D&C 106: Six Verses for Warren and Two for Everyone Else

Section 106 runs eight verses and names Warren Cowdery in three of them, which are verses 1 and 6 and 7. Verses 2, 3 and 8 are about him without using the name, which leaves 4 and 5. Those two are addressed to whoever is reading, and they sit in the middle of a man's calling like a note somebody pinned there on the way past.

I'm going to take the chapter in the order it comes, because the order is most of what I have to say about it, and I'll skip some of the rest.

Who was Warren Cowdery, and what had he asked for?

He was Oliver Cowdery's older brother, born in Wells, Vermont in 1788, which makes him about forty-six when this was given. The Church's heading dates the revelation to Kirtland, Ohio, November 25, 1834. Warren was in Freedom, New York, a few hundred miles off and only baptized that year.

The way he came into the story is a little domestic. In the spring of 1834 Joseph Smith went through Freedom looking for men to go with Zion's Camp and stayed at Warren's house, and Warren fed and lodged the group. A small branch formed there over the summer. According to the historical notes at Doctrine and Covenants Central, Warren then wrote Oliver that the members needed a preacher who would stay, and in October he wrote again to say he had thought about asking Oliver to inquire of the Lord about his own part. Section 106 reads like the reply. I'd call that an inference, but it's a sturdy one. The camp itself is the subject of D&C 105, which I wrote about on Friday, and the man who put Joseph up for the night is the one who gets this chapter.

Verses 1 and 2 are about geography, and he's to be a presiding high priest "in the land of Freedom and the regions round about," and he's to warn the people "not only in his own place, but in the adjoining counties." That's a town and the counties next to it. Nobody is sending him to Missouri or to the ends of anything. The assignment is the place he already lives, plus whatever he can reach by wagon in a day, and I find that more believable than a large commission would have been.

Is verse 3 a promise of a paycheck?

And devote his whole time to this high and holy calling, which I now give unto him, 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.

D&C 106:3

It's the only verse in the chapter that touches how he's going to live, and it reads to me as a promise and not a correction. Whole time means the farm or the shop or the practice, whatever it was, doesn't get his mornings anymore. In exchange, "all things necessary."

I do payments for a living, so my first instinct with a promise like that is to ask for the spec. How much, from whom, how often. Verse 3 has no answer to any of those. "Necessary" is not a number, and nobody is named as the one who pays.

The second half of the verse is borrowed, and it's worth seeing where from. Jesus says the same words to the seventy in Luke 10:7:

And in the same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the labourer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house.

Luke 10:7

In Luke the hire is a bed and whatever is on the table, and they're told to stay put and not shop around. Nothing is said about a salary. If that's the sense that carries over to Freedom, then the hire in verse 3 is the branch feeding the preacher, which would make it a promise partly kept by Warren's neighbors. The chapter doesn't say so. I'm reading Luke into it.

What I keep turning over is in verse 6, and it's in the past tense. "There was joy in heaven when my servant Warren bowed to my scepter, and separated himself from the crafts of men." He had already done it. The promise of support in verse 3 isn't bait to get him to leave. It arrives after he's left, and I think a man in that position might very much want to be told.

The chapter doesn't say what the "crafts of men" were, and nothing I've read names his trade, so I'm not going to guess one. The word itself is ordinary KJV language for an occupation. Demetrius the silversmith in Acts 19:25 calls the shrine business "this craft," and says "by this craft we have our wealth." That's the sense I'd take here: a trade, probably the one he'd been living on. It's my reading, and the verse would work the same with a different one.

Why are verses 4 and 5 in the middle?

And again, verily I say unto you, the coming of the Lord draweth nigh, and it overtaketh the world as a thief in the night—

Therefore, gird up your loins, that you may be the children of light, and that day shall not overtake you as a thief.

D&C 106:4-5

I used these two verses last week when I was working through the thief in 1 Thessalonians 5, alongside Matthew 24:43-44, so I won't go over the thief again. What interests me here is where they were put.

Verse 4 starts "And again, verily I say unto you" and so does verse 6, which makes the two phrases brackets, and everything between them has switched audience. The "you" in verse 5 is plural. Warren gets the commission in 1 through 3, then the Lord turns to a wider room for two verses, then turns back to Warren with "Therefore, blessed is my servant Warren." Each "Therefore" ties to the verse right before it, so verse 5 follows from 4 and verse 7 follows from 6, and the two halves don't depend on each other grammatically.

