Delivering the sacred to the wicked

[Jonah]

Would someone clarify this section.

(12) And when thou deliveredst up that which God had given thee sight and power to translate, 
thou deliveredst up that which was sacred into the hands of a wicked man, (13) Who has set at 
naught the counsels of God, and has broken the most sacred promises which were made before 
God, and has depended upon his own judgment and boasted in his own wisdom. 

In verse 12, how was Joseph tricked or deceived into giving the sacred to the wicked? Who is 
being referred to in verse 13 as boasting in his own wisdom?

(15) For thou hast suffered the counsel of thy director to be trampled upon from the beginning.

Who or what is the director and what time frame is 'from the beginning' a reference to?

[Vort]

A cursory glance at the history of the Restored Church regarding this section would quickly answer all or most of your questions.

In short, a farmer named Martin Harris was a friend to the 23-year-old prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. (Martin eventually mortgaged part of his farm to provide Joseph with sufficient funds to publish the Book of Mormon.) He supported Joseph early in the translation process, but Martin's wife thought Joseph was a fraud and gave her husband grief for supporting him. Martin begged Joseph to allow him to show his wife the translation, insisting that if she could only see what was going on, her heart would be softened and she wouldn't be so angry and bitter all the time over his interactions with and support of the Prophet. Joseph declined this request twice, but the third time he reluctantly handed over to Martin the 116 manuscript pages that he had to that point translated from the Book of Mormon, along with serious instructions and grave promises that he (Martin) would never allow the pages out of his protection.

Days later, the Prophet Joseph was getting nervous about the pages not being returned, and finally went to Martin and demanded the pages back. Martin broke down and admitted that the pages had been stolen from him and he didn't have them any more. Joseph was frantic, believing (correctly) that he had misused the gift of God and was now under condemnation. In fact, Joseph though that he would be destroyed and damned for this foolish action. God was far more merciful than Joseph at that time realized, but Joseph did experience some prolonged torment of spirit because of what he had done, including the withdrawal of the prophetic gift of translation.

In this revelation, given months later, the Lord severely chastises Joseph for his foolishness and names Martin Harris as "a wicked man", but restores Joseph's gift of translation and instructs him not to retranslate the stolen part (which remains lost to this day), but to continue the translation from where he left off.

Edited June 6, 2020 by Vort

[JohnsonJones]

20 hours ago, Vort said:

A cursory glance at the history of the Restored Church regarding this section would quickly answer all or most of your questions.

In short, a farmer named Martin Harris was a friend to the 23-year-old prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. (Martin eventually mortgaged part of his farm to provide Joseph with sufficient funds to publish the Book of Mormon.) He supported Joseph early in the translation process, but Martin's wife thought Joseph was a fraud and gave her husband grief for supporting him. Martin begged Joseph to allow him to show his wife the translation, insisting that if she could only see what was going on, her heart would be softened and she wouldn't be so angry and bitter all the time over his interactions with and support of the Prophet. Joseph declined this request twice, but the third time he reluctantly handed over to Martin the 116 manuscript pages that he had to that point translated from the Book of Mormon, along with serious instructions and grave promises that he (Martin) would never allow the pages out of his protection.

Days later, the Prophet Joseph was getting nervous about the pages not being returned, and finally went to Martin and demanded the pages back. Martin broke down and admitted that the pages had been stolen from him and he didn't have them any more. Joseph was frantic, believing (correctly) that he had misused the gift of God and was now under condemnation. In fact, Joseph though that he would be destroyed and damned for this foolish action. God was far more merciful than Joseph at that time realized, but Joseph did experience some prolonged torment of spirit because of what he had done, including the withdrawal of the prophetic gift of translation.

In this revelation, given months later, the Lord severely chastises Joseph for his foolishness and names Martin Harris as "a wicked man", but restores Joseph's gift of translation and instructs him not to retranslate the stolen part (which remains lost to this day), but to continue the translation from where he left off.

In addition, one of the reasons Joseph declined the request was that the Lord told him not to do so when Joseph asked the Lord.  Joseph repeatedly asked the Lord to do so despite the Lord telling him no.

Eventually, though we are not certain what exactly the Lord may have said, he did not flat out say no, which indicates that in our own lives we can have similar things happen.  When the Lord tells us no repeatedly and we keep on insisting on asking, eventually we may hear the answer WE want to hear instead of the answer the Lord has already given us.  This is not the Lord's fault, but our's for ignoring what he already told us his will or thoughts were on the matter.

The results of ignoring the Lord's answer and begging for him to change his mind, or to have a different answer and eventually getting to what WE want instead of what he has already given can lead to things we do not wish or want to happen occurring to us.  Joseph got an answer from the Lord and it was not what Martin Harris wanted to hear.  Joseph also wanted to appease Martin Harris and so he asked repeatedly.  Eventually the Lord let Joseph do what he wanted to do, as Joseph obviously was not listening to what the Lord was telling him was the correct course of action.  We see the results of this.

If Joseph, who was mighty in the Lord and had a powerful testimony and knowledge had this difficulty, it is undoubtedly one that each of us may also fall into very easily today.  There are times when we ignore the whisperings of the spirit or when we want ignore the counsel of the Lord because we have our mind set to do otherwise.  Likewise, in many instances where we do this, tragedy or at least less desirable outcomes normally arise, even if we do not see what they are at first.