A Mortal Davidic Servant
Some Old Testament scriptures tell about a latter-day “Davidic King,” “Davidic Servant,” or “Marred Servant.” The consensus of mainstream scholarship and teaching from leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (“Mormons”) is that this refers to Jesus Christ, when He rules the earth after His Second Coming. But some claim the “Servant” will be a mortal man who may or may not be a regularly-ordained Church leader. Because of the name “David,” some speculate Apostle David Bednar will be the Servant, and the same was said decades ago about the prophet David O. McKay.
For more on this, see Davidic Servant
It is spiritually perilous to go against the unanimous consensus of Church teaching, or to focus on a novel issue Church leaders never address. If the Lord wanted us to watch for a mortal Davidic Servant, He would direct His prophets to expound those Scriptures to us in that light. But He hasn’t, and those who obsess about the Davidic Servant anyway are opening themselves to the temptation to disdain and lose faith in God’s chosen servants. There are numerous examples of people who started out with seeming spiritual zeal, looking for “hidden” or “advanced” truths in the scriptures, who ended up leaving the Church because they concluded its leaders weren’t “spiritual” enough.
Many who are not Apostles or Church leaders have claimed to be the “Davidic Servant.” Recently it was reported a woman and her brother kidnapped her teenage son because they believed him to be the “Davidic Servant.” The belief in a “Davidic Servant” is controversial and has been associated with criminal and tragic outcomes. To an unstable individual who feels entitled to power or special spiritual gifts, the “Davidic Servant” belief can be used to justify immoral and unscriptural actions. To an ordinary member of the Church, belief in a coming “Davidic Servant” can cause frustration with actual Church leaders, a feeling of spiritual superiority to them, and an eventual loss of faith in the restored gospel altogether.
A Mortal Davidic Servant: Refuting the Arguments
Believers in a coming mortal “Davidic Servant” use several arguments to support their claim. Most are completely wrong.
(1) Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith p. 339: “Although David was a king, he never did obtain the spirit and power of Elijah and the fullness of the Priesthood; and the Priesthood that he received, and the throne and kingdom of David is to be taken from him and given to another by the name of David in the last days, raised up out of his lineage.”
This quote seems to support the conclusion that Joseph Smith was prophesying about some future mortal leader. However, thanks to the Joseph Smith Papers Project, we can now read the full statement by Joseph Smith. After saying the above, Joseph immediately continued: “Peter referred to the same subject on the day of Pentecost.”
Joseph Smith was referring to the Pentecost account in Acts chapters 2 and 3, and more specifically Acts 2:29–31, where Peter declares that David “being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne” (emphasis added). Considered in this full context, it is clear Joseph Smith was identifying Jesus Christ as the Servant, not a yet-to-be-revealed mortal figure.
This argument for a mortal “Davidic Servant” is completely wrong.
(2) Times and Seasons, 15 February 1842: “According to the prophets the name of this king shall be David; not the patriarch David who was the son of Jesse; but a literal descendant of his. … Neither will any of the patriarchs act the part of an earthly king; although they will reign with Christ. Indeed, we have no reason to believe that Christ himself will act the part of an earthly king, or priest, to any great extent. … The idea is that the earth will be under the control of Christ and the glorified saints, and Christ will virtually reign over the whole earth, and this David will be subject to him.”
Some have claimed this passage was written by Joseph Smith or approved by him as the editor, but those claims are incorrect. It was originally written by Benjamin Winchester in the Gospel Reflector, then published in the Times and Seasons by Ebenezer Robinson. The Joseph Smith Papers entry notes: “Though this issue was the beginning of Joseph Smith’s editorship of the Times and Seasons, he did not actually begin direct supervision of the newspaper until the following issue.” This February 15th issue was edited by Ebenezer Robinson, not Joseph Smith. The following issue, published on March 1, 1842, included a note to subscribers from Joseph Smith:
“This paper commences my editorial career. I alone stand responsible for it, and shall do for all papers having my signature henceforward. I am not responsible for the publication, or arrangement of the former paper; the matter did not come under my supervision.”
Not only did Joseph Smith not write, edit, or approve the February 15th passage about David and Christ; he specifically repudiated the issue in which it was printed.
This argument for a mortal “Davidic Servant” is completely wrong.
(3) Orson Hyde’s dedicatory prayer: “Thou, O Lord, did once move upon the heart of Cyrus to show favor unto Jerusalem and her children. Do Thou now also be pleased to inspire the hearts of kings and the powers of the earth to look with a friendly eye towards this place, and with a desire to see Thy righteous purposes executed in relation thereto. Let them know that it is Thy good pleasure to restore the kingdom unto Israel—raise up Jerusalem as its capital, and constitute her people a distinct nation and government, with David Thy servant, even a descendant from the loins of ancient David to be their king.”
In 1841, Apostle Orson Hyde traveled to Jerusalem and dedicated the Holy Land “for the gathering together of Judah’s scattered remnants.” There is no good reason to think Hyde’s phrase “David Thy servant, even a descendant from the loins of ancient David” is a reference to anyone other than Jesus Christ. David, the greatest king of Israel, (a) gathered Israel into one united people, (b) secured Israel’s sovereignty over the land, and (c) based his government on the worship of the true God. David’s reign was therefore a foreshadowing of Christ’s future millennial reign. Christ will (a) gather all the nations to Him, (b) rule as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and (c) the world will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. Referring to Christ as “David” was especially appropriate in Hyde’s circumstances, anticipating the return of Israel to their ancient home where Christ would come again to be their king.
This argument for a mortal “Davidic Servant” is ambiguous at best. It only supports that conclusion if you start out with that interpretive lens. It’s much more likely Hyde had in mind the several scriptures that identify Christ as the Son of David who will sit on David’s throne as the King of millennial Israel. Moreover, even if you do choose to believe Hyde was referring to a mortal Davidic Servant, the timeline is significant here. Hyde wrote in 1841. The Times and Seasons issue was published (and repudiated by Joseph Smith) in 1842. It was approximately March 1844 when Joseph Smith taught that the Servant is Jesus Christ. We don’t know if there was any sort of back-and-forth debate among early Church leaders and writers on this topic, but we can reasonably conclude the other statements were not persuasive to the prophet.
Arguments for a Mortal Servant
Other arguments for a mortal Servant, based on Old Testament prophecies, have been made for several decades by some writers. Many of the scriptures sometimes used to argue for a mortal Davidic Servant, such as Isaiah 61:1-3 and Isaiah 9:6-7, have been near-universally understood to refer to Christ–including by Christ Himself, who in Luke chapter 4 said He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 61. Another scripture commonly cited to support a mortal Servant interpretation is Ezekiel 37:24–25. But this also has an obvious interpretation as referring to Jesus Christ, and no mainstream Biblical scholarship supports the interpretation of a mortal Servant.
To argue that these passages instead refer to a mortal man, or that they refer dually to Christ and also a mortal man, is illegitimate, motivated reasoning instead of careful scholarship. In the past, some well-meaning Church members have taken the partial Joseph Smith quote from Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith as an interpretative guide, and read the Old Testament in light of it. But now that we know the entirety of Joseph’s statement, whatever persuasive power the old approach ever held is completely gone.
Teachings About a Davidic Servant are Not Church Doctrine
These and any other arguments for a mortal Servant have never been presented or portrayed as revelations for the Church and do not in any way constitute Church doctrine. No prophet or Church leader has authoritatively stated there will be a mortal Davidic Servant, and leaders who have spoken on the issue have stated the scriptures at issue refer to Jesus Christ (e.g. Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah, pg. 607. Elder McConkie’s books aren’t definitive doctrine, but are very worth keeping in mind when deciding how much weight to give to ambiguous quotes from almost two centuries ago. It’s safe to conclude Elder McConkie was aware of the erroneous TPJS quote and the Orson Hyde prayer, yet he said:
“It is in this setting—a setting of faith and conversion and gathering; a setting of unity and oneness and righteousness; a setting of worthiness and obedience—it is in this setting that the Lord says: ‘And David my servant shall be king over them.’ What David? The Eternal David, the Lord Our Righteousness, who shall dwell among his people and reign in power and glory over all the earth. ‘And they all shall have one shepherd.’ What Shepherd? The Good Shepherd, the Lord Jehovah, who led their fathers anciently and will now lead them in the same paths. ‘For there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth.’ [1 Ne. 13:41.]” )
It is spiritually perilous to go against the unanimous consensus of Church teaching, or to focus on a novel issue Church leaders never address. If the Lord wanted us to watch for a mortal Davidic Servant, He would direct His prophets to expound those Scriptures to us in that light. But He hasn’t, and those who obsess about the Davidic Servant anyway are opening themselves to the temptation to disdain and lose faith in God’s chosen servants. There are numerous examples of people who started out with seeming spiritual zeal, looking for “hidden” or “advanced” truths in the scriptures, who ended up leaving the Church because they concluded its leaders weren’t “spiritual” enough.
“One Mighty and Strong”
Similarly to those who believe in a mortal Davidic Servant, some claim Doctrine and Covenants 85:7 prophesies a mortal leader, “one mighty and strong,” will lead the Church outside the normal channels of priesthood and authority, is similarly illegitimate. First, it is illogical to think the same book of scripture that carefully set out principles determining the legitimacy of Church leadership in sections 28, 42, and 43 would also contradict them in section 85 by saying an important leader would come from outside official channels. Second, in 1905 the First Presidency (the Church’s highest governing body) specifically addressed the issue. They explained the warning in D&C 85:7 was for a specific time and situation, Missouri in 1832, and a specific person, Edward Partridge. There is no legitimate way to claim it justifies any individual claiming he’s been called of God outside of the normal Church procedure. Third, even if the prophet were to lose his position of leadership through disobedience, D&C 43:4 provides that a fallen prophet still has the authority to designate his successor (presumably in order to head off illegitimate claims of successorship from pretenders).
A House of Order
In sum, all of the arguments in favor of a mortal “Davidic Servant” are either completely illegitimate or extremely tendentious at best. Scripture, authoritative statements from Church leaders, and a recent discovery in the Joseph Smith Papers form a comprehensive case that any such claim is invalid. The Church is a “house of order,” not a test to see who happens to stumble upon an obscure scriptural interpretation that the Lord’s actual leaders do not teach.
For more on this, see A house of order, a house of God: Recycled challenges to the legitimacy of the church
