Mormonism Explained
Doctrine and Covenants 132, Explained
The revelation critics call the smoking gun and members often read nervously: the text that ties eternal marriage to exaltation, records the plural-marriage commandment, and speaks hard words to Emma by name. What it actually teaches, what it authorized versus what it eternally establishes, why a section still in the canon governs a practice the Church ended in 1890, and how to read its hardest verses without either flinching or pretending.
The Short Answer
What does Doctrine and Covenants 132 actually teach — and why is it still in the canon?
Section 132 is a revelation recorded on July 12, 1843, whose enduring doctrine is the new and everlasting covenant of eternal marriage — that the marriage sealing performed by proper priesthood authority can bind a husband and wife beyond death — and whose historical occasion was the commandment authorizing plural marriage in that era. The distinction is the whole key: what the section establishes as eternal is celestial marriage and the sealing power; plural marriage was a commanded application of the sealing principle for a specific time, and it was ended by revelation in 1890 (Official Declaration 1) without touching the eternal-marriage doctrine that remains the section’s living core. That is why D&C 132 stays in the canon while polygamy does not: the Church reads the practice as suspended and the principle of eternal sealing as permanent — the same way the higher law can be withdrawn without repealing the God who gave it. The section also contains genuinely hard material this page will not route around: verses recording the plural-marriage commandment, the “law of Sarah,” and pointed language addressed to Emma Smith at a moment of acute marital crisis. Read as a period document dictated into a specific storm — Hyrum hoping to persuade Emma, Joseph recording a principle he had resisted for years — those verses are difficult but intelligible; read as a timeless memo, they mislead. This page reads the text as what it is: a revelation with a permanent doctrine at its center and a hard history around its edges.
Key Takeaways
- The living doctrine is eternal marriage. The section’s permanent teaching is the new and everlasting covenant — that a marriage sealed by priesthood authority endures beyond death. This is current, central Latter-day Saint doctrine, taught in every temple sealing today.
- Plural marriage was the historical occasion, not the eternal point. The section records the commandment authorizing plural marriage in that era; the Church ended the practice by revelation in 1890 (OD-1). The practice was suspended; the sealing principle was not.
- That is why it stays in the canon. Removing the section would mean removing the eternal-marriage doctrine at its heart. The Church distinguishes the permanent principle from its temporary commanded application — the Doctrine Test in a single section.
- It was recorded on July 12, 1843, dictated to William Clayton at Hyrum’s urging, in part to persuade Emma. Much of the doctrine, however, dates to the early 1830s — Joseph had taught eternal marriage and known the plural-marriage commandment years before it was written down.
- The hard verses are real. The “law of Sarah,” the language to Emma, the commandment’s warning clauses — this page reads them in context rather than around them, and routes Emma’s side of the story to her own study.
- “New and everlasting covenant” ≠ “polygamy.” The phrase names the whole covenant of eternal marriage; plural marriage was one commanded form of it, not its definition — a distinction the meme reading collapses.
The Critics’ Reading vs. the Text
The Critics’ Reading
“132 is the smoking gun — polygamy commanded by God, still in the scriptures.” The claim: the section proves polygamy was doctrine, not deviation; keeping it in the canon proves the Church can’t disown what it pretends to have left behind.
The Text
“A permanent doctrine of eternal marriage, with a commanded historical application.” The section as written: eternal sealing at its core — living doctrine — and plural marriage as a time-specific commandment, ended in 1890 without disturbing the covenant it was drawn from.
The section teaches one eternal thing and records one historical command. Reading them as the same thing is the error both camps make.
