of writing. Names are given exactly as the verse text gives them; no surname, date, place, or occasion is supplied, and no bare first name in one section is identified with a full name in another.