Ellen G. White and Her Critics

3. Time of Jacob’s Trouble

FIRST PRINTING

Second part of Ellen Harmon letter of February 15, 1846, to Enoch Jacobs. Published in the The Day-Star, March 14, 1846, page 7. EGWC 625.1

SECOND PRINTING

In the April 6, 1846, broadside. This was the last printing. The vision, “deleted,” or rather omitted, from later writings of Mrs. White reads as follows in this second printing: EGWC 625.2

Deletion

“About four months since I had a vision of events all in the future. I saw the time of trouble, such as never was. Jesus told me it was the time of Jacob’s trouble, and that we should be delivered out of it by the voice of God. Then I saw the four angels cease to hold the four winds. And I saw famine, pestilence and sword—nation rose against nation, and the whole world was in confusion. Then we cried to God day and night for deliverance, until we began to hear the bells on Jesus’ garment. And I saw Jesus rise up in the Holiest, and as he came out we heard the tinkling of the bells and knew that our High Priest was coming out. Then we heard the voice of God which shook the heavens and the earth, and gave the 144,000 the day and hour of Jesus’ coming. Then the saints were free, united, and full of the glory of God, for he has turned their captivity. And I saw a flaming cloud come where Jesus stood. Then Jesus laid off his priestly garment and put on his kingly robe, and took his place on the cloud which carried him to the East, where it first appeared to the saints on earth—a small black cloud which was the sign of the Son of Man. While the cloud was passing from the Holiest to the East, which took a number of days, the synagogue of Satan worshipped at the saint’s feet.” EGWC 625.3

Comment on Deletion

The substance, and sometimes the exact phrasing, of this vision is found in closing chapters of The Great Controversy, and in such chapters as the following in Early Writings: “The Sealing,” “Duty in View of the Time of Trouble,” “Deliverance of the Saints.” See also Testimonies for the Church 1:183, 184. We have not found any critic making a point out of this deletion. Obviously this deleted vision, whose entire teaching is reproduced in other forms, could not have been “suppressed” to conceal repudiated beliefs. EGWC 625.4

Incidentally, this vision has a direct bearing on a certain statement by James White. Mrs. White wrote it out on February 15, 1846, as the Day-Star printing reveals. She states that she had the vision “about four months since.” That would be about October 15, 1845. Now listen to James White in A Word to the “Little Flock,” in 1847: EGWC 625.5

“It is well known that many were expecting the Lord to come at the 7th [Jewish] month, 1845 [that is, the autumn]. That Christ would then come we firmly believed. A few days before the time passed, I was at Fairhaven, and Dartmouth, Mass., with a message on this point of time. At this time, Ellen [Harmon—not yet Mrs. White] was with the band at Carver, Mass., where she saw in vision, that we should be disappointed, and that the saints must pass through the ‘time of Jacob’s trouble,’ which was future. Her view of Jacob’s trouble was entirely new to us, as well as herself.”—Page 22. EGWC 626.1

Evidently, then, this vision was intended to meet a particular need in October, 1845. Later, the substance of it appeared in various of Mrs. White’s writings. EGWC 626.2