The Document Itself
What the Section Is — and When It Was Recorded
Doctrine and Covenants 132 is a revelation dictated by Joseph Smith to his scribe William Clayton on July 12, 1843, in Nauvoo, Illinois. A crucial distinction governs everything that follows: the date it was recorded is not the date its doctrine was received. Clayton’s own account and the Joseph Smith Papers establish that Joseph dictated the text in a single sitting, at the urging of his brother Hyrum, who believed a written revelation might persuade Emma to accept the principle Joseph had already been teaching and practicing. But the doctrine itself was old: Joseph had taught the eternal-marriage sealing to close associates as early as the 1830s, and the plural-marriage commandment traces, by multiple early accounts, to the same period — one strand of the reminiscent record placing Joseph’s first awareness of it to his study of the Old Testament patriarchs around 1831. So the section is best understood as the written crystallization of more than a decade of received doctrine, dictated into a specific 1843 crisis — which is why it braids two things a careful reader must separate: a timeless principle taught for years, and a time-bound commandment recorded at a moment of maximum family strain. Reading it as if the whole section sprang into being on one afternoon, for one argument, is the first mistake; so is reading its period-specific commandment as though it were the eternal principle.
The Living Core
The Enduring Doctrine: Eternal Marriage
Strip away the historical occasion and the permanent teaching of Section 132 is this: marriage, when performed by the proper priesthood authority in the new and everlasting covenant, can endure beyond death — a “continuation of the seed forever and ever,” a relationship not dissolved by mortality but extended into eternity. This is the doctrine of celestial or eternal marriage, and it is not a historical curiosity: it is taught in every temple sealing performed today, it is the reason Latter-day Saints marry in temples rather than only in chapels, and it is among the most distinctive and cherished doctrines the Restoration offers — the promise that family bonds are not severed at the grave. The section frames this covenant as the crown of the priesthood’s sealing power, the same power to “bind on earth” and have it “bound in heaven” that runs from Peter’s keys through Malachi’s promise of hearts turned between fathers and children. When a modern Latter-day Saint reads D&C 132, this is the doctrine they are reading for and living by — and it is entirely intact, uncontested by the 1890 end of plural marriage, and central to the faith. Any account of the section that treats it as merely “the polygamy revelation” has missed what the section is actually for, and what it still does every day in the temples.
The Historical Commandment
The Historical Commandment: Plural Marriage in Its Verses
The section does not only teach eternal marriage; it also records the commandment that authorized plural marriage in that era, and an honest reading states this plainly. The text invokes the Old Testament patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and Solomon — who “received” wives and concubines, and frames Joseph’s own commandment as a restoration of that patriarchal order under proper authority, “the keys of this power.” It presents plural marriage not as license but as a commanded and regulated principle: entered only by revelation and priesthood sanction, governed by the covenant, and — critically — as an application of the sealing power rather than a separate doctrine of its own. This is the interpretive hinge the whole subject turns on. Plural marriage in Section 132 is a commanded instance of the eternal-marriage sealing, given for a specific time and purpose; it is not what the “new and everlasting covenant” fundamentally is. The covenant is eternal marriage; plural marriage was one historically commanded form of entering it. That is precisely why the practice could be ended in 1890 without repealing the section: you can withdraw a commanded application of a principle without repealing the principle — the way the law of animal sacrifice ended without repealing the Atonement it pointed to, or the way a manna-in-the-wilderness command ended without repealing God’s care for Israel. The verses that authorized the practice remain in the text as the historical record of a real commandment; the doctrine those verses drew upon remains in force. Reading the commandment as the eternal point — as both the polemicist and the anxious member sometimes do — is the category error the next two sections exist to correct.
Not Routing Around Them
The Hard Verses — Read in Context
Three parts of the section are genuinely difficult, and a study that skipped them would forfeit the reader’s trust. The “law of Sarah.” The text invokes Sarah, who gave Hagar to Abraham, as a pattern for a first wife’s consent to plural marriage, and frames the principle that a wife who “receive not this law” stands in a certain jeopardy while a husband proceeding by authority does not transgress. Read as timeless family law this is alarming; read as what it is — the scriptural framing of a specific, now-ended commandment, drawn from the same Abrahamic narrative the section is consciously restoring — it is a period principle governing a period practice, and it ended when the practice did. The language to Emma. Several verses address Emma Smith directly and pointedly, commanding her to “receive all those” given to Joseph and warning of consequence if she will not, alongside a rebuke and a call to forgiveness. These are the hardest verses in the section, and we do not soften them here — but we do locate them: they were dictated at Hyrum’s urging into the acute crisis of July 1843, aimed at persuading a specific grieving woman, and our study of Emma herself takes her side of this at full length rather than as a doctrinal abstraction. The warning clauses. The section speaks of destruction for those who reject the covenant — language that reads as threat to modern ears but functions, in the revelation’s own frame, as the standard scriptural stakes attached to covenants generally, from Sinai forward. None of this is comfortable. But the discomfort is the discomfort of a real revelation dictated into a real and painful history — not the discomfort of a doctrine the Church is hiding, since the section is openly canonized, publicly printed, and studied by millions. The honest move is to read the hard verses as period-specific applications inside a section whose eternal doctrine stands apart from them — which is exactly how the Church itself reads them, and exactly what the 1890 Manifesto later formalized.
The Question Everyone Asks
Why a Canon Section Governs an Ended Practice
If the Church ended polygamy, why is the revelation that commanded it still in the Doctrine and Covenants? The question feels like a gotcha and has a clean answer: because the section’s doctrine was never what ended. What ended in 1890, by the revelation now published as Official Declaration 1, was the practice of plural marriage — the commanded application. What remains in Section 132, undisturbed, is the doctrine of eternal marriage and the sealing power — the covenant itself. To remove the section would be to remove the scriptural foundation of temple sealing, which the Church teaches every day; to keep it is to keep that foundation, with the historical record of the plural-marriage commandment preserved inside it as history rather than as current instruction. This is the Doctrine Test operating in miniature within a single section: a permanent principle (eternal marriage — doctrine) and a temporary commanded application (plural marriage — a practice given and withdrawn by revelation) sitting in the same text, distinguished by how the Church treats them. Official Declaration 1 is printed in the same volume precisely to mark the distinction: the 1843 commandment authorized the practice; the 1890 revelation ended it; both are canon because both are the authentic record of how God directed the Church through a specific era. Other faiths carry analogous structures — the Mosaic law preserved in scripture that Christians read as fulfilled and superseded rather than deleted; the ceremonial commands of Leviticus retained as revelation while no longer practiced. A canon is a record of how God has dealt with His people, not a list of only currently-binding instructions. Section 132 records a real commandment, teaches a permanent doctrine, and stands in the canon as both — which is not a contradiction the Church has failed to notice, but a distinction it has drawn deliberately and stated openly.
Steelmanning the Critics
The Strongest Objection
The serious objection is not that the section is embarrassing but that the principle-versus-application distinction is a modern convenience. On this reading, Section 132 does not present plural marriage as a temporary application of eternal marriage; it presents it as the very substance of the new and everlasting covenant, commanded on pain of destruction, framed as the eternal pattern of the patriarchs — and only after federal pressure and the threat to Utah statehood did the Church retroactively demote a commandment to a mere “practice.” The critic points to the text’s own force: it does not read like a time-limited memo; it reads like eternal law, and the leaders who lived it — Brigham Young foremost — taught it as essential to exaltation, not as one optional form of sealing. Keeping the section while disowning its plain command, the critic concludes, is having it both ways: the authority of revelation when convenient, the flexibility of “changing policy” when not.