As for why they were put there, a reader could say the nearness of the Lord's coming is the reason for devoting his whole time. It's a natural thing to hear, with "whole time" at the end of verse 3 and "draweth nigh" at the start of 4. But the text didn't join them. It says "and again," which is how you add a second thing. So take the urgency as sitting next to the calling and not as its stated cause.

What I'll say with more confidence is that the instruction in verse 5 isn't given only to the man who's been set apart. If the people in Freedom are to gird up their loins, tuck up the long robe so they can move, then readiness isn't something Warren does for them at the pulpit. He preaches. They're told to be ready themselves. I think a branch of new members could easily have heard it the other way, that the full-time preacher was the one watching for them, and the middle of the chapter says otherwise.

What is "the vanity of his heart" doing inside a blessing?

Therefore, blessed is my servant Warren, for I will have mercy on him; and, notwithstanding the vanity of his heart, I will lift him up inasmuch as he will humble himself before me.

D&C 106:7

The sentence goes blessed and then mercy and then "notwithstanding" opens a clause that names the flaw out loud. Most of us, writing a recommendation for somebody we like, would leave it out or tuck it somewhere later in the letter. Here it's in the middle of the sentence that blesses him, and the sentence keeps going.

"Vanity" in 1834 may have meant what we mean, or it may have been broader, and I don't know which. Either way the Lord names it, and then says he'll lift Warren up anyway, "inasmuch as he will humble himself before me." Verse 8 adds a second condition: "if he continue to be a faithful witness and a light unto the church."

Count the verbs in verses 7 and 8 and the Lord has four: have mercy, lift up, give grace and assurance, prepare a crown. Warren has two, which are humble himself and continue, and the chapter doesn't read like a deal split evenly down the middle. It reads like a man being told that most of the lifting will be done for him, and that his part is to keep from getting in the way of it. The thing already done is in verse 6, where he bowed and separated himself, and both conditions, "inasmuch as" in 7 and "if" in 8, point forward from there. Nobody in the chapter is asking him to earn the joy in heaven that has already happened.

The history is short and I'm going to keep it that way. Warren moved to Kirtland in February 1836 and edited the Messenger and Advocate. The Church's biography says that in 1838 he became disaffected from Church leadership and stayed in Kirtland after many of the Saints had left. I have seen further claims about 1835 and 1836 in secondary summaries, and I couldn't confirm them from a source I trust, so I'm leaving them out.

It's tempting to hold the chapter up against that and decide whether the conditions held. I don't think I can. I don't know what the intervening years looked like from inside his house, and the chapter itself only says what the Lord was prepared to do on the day it was given.

And I will give him grace and assurance wherewith he may stand; and if he continue to be a faithful witness and a light unto the church I have prepared a crown for him in the mansions of my Father. Even so. Amen.

D&C 106:8

The verse is in the present and the future, "I will give," "I have prepared," and nothing in it has been taken back. I'm leaving it as written.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Warren A. Cowdery?

Oliver Cowdery's older brother, born in Wells, Vermont in 1788. He was baptized in 1834 and appointed presiding elder at Freedom, New York. He moved to Kirtland in 1836. The Church's biography records that he became disaffected in 1838.

When and where was D&C 106 received?

The Church's heading gives Kirtland, Ohio, November 25, 1834. Warren lived in Freedom, New York, so the revelation was given about him and not in his presence. It followed his letters to Oliver about the branch and about his own role.

Does D&C 106 say when the Lord will come?

No, and verse 4 only says his coming "draweth nigh," a word people have been reading for nearly two centuries now. The chapter gives no year and no season, and Matthew 24:36 ("of that day and hour knoweth no man") is quite clear that nobody is going to get one by reading closely enough.

What does "separated himself from the crafts of men" mean?

The chapter never names Warren's trade, so I won't put a name on it, and the plainest reading is that he gave up his earlier work to take on this one, which verse 6 says he'd already done. If you want to argue it means something wider than a job, you'll have to bring that in from somewhere else.

What does "gird up your loins" mean?

As I understand it, it's a working picture: you tuck up a long garment so it doesn't trip you and you can move. In verse 5 it's what the Lord tells the people who want to be children of light and not be caught off guard, and it's addressed to all of them.

If you've got ten minutes, read the eight verses straight through once and notice where Warren's name falls. Then read verse 7 again slowly. That's the one I'd keep.

Waffle has started to molt, so the chicken run looks like a pillow fight happened in it, and she appears to hold me responsible.

— D.