Title: The Dedicatory Prayer Tagline: A section that is not addressed to a people but to God. It asks for a house to be accepted, and in asking, quotes back the commandment that ordered the house built.

Breadcrumbs / Related: Temple in the Record, The Committing of Keys, The Redemption of Zion, Zion, The Gathering to Zion

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it. D&C 109 is not a first-person divine address — it is a prayer spoken to God, and this page attributes it that way throughout: the speakers are a plural “we” who call themselves “thy servants” (D&C 109:3) and address “O Lord God of Israel” (D&C 109:1) and “O Jehovah” (D&C 109:34). Where the section states a fact, the fact is what the petitioners assert in prayer, not what a divine voice declares; the page says so at each point. One place name stands inside the verse text in square brackets — “in this place [Kirtland]” (D&C 109:2) — and is quoted as it stands in the frozen text; no further setting, date, or occasion is available, since section headnotes are outside this wiki’s source text.

Standing disclosure — KJV-overlap material. This page reports verbal correspondence with the King James text as textual fact, including where the correspondence follows the KJV’s English translation. What that correspondence implies about the origin of the Doctrine and Covenants text — in any direction — is an external question outside this wiki’s scope.

Account

§ The prayer quotes the commandment it is answering

The prayer’s fourth petition does something the rest of the section does not: it stops petitioning and starts quoting. “And as thou hast said in a revelation, given to us, calling us thy friends, saying—” (D&C 109:6), and then four verses reproduce, almost without change, four verses standing earlier in the same book. The prayer identifies its source as a revelation given to the petitioners and as one that called them friends; it does not give a reference, and the wiki supplies the reference by search, not by the text’s own citation.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:6: “And as thou hast said in a revelation, given to us, calling us thy friends, saying—Call your solemn assembly, as I have commanded you” — D&C 88:117: “Therefore, verily I say unto you, my friends, call your solemn assembly, as I have commanded you.”

Intra-D&C pairing; the register lists the lower-numbered section as its second reference. Eight words run identical — “your solemn assembly, as I have commanded you” — and the prayer’s framing clause supplies, in its own words, the two features that identify the earlier verse: a revelation given to the petitioners, and one calling them friends. “solemn assembly” stands at fifteen distinct frozen verses in the corpus; the pair here is the only pair in which one verse announces itself as quoting the other.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () — D&C 109:7: “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom” — D&C 88:118: “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom”

Intra-D&C pairing; the register lists the lower-numbered section as its second reference. Twenty-eight words identical. The two verses then diverge only in pointing: the earlier reads “seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” (D&C 88:118), the prayer “seek learning even by study and also by faith” (D&C 109:7). “out of the best books” stands at exactly three distinct frozen verses in the corpus — these two and D&C 109:14, where the prayer petitions the same words back as a request for whoever will worship in the house.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () — D&C 109:8: “even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God” — D&C 88:119: “even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God”

Intra-D&C pairing; the register lists the lower-numbered section as its second reference. Identical across the whole seven-term list. The opening clause differs by one mark: “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing, and establish a house” (D&C 109:8) against “Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house” (D&C 88:119). “house of prayer, a house of fasting” stands at exactly three distinct frozen verses in the corpus — these two and D&C 109:16, the prayer’s shortened restatement, which drops “a house of learning” and “a house of order” and adds “even thy house”.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () — D&C 109:9: “That your incomings may be in the name of the Lord” — D&C 88:120: “That your incomings may be in the name of the Lord”

Intra-D&C pairing; the register lists the lower-numbered section as its second reference. The two verses run together for their whole length, separated only by pointing — the earlier uses semicolons between the three clauses, the prayer commas — and by their closing: “with uplifted hands unto the Most High.” (D&C 88:120) against “with uplifted hands unto the Most High—” (D&C 109:9). The prayer splits the same three clauses across three separate verses ten verses later (D&C 109:17–19), where “uplifted” becomes “holy hands, uplifted to the Most High” (D&C 109:19).

§ What the prayer asks for the people who go out from the house

The petitions from D&C 109:22 onward ask for protection, and they ask for it in the words of older prophecy.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:25: “That no weapon formed against them shall prosper” — Isaiah 54:17: “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper”

The prophecy’s relative clause is compressed — “no weapon that is formed” reads “no weapon formed” — and the addressee shifts from the prophecy’s singular “thee” to the prayer’s plural “them”. “no weapon” stands at exactly four distinct frozen verses in the corpus, counted case-insensitively: Isaiah 54:17, 3 Nephi 22:17, D&C 71:9, and this verse. The case-insensitive count is the material one: this verse prints “no weapon” mid-sentence in lower case, the two prophecy carriers “No weapon” at the head of theirs.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:25: “that he who diggeth a pit for them shall fall into the same himself” — Proverbs 26:27: “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein”

“diggeth a pit” stands at exactly three distinct frozen verses in the corpus: this verse, Proverbs 26:27, and Ecclesiastes 10:8 — “He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it” — which is the same proverb in a second wording. The prayer adds what neither proverb has: the pit is dug “for them”, a specific people, and the digger falls in “himself”. A third statement of the figure, without the digging verb, stands at Psalms 7:15: “He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.”

§ The prayer asks for Pentecost by name

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:36: “Let it be fulfilled upon them, as upon those on the day of Pentecost; let the gift of tongues be poured out upon thy people, even cloven tongues as of fire, and the interpretation thereof.” — Acts 2:3: “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.”

