--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1845 to 1846. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 6 number: 2 published: 1845-02-01 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“Which Is Right?,” *Times and Seasons* 6, no. 2 (February 1, 1845): 791." printed_title: WHICH IS RIGHT? source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-02-01_6_2 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v6n02.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-02-01_6_2 start_page: 791 end_page: 791 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1845 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1845-02-01_6_2 publication_year: 1845 --- # Which Is Right? We present, for the inspection of candid people, various translations of the first verse of the twenty ninth chapter of Isaiah. The Bishop's bible being the oldest printed text, we begin with that first. "Ah altar, altar of the citie that David dwelt in; adde yaere unto yaere: let them kill lambes." King James' ranks as second, and reads: "Wo to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt: add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices" The Catholic occupies the third place, and reads: "Wo to Ariel, to Ariel, the city which David took: year is added to year, the solemnities are at an end." The Polyglot, fourth, reads: "Woe to Ariel (the lion of god,) to Ariel (the lion of God) the city, (or of the city,) where David dwelt; add ye year to year: let them kill sacrifices, (or cut off the heads.") Michaelis' (Hebrew) comes in a fifth, and if we had Hebrew type would read: "Ho (O or alas) ari-ale, (altar of God,) ari-ale, altar of God, keir sit (city) khau nauh, (to bow down) Dauveid, (David) se poo (add ye) shaunauh (year) gnal (upon) shaunauh; (year) khaugeim, (festivals) yien-ko poo (let them be cut off.") Now with very little alteration for dialect, from Hebrew to English, the verse will read: Alas, altar of God, altar of God, the city bowed down to David: add ye year upon year; let the festivals be cut off. The first four translations came from the same Hebrew, but not by inspiration. If all men knew that Isaiah delivered his prophecies about the days that Israel went to a far country; or, more properly, when "The Lord was angry with him, and removed him out of his sight," they might perfectly understand the foregoing verse, and conclude that God removed the altar and festivals with Israel. That Daniel had an allusion to the same things when he said: "And from the time the daily shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, a thousand two hundred and ninety days." Israel was "removed out of sight" about seven hundred and twenty years before the birth of our Savior; and five hundred and seventy years of the Christian era, would complete the twelve hundred and ninety days which prophetically means twelve hundred and ninety years. In the next verse Daniel says: "Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." This thirteen hundred and thirty five years for the "end" of the whole captivity and gathering of Israel. Thus Mormonism is ahead of all theories and speculations, that can be started. But hark, gentle reader, it is nowhere said, that the sanctuary should not be "cleansed" before the Lord comes, nor is it contrary to the promises of the Scripture, for the Lord to come twenty years before the ten tribes come from the north countries, and meet his foes in the valley of Jehoshaphat. In fact, this view of Daniel's numbers, will exactly meet the return of the ten tribes as foretold in the Appendix to the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. One word further upon the "altar of God," or perhaps some very learned man may choose to call it "the lion of God;"-By reading the rest of the twenty ninth chapter of Isaiah it seems that the "altar" was to be brought down and speak out of the ground; and thus we are reminded that it spoke by the power of the priesthood. No wonder, then, that the prophet exclaimed:-alas for the priesthood! no man could get revelations from God without it:-and so we say; alas, for the clergy without a priesthood; they bow down to the bible, and add translation upon translation; but the spirit ceases to guide them in the old paths, and the whole world has gone a whoring after strange Gods. Alas, for the altar of God!