In an interesting essay discussing Joseph Smith’s prophecies of his then-future martyrdom, Richard Lloyd Anderson responds thusly to an argument that Joseph Smith prophesied (falsely) the opposite from various letters from Sarah Scott:
[These] letters reflect a deep family tragedy, one which dramatists could take out of the letters to make a Mormon play of considerable stature. Two married sisters were converted in New England and came to Nauvoo. Martha was Israel Barlow’s wife, and the younger sister Sarah married Isaac Scott. Sarah first writes of their primitive conditions, but she is positive about loving to hear Joseph Smith preach. Then her letters become bitter as she believers the dissenters, so she is highly sceptical of the Prophet by the time of his murder. She accuses Joseph of being a false prophet and about the martyrdom in these words:
The Church believed that he would be acquitted as he had been on former occasions, and Joseph prophesied in the last Neighbor that was published before his death that they would come off victorious over them all, as sure as there was a God in Israel. Joseph also prophesied on the stand a year ago last conference that he could not be killed within five years from that time—that they could not kill him till the Temple would be completed, for that he had received an unconditional promise from the Almighty concerning his days, and he set earth and hell at defiance. And then said, putting his hand on his head, they never could kill this child. But now that he is killed some of the Church say that he said: unless he gave himself up. My husband was there at the time and says there was no conditions whatever, and many others testify to the same thing. (Sarah Scott to Abigail and Calvin Hall, July 22, 1844, Nauvoo, Ill., cit. George F. Partridge, The Death of a Mormon Dictator, New England Quarterly 9:597 [1936])
Fortunately, we can go behind this opinion and check the accuracy of Sarah’s sources of information. The first thing to find is the issue of the Nauvoo Neighbor referred to. Joseph is defiant because he is actually warning the non-Mormon marauders not to re-enact a repetition of the Far West siege, circling and isolating the city. The Expositor had been destroyed, and the Prophet is saying that if people will stay away, the courts can settle the conflict. Then as the mayor of the city, responsible for public order and safety, he issues a solemn warning:
I, therefore, in behalf of the Municipal Court of Nauvoo, warn the lawless not to precipitate in any interference in our affairs. For as sure as there is a God in Israel, we will ride triumphant over all oppression. (Joseph Smith, Mayor, “Proclamation,” June 16, 1844, Nauvoo Neighbor, June 19, 1844)
This quotation is clearly that mentioned by Sarah Scott: the prophecy of victory “as sure as there was a God in Israel.” But what direct bearing does it have on Joseph’s expectation of living or dying? He simply promises that God will not allow Nauvoo to be victimized by “oppression,” and his personal initiative to go to Carthage was designed to further such a result. His personal fate is not at issue in this warning. The people to triumph over oppression are not Joseph and Hyrum in this printed statement, but the people of Nauvoo.
Sarah Scott next alleges that Joseph preached “a year ago last conference that he could not be killed within five years from that time—that they could not kill him till the temple would be completed.” Her time of “five years” and the promise to live to achieve the temple program are found in other remarks of the Prophet, but her claim that Joseph spoke of five years from 1843 is not supported in the sources. We have three key Nauvoo journals close to the Prophet, easy to remember because the first names all begin with “W”: Willard Richards, William Clayton, and Wilford Woodruff. The five-year statement is not found in any of these. The closest thing to it comes later than Sarah claimed, a February, 1844 private prophecy of Joseph Smith that perhaps filtered to Sarah Scott by hearsay. Wilford Woodruff records being with the Prophet on a Sunday evening and reports:
President Joseph Smith prophesied that within five years we should be rid of our old enemies, whether they were apostates or of the world, and wished us to record it that when it comes to pass we need not say we had forgotten the saying. (Wilford Woodruff, Journal, Feb. 25, 1844)
Five years from 1844 means that the Saints were safely in Salt Lake Valley, which not only fulfilled the prophecy but no doubt is what the Prophet had in mind, since the western exodus was in the intensive planning stage then, according to these Nauvoo journals. However, the prophecy very significantly does not include the Prophet personally as alive and rid of his enemies. Sarah Scott was steeped in the false accusations of the William Law faction, which could have taken the above statement and twisted it for their purposes in discrediting the Prophet. A more remote possibility is the recollection of Lucy Smith that Joseph said in Kirtland that he had a promise of life for five years, but we are concentrating on things written down at the time. (Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Prophecies of Martyrdom” in Sidney B. Sperry Symposium: A Sesquicentennial Look at Church History [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1980], 1-14, here, pp. 2-4)
For more on Joseph Smith's prophecies, see:
