"D&C 111: Verse 4 Names the Gold, and Verse 10 Says There's More"

The version of D&C 111 I hear most goes like this. The brethren went to Salem, Massachusetts, chasing money. The Lord set them straight, and the real treasure turned out to be people. The money part is fair. The Church's own heading says they had heard a large amount of money might be available there and went to look into it, along with preaching. The people part I believe too. What I don't buy is the Lord setting them straight, because the chapter never does that, and the story only holds together if you leave out verse 4.

Verse 4 says that in due time the Lord will give the city into their hands and that "its wealth pertaining to gold and silver shall be yours." That is money, named as money, in a revelation we like to teach as being about something else.

What the chapter names, and in what order

The Church's heading puts the revelation at Salem on August 6, 1836. Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith and Oliver Cowdery had come from Kirtland, Ohio, and the Church was heavily in debt from building the temple there and from what it had been through in Missouri. That is the background for verse 1, a mild sentence with a splinter in it: the Lord is "not displeased with your coming this journey, notwithstanding your follies." He doesn't say what the follies were. He doesn't call the trip a mistake, either.

Verse 2 then lists what He has in the city. "Much treasure," and in the same sentence "many people in this city, whom I will gather out in due time for the benefit of Zion." The gold and silver come in at verse 4, and verse 10 closes the thought.

For there are more treasures than one for you in this city.

D&C 111:10

"More than one" only makes sense if the first one was a real kind of treasure. If everything in the chapter were people, the verse would just say there is a treasure and drop the count. What I see is a chapter that names money and people both, and says the pair is not the whole of it. Verse 10 also gives no order, so I can't tell you which one the Lord ranks higher, and I'm wary of any lesson that claims to know.

Verse 4 is future tense, too. "In due time" is the Lord's own phrase for it, and since no source I found treats the promise as finished, I won't tell you Salem's wealth was ever handed over to anybody.

The digging-for-buried-money story comes from later writers. One account was written in 1889, fifty-three years after the trip, by a man who had left the Church, and it has the brethren renting a house and finding nothing. Joseph's own letter to Emma from Salem on August 19 mentions a house he hoped to get into and hadn't been able to. I'd call the digging story a later claim and treat it that way.

Two worries, and the chapter keeps them apart

In verse 5 it says, "Concern not yourselves about your debts, for I will give you power to pay them." Verse 6, right behind it: "Concern not yourselves about Zion, for I will deal mercifully with her." The opening words match but the worries are different, and so each gets its own promise. I carry my money worries and my worries about the church in the same pocket, and it's a little humbling to see the chapter sort them into two.

What verse 5 promises is power to pay. It doesn't say the debts are paid by Friday, or that a sum turns up, or that nobody has to settle anything. I work in payments, and "you'll be able to settle this" and "this is settled" are different entries in the ledger.

D&C 104, which the Lord gave to the Kirtland order earlier, is plain about what He has in mind for debts. Verse 78 there: "behold it is my will that you shall pay all your debts." Then comes a list of things for the men to do. They are to humble themselves and pray in faith, and the Lord will "soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt" (vv79-80). Verse 81 gets practical: "write speedily to New York." Verses 83 through 85 let them pledge their properties "this once." I'm putting the two chapters side by side myself, but set that way, 111:5 reads as a promise made to men who have already been told the debts are to be paid and who have already been given work to do about it.

Hire the place, ask about the city, wait for the Spirit

Where to stay is the subject of verses 7 through 9, and the place "shall be signalized unto you by the peace and power of my Spirit," and then, in the same breath, "This place you may obtain by hire. And inquire diligently concerning the more ancient inhabitants and founders of this city." The Spirit gets to say which place. Paying rent and asking around about the city's history stay with the men, and that division of labor is the part I keep thinking about, because it is how most of my own decisions go. I get a prompting or I don't, and either way I still have to read the lease. Verse 3 is the same, telling them to "form acquaintance with men in this city, as you shall be led." Nothing in the chapter hands them a map or a name.

Reading "tarry" in verse 7 as waiting around gets it wrong, I think. It means staying where you've been told to stay, on purpose, while the renting and the asking go on around you.

Matthew 10 has a few lines that sit oddly close to this. Jesus tells the twelve to "Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses" (v9), and two verses later, "into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, inquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence" (v11). A city, an instruction to inquire, an instruction to stay. And gold and silver are off the table in one and on it in the other. I won't claim the D&C is borrowing from Matthew. I only notice that the two instructions to go into a city differ about money and agree about asking questions.

The last verse of the chapter uses Matthew too, with a change.

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

Matthew 10:16

D&C 111:11 keeps "wise as serpents" and then says "and yet without sin." Doves are harmless to everybody else. "Without sin" is a claim about the man himself.

Verse 11 puts the speed on the receiver

The chapter ends: "I will order all things for your good, as fast as ye are able to receive them." Most promises tell you when. This one tells you how fast you can take it in, which puts the speed on me, and I find that harder to hear than any delay on the other side.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where and when was D&C 111 given?

At Salem, Massachusetts, on August 6, 1836, according to the Church's heading. Joseph Smith had come with Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith and Oliver Cowdery, by way of New York City and Boston. It came about four months after the vision in the Kirtland Temple that I wrote about in D&C 110: Ten Verses Before Moses Shows Up.

Did they find the treasure?

Nothing written at the time says they found any, and Joseph's August 19 letter to Emma says they hadn't been able to get into a house they hoped to, and they were back in Kirtland in September. I wouldn't call the trip a failure of verse 4 either, since verse 4 says "in due time."

What does "more treasures than one" mean?

The text names many people in verse 2 and gold and silver in verse 4, and then says in verse 10 that there is more than one. The Church's lesson materials present the greater treasure as people who would accept the gospel, and I think that's right as far as it goes. I just don't think it makes verse 4 disappear.

Who are the "more ancient inhabitants" in verse 9?

Verse 9 doesn't say. Some commentators connect the phrase to family history, and that's their reading, not the verse's. What the verse actually gives is an instruction to go and ask questions about the place.

Does verse 5 mean the debts got paid?

It promises power to pay, with no sum and no date attached. D&C 104:78 still says the debts are to be paid.

Thursday morning I'm going to read D&C 104:78-86 and Matthew 10:9-16 one right after the other, and write down what each one asks the men to do for themselves before anything is promised. I expect that list to be longer than the list of promises.

— D.