Pratt places the valley of Jehoshaphat beside Armageddon
interpretation
On: Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision
Source quotation · Orson Pratt, as reported by David W. Evans, 26 January 1873; Journal of Discourses 15, pp. 336–337, fifteen paragraphs from “In order to show you” through “the strength of the children of Israel.”
In order to show you that that is the wine press where the Lord will pour out these judgments, let me call your attention to the third chapter of the prophecies of Joel, where this same thing is alluded to, the valley of Jehoshaphat mentioned by Joel, and the valley of Armageddon spoken of by John, being very near together, in the same neighborhood. Joel says—
For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land.
In the 9th verse he says—Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD.
The Lord will come with all his Saints in the clouds of heaven just about the time this army gets into the valley of Jehoshaphat.
Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.
"Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe" —the same harvest mentioned in the 14th chapter of John.
Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
If you want to know about the time when the sun and moon are to be darkened, and when the stars will no longer give any light, and when there will be total darkness over all the face of the earth, here is an event predicted so that you can not mistake. When you see the nations of the earth, especially the heathen nations, and also those north of Jerusalem—the great nation of Russia and other nations on the continent of Asia, together with many in Europe, gather up against Jerusalem after the Jews have returned and rebuilt their city and Temple, and when their armies become exceeding great multitudes in the valley of decision, then you may look for the Lord to come down with his mighty ones, and for the constellations of heaven to be darkened.
The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
The children of Israel as well as Judah will put their trust in the Lord God of their fathers in that day, and they will look for deliverance from his hand. They will know that they can not stand without the aid of the Lord against all those from the north quarters—Gog and Magog, all the hosts of Russia, and of the various nations round about that come up there and cover the land like a cloud. They will know that unless God helps them they can not obtain a victory over this mighty host; but they will put their trust in the Lord, and he will "roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem," and he will be the hope of his people and the strength of the children of Israel.
Orson Pratt on latter-day judgments · Journal of Discourses, vol. 15, discourse by Orson Pratt delivered in the Thirteenth Ward Assembly Rooms, Salt Lake City, Sunday afternoon, 26 January 1873, reported by David W. Evans, beginning p. 329. Selected unit pp. 336–337. JournalofDiscourses.com transcription (https://journalofdiscourses.com/15/41) retrieved 1 October 2026, collated word by word against the Internet Archive JoDV15 OCR text layer, with page images inspected where the witnesses differed; wording and spelling follow the print, punctuation and capitalization follow the electronic witness. HTML markup removed and whitespace normalized. No passages omitted within the selected unit. Print readings restored: “so that you cannot mistake” → “so that you can not mistake”; “they cannot stand without” → “they can not stand without”; “helps them they cannot obtain” → “helps them they can not obtain”. Inside Pratt’s quotation of Joel 3, two punctuation marks follow the print (p. 336 “the nations and parted my land”; p. 337 “come, get you down, for the press is full”), confirmed on the page images.
Source reuse and transcription
Nineteenth-century historical source text, public domain. Print witness: https://archive.org/details/JoDV15/page/n336/mode/2up.
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2026-10-05T15:53:51+00:00
In order to show you that that is the wine press where the Lord will pour out these judgments, let me call your attention to the third chapter of the prophecies of Joel, where this same thing is alluded to, the valley of Jehoshaphat mentioned by Joel, and the valley of Armageddon spoken of by John, being very near together, in the same neighborhood. Joel says—
For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem,
I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land.
In the 9th verse he says—Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.
Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD.
The Lord will come with all his Saints in the clouds of heaven just about the time this army gets into the valley of Jehoshaphat.
Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.
"Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe" —the same harvest mentioned in the 14th chapter of John.
Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.
If you want to know about the time when the sun and moon are to be darkened, and when the stars will no longer give any light, and when there will be total darkness over all the face of the earth, here is an event predicted so that you can not mistake. When you see the nations of the earth, especially the heathen nations, and also those north of Jerusalem—the great nation of Russia and other nations on the continent of Asia, together with many in Europe, gather up against Jerusalem after the Jews have returned and rebuilt their city and Temple, and when their armies become exceeding great multitudes in the valley of decision, then you may look for the Lord to come down with his mighty ones, and for the constellations of heaven to be darkened.
The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
The children of Israel as well as Judah will put their trust in the Lord God of their fathers in that day, and they will look for deliverance from his hand. They will know that they can not stand without the aid of the Lord against all those from the north quarters—Gog and Magog, all the hosts of Russia, and of the various nations round about that come up there and cover the land like a cloud. They will know that unless God helps them they can not obtain a victory over this mighty host; but they will put their trust in the Lord, and he will "roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem," and he will be the hope of his people and the strength of the children of Israel.