The Word of Wisdom

A revelation that opens by disclaiming the force of a commandment, spends its middle on food and drink, and closes on a promise borrowed from the night of the Passover.

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it. Dates, places, and occasions are not in this wiki’s source text and are not stated. Whether any of this was ever practised, and what medical or dietary claims might be made about it, is external, real-world material outside this wiki’s scope.

Account

The text withholds its own force

The first thing the section does is name what it is not. It is addressed “for the benefit of the council of high priests, assembled in Kirtland, and the church, and also the saints in Zion” (D&C 89:1), and then sent “not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom” (D&C 89:2). A third verse narrows the audience further, downward rather than upward: it is “adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints” (D&C 89:3).

Only at verse 4 does the first-person divine voice enter — “Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you” (D&C 89:4) — and it enters giving a reason: “In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you” (D&C 89:4). The phrase “conspiring men” stands at exactly one distinct frozen verse in the corpus — this one. Whom it names is not stated by the text, and the wiki does not supply a referent.

What is restricted, and how each restriction is worded

The restrictions are not uniform in kind, and the text’s own wording marks the differences:

Wine and strong drink are excluded from ordinary use but retained for one purpose: they are “not good, neither meet in the sight of your Father, only in assembling yourselves together to offer up your sacraments before him” (D&C 89:5) — and the sacramental wine is then specified: “this should be wine, yea, pure wine of the grape of the vine, of your own make” (D&C 89:6).
Strong drinks get a second, different treatment two verses later — “strong drinks are not for the belly, but for the washing of your bodies” (D&C 89:7) — a use, not a prohibition.
Tobacco is excluded from human use and assigned another: it “is not for the body, neither for the belly, and is not good for man, but is an herb for bruises and all sick cattle, to be used with judgment and skill” (D&C 89:8).
Hot drinks are given the shortest verse in the section and no gloss at all: “And again, hot drinks are not for the body or belly.” (D&C 89:9). The phrase “hot drinks” stands at exactly one distinct frozen verse in the corpus — this one. The text nowhere says what a hot drink is, and this page does not say either.

What is granted, with its conditions attached

The larger part of the section is permissive, and nearly every grant carries a qualifier. Herbs are given “for the constitution, nature, and use of man” (D&C 89:10), each “in the season thereof” and “to be used with prudence and thanksgiving” (D&C 89:11). Flesh is ordained “for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly” (D&C 89:12), with a stated preference: “it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine” (D&C 89:13).

Grain is treated twice. First as universal provision — “All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life” (D&C 89:14); the phrase “staff of life” stands at exactly one distinct frozen verse in the corpus, this one. Then it is sorted by animal in a single verse that reads like an inventory: “wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine, and for all beasts of the field, and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks, as also other grain” (D&C 89:17).

One verse in this run is worth reading slowly, because its antecedent is not obvious in the text as frozen: “And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger” (D&C 89:15). Which “these” is meant — the beasts and fowls of verse 12, or something in verse 14 — is not stated in the verse itself, and the wiki does not resolve it. It is listed under Open uncertainties rather than smoothed over here.

The promises, and the one that is borrowed

The section closes on four promises to “all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments” (D&C 89:18): “health in their navel and marrow to their bones” (D&C 89:18); “wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures” (D&C 89:19); a third stated in words that stand in an older prophecy; and a fourth stated as a comparison to an event in the Exodus narrative.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 89:20: “And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.” - Isaiah 40:31: “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Divergences reported: the prophecy attaches the promise to a condition stated in its own verse — “they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength” (Isaiah 40:31) — where the revelation attaches it to the condition stated three verses earlier, keeping and doing “these sayings” (D&C 89:18); and the prophecy’s eagles’ wings have no counterpart in the revelation. The run “run and not be weary” stands at exactly two distinct frozen verses in the corpus, and “shall walk and not faint” at exactly two — the same two verses in each case.

The last promise is a comparison rather than a quotation: “the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them” (D&C 89:21). The term “destroying angel” stands at exactly one distinct frozen verse in the corpus — this one; the Exodus verse the comparison points toward speaks instead of a destroyer: “the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you” (Exodus 12:23). Because the shared material is the situation and not the wording, this is disclosed here rather than registered as a connection.

Significance

The section’s most reportable feature is the distance between its stated force and its content. It disclaims commandment in verse 2, and by verse 18 it is promising specific blessings to those who “remember to keep and do these sayings” (D&C 89:2, 89:18) — a promise-structure the text elsewhere reserves for law. The revelation itself supplies the bridge: it is “Given for a principle with promise” (D&C 89:3), which is neither a commandment nor mere advice, and the text does not define the category further.

The second reportable feature is how much of the section grants rather than forbids. Four verses restrict; eight distribute. What that balance implies about the section’s purpose is an interpretive question the wiki leaves with the reader.

Key references

D&C 89:1–3 — the address, and the disclaimer of commandment
D&C 89:4 — the stated reason: conspiring men in the last days
D&C 89:5–9 — wine, strong drinks, tobacco, hot drinks
D&C 89:10–17 — herbs, fruit, flesh, grain, and the sorting by animal
D&C 89:18–21 — the four promises

The Law of the Church · The Sabbath and the Fulness of the Earth · The Order of the Church · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants section 89 throughout (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Isaiah 40 quoted alongside it; Exodus 12 quoted inside a disclosure.

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. One connection record is registered on this page, [textual] and submitted asserted_by: wiki. Phrase distributions are counts of distinct frozen verses in the corpus, derived by script at the time of writing on the stated basis.