The objection deserves a real answer, not a dismissal. First, the distinction is in the text, not imposed on it: the section itself frames plural marriage as entered by specific commandment and priesthood authority — a regulated application — while framing the sealing covenant as the enduring principle; the categories the Church uses to distinguish them are the section’s own, not a later overlay. That later leaders sometimes over-taught the practice’s necessity is real — our Brigham Young study documents exactly that pattern of teaching outrunning doctrine — but a leader’s overstatement does not fix the meaning of the revelation; the Doctrine Test exists precisely because prophetic emphasis and canonical doctrine are not the same thing. Second, the 1890 end was framed as revelation, not mere policy — Official Declaration 1 and Wilford Woodruff’s account present the cessation as divinely directed, and whatever external pressures formed the backdrop (they did, and the Church does not hide them), the mechanism claimed is the same mechanism that began it: revelation to a prophet. A church having-it-both-ways would have quietly dropped the practice; instead it canonized both the command and its ending, leaving the whole hard record in scripture. Third, the “on pain of destruction” language proves less than it seems — covenant stakes phrased in absolute terms run throughout scripture without implying the specific application is eternal; the higher law can carry ultimate weight in its season and still be withdrawn by the same authority that gave it. What the critic reads as inconsistency is the ordinary structure of a faith that believes God commands different things in different dispensations — and records all of them. The section means what it says: an eternal covenant, and a commandment given and later withdrawn within it.
The Honest Answer
So — What Is Section 132?
A revelation whose permanent doctrine is eternal marriage and the sealing power, and whose historical occasion was the commandment authorizing plural marriage — the first still taught in every temple today, the second ended by revelation in 1890 and preserved in the canon as history. The one-sentence version: Section 132 teaches one eternal thing and records one historical command, and nearly every argument about it — from both sides — comes from collapsing the two into one.
Our Editorial Standard, Shown
The Nine-Principle Review: How This Article Was Stress-Tested
On a canonical text this contested, the sixth and ninth principles carry the load: keeping every hard verse with its balancing doctrine, and never letting the historical commandment overshadow the eternal principle the section exists to teach.
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The same nine-point review is applied to every study we publish. Principles drawn from published apostolic teachings; see our editorial standards page.
At a Glance
Quick Answers
What does D&C 132 teach?
Its enduring doctrine is eternal marriage — that a sealing by priesthood authority endures beyond death. Its historical occasion was the commandment authorizing plural marriage in that era.
Eternal Marriage
Is D&C 132 still doctrine?
Its eternal-marriage doctrine is current and central — taught in every temple sealing. The plural-marriage practice it records was ended by revelation in 1890 (OD-1).
Principle Yes; Practice Ended
Why is it still in the scriptures if polygamy ended?
Because removing it would remove the eternal-marriage doctrine at its heart. The practice was suspended; the sealing principle was not. The canon records history, not only current practice.
The Principle Remains
When was it received?
Recorded July 12, 1843, but much of the doctrine dates to the early 1830s. Joseph taught eternal marriage and knew the commandment years before dictating the text.
Doctrine Old; Text 1843
Does it command polygamy today?
No. The commanded practice was ended in 1890 and entering it now is grounds for excommunication. The section’s living force is eternal marriage.
No — Ended 1890
What about the verses to Emma?
They are hard, and real. They were dictated into the 1843 crisis at Hyrum’s urging to persuade her. Our Emma study takes her side of it at full length.
Read in Context
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Doctrine and Covenants 132 command polygamy?
It records the commandment that authorized plural marriage in the 1840s, but it does not command the practice today. The practice was ended by revelation in 1890 (Official Declaration 1), and entering plural marriage now is grounds for Church discipline. What the section commands as permanent is the covenant of eternal marriage, of which plural marriage was one historically commanded form.
Why hasn’t the Church removed Section 132 from the scriptures?
Because its core doctrine — eternal marriage through the priesthood sealing power — is current, central teaching, taught in every temple sealing today. Removing the section would remove that doctrine’s scriptural foundation. The plural-marriage commandment is preserved inside it as the authentic historical record of how God directed the Church in that era, alongside OD-1, which records the practice’s end.
What is the “new and everlasting covenant”?
It is the covenant of eternal marriage — a marriage sealed by proper priesthood authority that endures beyond death. The phrase names the whole covenant, not plural marriage specifically; plural marriage was one commanded form of entering it in that era. Collapsing “new and everlasting covenant” into “polygamy” is the most common misreading of the section.
