Joseph Smith Prophesies Orson Hyde Will Go to Jerusalem and Prepare the Way for the Gathering of Israel

In January 1832, the Prophet Joseph Smith gave Orson Hyde a patriarchal blessing in which he pronounced a striking and specific prophecy upon Orson's head — one that would not be fulfilled for nearly a decade:

"In due time, thou shalt go to Jerusalem, the land of thy fathers, and be a watchman unto the house of Israel; and by thy hands, shall the Most High do a good work, which shall prepare the way, and greatly facilitate the gathering together of that people."

At the time of this blessing, Jerusalem was a remote Ottoman city rarely visited by Americans, and no institutional framework existed for any such mission. Hyde was a relatively new member of the Church. Yet Joseph's words proved prophetic in exact detail: in 1841, after a three-year journey traveling without purse or scrip through England, Germany, Egypt, Lebanon, and the Holy Land, Orson Hyde climbed the Mount of Olives at dawn on October 24, 1841, and offered a dedicatory prayer over the Holy Land for the return of the Jewish people — more than a century before the establishment of the State of Israel.

The specificity of the 1832 prophecy, its fulfillment in the precise manner and place described nearly nine years later, and its long-range historical consequence for the gathering of Israel, make this one of the most remarkable foreknowledge prophecies of the Restoration era.

Source Note: Roy B. Huff cites the original blessing text, sourcing it to Orson Hyde, *Autobiography*, published in *Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star* 26 (1864): 742–44, 760–61, 774–76, 790–92.

The candidate source notes that the prophecy was recorded in the manuscript Church History, Vol. C-1, covering the period of November 1838 to July 1842. This source identifies the blessing as having occurred after Orson Hyde returned to full fellowship following his 1838 affidavit against the Church.

Fuller account of this event (in the witness’s own words):

In the month of March, 1832, I received a blessing under the hands of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, in which he said: 'In due time thou shalt go to Jerusalem, the land of thy fathers, and be a watchman unto the house of Israel; and by thy hands shall the Most High do a good work, which shall prepare the way and greatly facilitate the gathering together of that people.' This prophecy was fulfilled in the year 1841. I left Nauvoo in the spring of 1839, and traveled through the United States, England, Germany, and Egypt, and arrived at Jerusalem in the fall of 1841. On the 24th of October, 1841, I ascended the Mount of Olives, and there, in the presence of the Almighty, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I dedicated the land of Jerusalem for the gathering of the Jews, and for the building up of that city, and for the return of the house of Israel.