D&C 113: The Answers Name the Ancestors, Not the Man

Tuesday evening the UPS truck stopped out front, and Biscuit beat Ben to the door, which Ben, who turns three on Friday, took as a personal insult. By the time the two of them had settled it, the box was on the porch and I was back at the kitchen table with my scriptures open to section 113 and a pencil.

Ten verses, five questions and five answers, all of them about Isaiah.

What D&C 113 is, and who was asking

The revelation was given in March 1838 at or near Far West, Missouri. Verses 1 through 6 are about Isaiah 11 and verses 7 through 10 are about Isaiah 52.

For the first three questions nobody is named as the asker, and the Church's own materials say it isn't known who put them. The last two are labeled in verse 7: "Questions by Elias Higbee." He lived in Caldwell County and served on the high council in Far West, and he was later called as a church historian.

The two halves don't sound alike, because the answers in verses 2, 4 and 6 each open with "thus saith the Lord" and the answers in verses 8 and 10 read more like someone explaining. The Joseph Smith Papers take that as a sign that two separate texts were later joined under one number.

Verses 1 through 6: one name, then two descriptions

Verse 1 asks who the Stem of Jesse is, "spoken of in the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th verses of the 11th chapter of Isaiah." That's five verses of Isaiah wrapped up in one question. The answer takes one verse and three words:

Verily thus saith the Lord: It is Christ.

I wrote about Isaiah 11 back in May, in the post on 2 Nephi 21 and the stem of Jesse, which gave a good deal of room to the wolf and the lamb, and I won't walk through the whole chapter again. The next two questions are the ones I want.

Verse 3 asks about the rod in Isaiah 11:1: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots." The answer in verse 4:

Behold, thus saith the Lord: It is a servant in the hands of Christ, who is partly a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or of the house of Joseph, on whom there is laid much power.

Verse 5 asks about the root of Jesse in Isaiah 11:10, "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people." The answer in verse 6 is the one at the top of this post. A descendant of Jesse and of Joseph, to whom the priesthood and the keys rightly belong, "for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days."

Those two answers are full of names. Jesse is in both, Joseph is in both, and Ephraim is in the first. What neither has is the name of the man himself.

Melissa read verse 4 over my shoulder that night on her way to check the back door. She got to the end and said, "That's it?" I said that was it. She said she'd have expected somebody by now, and I said so had I.

Then she checked the door.

The verses tell you where he comes from and what he has been handed, and they stop there. The two answers also aren't quite the same description. The rod is "a servant in the hands of Christ," and he is "partly" of Jesse and also of Ephraim. The root is a descendant of Jesse and of Joseph, and the verse puts the priesthood and the keys with him. I'm not going to try to say how the two relate. They are two answers, worded differently, to two questions about two verses.

Isaiah's own text for the first of those verses doesn't hand over a name either. After the rod and the Branch in 11:1, the next four verses describe what rests on him and what he does: "the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might" in verse 2, and in verse 4 "with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth." Isaiah describes the person by what he will do. The revelation, if anything, adds a line of descent to that.

People do supply a name. One writer quoted in the Church's Doctrine and Covenants Student Manual argues that the rod and the root are the same man, Joseph Smith, and builds the case from other revelations. The manual presents that as his view. The revelation doesn't say it, so it can't be taught as what section 113 says.

When I wrote out the questions on an index card, I counted which verses of Isaiah 11 they touched. Verses 1 through 5 in the first, verse 1 in the second, verse 10 in the third. Nobody asked about verses 6 through 9, which is the wolf with the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the little child who leads them and the earth full of the knowledge of the Lord. Nobody asked about verses 11 through 16 either. I don't know why, and I'm not going to build anything on it.

The word "ensign"

The word "ensign" is worth watching, since it's in Isaiah 11:10 and it comes back in verse 6 of the revelation. Isaiah 11:12 uses it again: "And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel." The revelation's phrase is "for the gathering of my people," so the two passages are at least describing the same kind of work. That's about as far as I can take it from the page. It is one of the few places where the answer and Isaiah's text share a word and not only a subject.

Ephraim is another shared word, in the answer to verse 3 and in Isaiah 11:13 as well: "The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off." That falls inside the verses nobody asked about, and I would only note that the name turns up there.

The same stretch of Isaiah also carries the root further than the question did. Verse 10 has the root standing for an ensign, with the Gentiles seeking it, and verse 11 goes straight on with the Lord setting his hand "the second time to recover the remnant of his people." Verse 12 is the ensign again, this time lifted for the nations and used to assemble the outcasts of Israel. Read in a row, the root is attached to a recovery, and the revelation's "for the gathering of my people in the last days" follows the same line. Section 113 never asks about 11:11, but its answer to the question about 11:10 ends where Isaiah's own next verse is going.

Verses 7 through 10: Higbee's two questions

Elias Higbee asks about Isaiah 52:1, "Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion." Verse 8 of the revelation says it refers to those whom God would call in the last days, who "should hold the power of priesthood to bring again Zion, and the redemption of Israel." To put on her strength, it says, is "to put on the authority of the priesthood, which she, Zion, has a right to by lineage," and also "to return to that power which she had lost."

His second question, in verse 9, is about Isaiah 52:2, "loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion." Verse 10 answers:

We are to understand that the scattered remnants are exhorted to return to the Lord from whence they have fallen; which if they do, the promise of the Lord is that he will speak to them, or give them revelation. See the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses. The bands of her neck are the curses of God upon her, or the remnants of Israel in their scattered condition among the Gentiles.

The answer defines the bands itself, so I'd use its definition and leave chains out of it. What I keep rereading is the promise in the middle. If they return, he will speak to them.

The pointer, "See the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses," doesn't say which chapter. My reading is Isaiah 52:6 through 8, because verse 6 there says "they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I," which fits a promise that he will speak to them. Isaiah 52:8 ends "when the Lord shall bring again Zion," and verse 8 of the revelation says "to bring again Zion" too. It's a reading, and the revelation doesn't confirm it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the Stem of Jesse in D&C 113?

Verse 2 says "It is Christ." That's the shortest answer in the chapter and the only one that gives a person's name in reply. The question covers verses 1 through 5 of Isaiah 11, so the answer is doing a lot of work in three words.

Does D&C 113 say who the rod and the root of Jesse are?

Verse 4 describes the rod and verse 6 describes the root. Both name ancestors (Jesse and Joseph in each, and Ephraim in verse 4), and neither names the person himself. The Student Manual quotes one writer who names Joseph Smith for both, and presents it as his view. If you hear a name taught as the answer, it came from somewhere besides this chapter.

Who asked the questions in D&C 113?

Elias Higbee asked the last two, in verses 7 and 9. For the first three the asker isn't known, and the Church's manual says so.

What does "put on thy strength, O Zion" mean here?

Verse 8 says it means putting on the authority of the priesthood, which Zion has a right to by lineage, and returning to the power she had lost. The people in view are the ones God would call in the last days to bring Zion again.

Where I'd start

If you read section 113 this week, read Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 52 straight through first, and then the answers. The verses nobody asked about will be sitting in front of you, and I think the questions look different that way.

— D.