“cloven tongues” stands at exactly two distinct frozen verses in the corpus: these. The one divergence in the shared phrase is the dropped comparative — “cloven tongues like as of fire” (Acts 2:3) reads “cloven tongues as of fire” (D&C 109:36). The prayer names the occasion it is asking to have repeated (“the day of Pentecost”), and adds a request the narrative has no counterpart for at this point: “and the interpretation thereof” (D&C 109:36).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:37: “And let thy house be filled, as with a rushing mighty wind, with thy glory.” — Acts 2:2: “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.”

“rushing mighty wind” stands at exactly two distinct frozen verses in the corpus: these. The narrative’s wind is a sound that fills a house; the prayer asks that a house be filled as with that wind — and with a different substance, “thy glory”.

§ The closing petitions, and the prophecies they are worded from

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:72: “that the kingdom, which thou hast set up without hands, may become a great mountain and fill the whole earth” — Daniel 2:35: “and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth”

The prophecy’s subject is a stone; the prayer’s is a kingdom. “fill the whole earth” stands at exactly one distinct frozen verse in the corpus — this verse, D&C 109:72 — while the prophecy’s past-tense “filled the whole earth” stands at Daniel 2:35. The prayer’s other borrowing from the same prophecy is the stone’s manner of origin: “cut out without hands” (Daniel 2:34), which the prayer attaches to the kingdom instead. “without hands” stands at six distinct frozen verses in the corpus, including D&C 65:2, where the stone figure is applied without the mountain.

[Textual] — near-verbatim quotation. () — D&C 109:73: “and shine forth fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” — Song of Solomon 6:10: “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?”

Fourteen consecutive words are identical as printed; counted with the two verses’ divergent trailing marks set aside — the prayer closes the clause with a semicolon, the older passage with a question mark — the shared run is fifteen words, “fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” (D&C 109:73, Song of Solomon 6:10). What differs is the grammatical frame: the older passage asks a question about a woman, the prayer makes a petition about a church. “terrible as an army with banners” stands at exactly four distinct frozen verses in the corpus: Song of Solomon 6:4, Song of Solomon 6:10, D&C 5:14, and this verse — and both Doctrine and Covenants carriers attach the figure to a church.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:74: “when thou shalt unveil the heavens, and cause the mountains to flow down at thy presence” — Isaiah 64:1: “Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence”

“flow down at thy presence” stands at exactly four distinct frozen verses in the corpus: Isaiah 64:1, D&C 133:40, D&C 133:44, and this verse. The prophecy’s verb for the heavens is “rend”; the prayer’s is “unveil”. The prophecy also states the same event as already past — “thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence” (Isaiah 64:3).

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:74: “and the valleys to be exalted, the rough places made smooth” — Isaiah 40:4: “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain”

Two of the prophecy’s four clauses recur, compressed: “Every valley shall be exalted” becomes plural and infinitive, and “the rough places plain” becomes “the rough places made smooth” — a different adjective for the same clause. The prophecy’s two middle clauses have no counterpart in the prayer.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () — D&C 109:75: “That when the trump shall sound for the dead, we shall be caught up in the cloud to meet thee, that we may ever be with the Lord” — 1 Thessalonians 4:17: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

The two share a five-word run — “ever be with the Lord” — and the whole shape of the sentence. Divergences: the letter’s plural “clouds” is singular in the prayer; the letter’s “to meet the Lord in the air” is “to meet thee” in the prayer, which is addressing that same Lord directly and so uses the second person; and the letter’s “caught up together with them” drops the companions.

Significance

The prayer is unusual in the book for the direction it faces. Every other kind of section in this cluster speaks outward — a voice to a people, a letter to a church, a report to readers. This one speaks upward, and the consequence for a reader is precise: nothing in D&C 109 is a divine declaration, and this page has not treated any of it as one. What the section does declare, on its own authority as a petition, is the grounds of the request: a house was commanded (D&C 109:2), the commandment was obeyed (D&C 109:3), the obedience cost something (“out of our poverty we have given of our substance” — D&C 109:5), and therefore acceptance is asked. The quotation block at D&C 109:6–9 is the mechanism by which the prayer proves the first of those grounds: rather than asserting that a house was commanded, it recites the commandment. Whether the petitions were answered is not a question the section addresses, and this page does not raise it.

Key references

• D&C 109:1–5 — the address; the grounds of the request
• D&C 109:6–9 — the earlier revelation quoted back
• D&C 109:22–33 — protection asked for those sent out
• D&C 109:34–46 — Pentecost asked for by name; the sealing of the law
• D&C 109:47–59 — those driven from Jackson county; the mob; the Constitution
• D&C 109:60–76 — Judah, Israel, the church, and the last petitions
• D&C 88:117–120 — the commandment the prayer quotes

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants sections 109 and 88 (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Cross-references quoted from Isaiah 40, Isaiah 54, Isaiah 64, Daniel 2, Song of Solomon 6, Proverbs 26, Acts 2, and 1 Thessalonians 4.

Thirteen connection records are registered here, all [textual]; four of the thirteen are intra-Doctrine-and-Covenants. None is submitted as an asserted_by: "source" candidate: the section identifies the source of its long quotation only as “a revelation, given to us” (D&C 109:6), which is not a named source. Distribution figures are counts of distinct frozen verses in the corpus, derived by search at the time of writing.