ORSON HYDE
This Mormon prayer turned out to foresage one of the most fascinating set of events in world history. In 1841, an American Mormon leader and prophet journeyed all the way to Jerusalem to consecrate Palestine for the Jewish people. His prayer predicted the creation of the state of Israel with a Jewish government and its capital in Jerusalem. He stated that David, a descendent from the biblical Jewish King David will be its first ruler. Over 100 years later the state of Israel came into being and its first prime minister was Jewish David Ben-Gurion. This regathering of the Jews in Israel had been prophesized in the Bible, but this seems to be the first modern action taken to make it happen. This was more than 20 years before the first Jewish writing appeared advocating the Jewish return to Palestine--Moses Hess's 1862 work, Rome & Jerusalem; The Last National Question. It was over 50 years before Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, even published his first work on the subject.
Orson Hyde was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 to 1875 and was a missionary of the LDS Church in the United States, Europe, and the Ottoman Empire.