What is the “law of Sarah” in D&C 132?
It refers to Sarah giving Hagar to Abraham as a scriptural pattern for a first wife’s consent to plural marriage. Read as timeless family law it is alarming; read as the scriptural framing of a specific, now-ended commandment — drawn from the same Abrahamic narrative the section consciously restores — it is a period principle that ended when the practice did in 1890.
The Harder Questions, Answered
“You can’t ’end’ a commandment God gave ’on pain of destruction.’ Either 1843 was wrong or 1890 was.”
Verdict: The same authority that gives a commandment can withdraw its application — scripture does this repeatedly without contradiction.
The premise assumes a commandment given with absolute stakes can never be withdrawn — but the scriptural pattern is the opposite. Animal sacrifice carried the gravest covenant weight, then ended in Christ; circumcision was the everlasting token of the Abrahamic covenant, then set aside by apostolic revelation; the higher law at Sinai was withdrawn after Israel’s rebellion. In each case the commanding authority could withdraw the practice without repealing the covenant behind it. Section 132 fits the pattern: the eternal covenant of marriage stands; the commanded practice was given for a season and withdrawn by the same prophetic channel in 1890. “On pain of destruction” marks a covenant’s seriousness in its time; it does not make a specific application eternal.
“The Church only ended polygamy because the government forced it. That’s not revelation, that’s politics.”
Verdict: The pressure was real and the Church doesn’t hide it — but the mechanism claimed for both the start and the end is the same: revelation.
Federal anti-polygamy legislation, the Church’s disincorporation, and the threat to Utah statehood are real context for 1890, and no honest account omits them — ours doesn’t. But two things keep this from being the whole story. First, external pressure and divine direction are not mutually exclusive; prophets throughout scripture received revelation through historical crises, from Egypt to Babylon. Second, a church merely bowing to politics would have quietly let the commandment fade; instead it canonized Official Declaration 1 as revelation and preserved Section 132 beside it — keeping the whole hard record in scripture. A purely political retreat does not enshrine both the command and its reversal in its own canon. Our polygamy anchor treats the 1890 context at length.
“If eternal marriage is the real doctrine, why does the section spend so many verses on plural wives?”
Verdict: Because it was dictated into a specific 1843 situation that required addressing the commandment directly — occasion and doctrine are different layers.
Revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants are overwhelmingly occasional — given in response to specific circumstances — and their proportion of verses reflects the occasion, not a ranking of eternal importance. Section 132 was dictated when the plural-marriage commandment most needed recording and, through Hyrum, explaining to Emma; naturally the text spends verses there. But proportion is not priority: the sealing-power doctrine those plural-marriage verses draw upon is the principle the whole section rests on, and it is the part still taught and lived today. Reading the verse-count as the doctrine’s weighting is like reading the chapters of Levitical sacrifice as proof that sacrifice, rather than the Atonement, was the eternal point. The occasion filled the page; the principle carries the weight.
Sources
- Doctrine and Covenants 132 (the revelation text) and Official Declaration 1 (the 1890 Manifesto). churchofjesuschrist.org
- The Joseph Smith Papers — the July 1843 dictation; William Clayton’s account of the recording. josephsmithpapers.org
- “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo” and “The Manifesto and the End of Plural Marriage,” Gospel Topics Essays. churchofjesuschrist.org
- Doctrine and Covenants 131 (eternal marriage) and 76, 88 (the sealing power and covenant context).
- Brian C. Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy, 3 vols. (Kofford, 2013) — the doctrine’s early dating and the recording context; Don Bradley, primary researcher.
- Companion studies: /emma-smith (her side of the 1843 verses) · /joseph-smith-polygamy (anchor + the 1890 end) · /joseph-smith-wives · /brigham-young-teachings (teaching vs. doctrine). mormonismexplained.org