Section 113 answers questions about passages of Isaiah (chapters 11 and 52). It was recorded in Joseph’s Scriptory Book in 1838 after Joseph moved to Missouri, but Joseph had been thinking about the meaning of Isaiah 11 since 1823, when Moroni began teaching him.1
Imagine being an obscure, poorly educated “boy of no consequence,” as Joseph described his teenage self (Joseph Smith—History 1:22). Seventeen-year-old Joseph prayed for forgiveness and an angel appeared. He started quoting and paraphrasing scripture: Malachi, Joel, Acts, and all of Isaiah 11, among others. He returned again and again that night and then again the next day, repeating Isaiah 11 each time, saying it was just about to be fulfilled.
That chapter invites readers to imagine a man named Jesse as a tree. Jesse is the father of the Israelite King David in the Old Testament. God promised David that the Messiah would occupy his throne forever (2 Samuel 7:13; Luke 1:32). Isaiah 11 is about the genealogy (families are often represented as trees) of the rightful king of Israel. It also says that someone related to Jesse and Ephraim will raise an ensign (a signal, a standard, a rally point) for the gathering of the Lord’s people in the latter days.
Now imagine that you are Joseph six years later, age 24, translating what’s now 2 Nephi 21, the entire text of Isaiah 11. How much of it do you understand by now? Fast-forward to age 32. It has been 15 years since Moroni first quoted Isaiah 11 to you. You know what it means by now. It has been the story of your life. You have since seen the prophecies fulfilled, received the priesthood and its keys to gather the scattered remnants of Israel “to return them to the Lord from whence they have fallen,” to be their revelator, and to bring again Zion (D&C 113:8–10).
It’s not clear whether Joseph or someone else posed the question in D&C 113:1—Who is the stem of Jesse, the tree trunk, spoken of in Isaiah 11? The clear answer, however, is Jesus Christ. Scholars generally interpret that entire passage to refer to the same Messianic figure, but Joseph did not. Joseph had learned to see himself as the rod or branch that would grow out from the trunk, Jesus Christ. He said so cryptically rather than explicitly. But by age 32, if not at 17, Joseph knew what Moroni knew: Joseph was “a servant in the hands of Christ . . . on whom there is laid much power, . . . the priesthood, and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering” of the Lord’s people in the latter days (D&C 113: 4, 6). Section 113 also answers Elias Higbee’s questions about Isaiah 52, interpreting some of the symbolism in terms of D&C section 86 and what Joseph had learned by revelation about priesthood, Zion, and the gathering of Israel.
The Book of Mormon identified Joseph as a descendant of Joseph of Egypt (2 Nephi 3:6–16). When Joseph’s father gave him a patriarchal blessing in 1834, it said,
I bless thee with the blessings of thy fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; and even the blessings of thy father Joseph, the son of Jacob. Behold, he looked after his posterity in the last days, when they should be scattered and driven by the Gentiles, and wept before the Lord: he sought diligently to know from whence the son should come who should bring forth the word of the Lord, by which they might be enlightened, and brought back to the true fold, and his eyes beheld thee, my son: his heart rejoiced and his soul was satisfied.2
It is not clear exactly when Joseph understood himself to be the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecies of a servant of Christ who would establish a gathering place for Israel and bring again Zion. The recording of section 113 in early 1838 testifies that these ideas were on his mind then. The Church was in upheaval. Joseph was trying to exercise the priesthood keys he had recently received to loose the scattered Israelites from the bands around their necks and bring them to Zion (D&C 110 and 113:8–10).
1. “Questions and Answers, between circa 16 and circa 29 March 1838–A [D&C 113:1–6],” 17, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed November 25, 2020.
2. “Blessing from Joseph Smith Sr., 9 December 1834,” 3, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed November 25, 2020.
From Doctrine and Covenants Minute
Doctrine and Covenants 113 is the first revelation Joseph received in Far West, Missouri. As opposition continued to grow in Kirtland, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were eventually forced to flee for their lives on January 12, 1838. Joseph later wrote of this discouraging time in his history, “A new year dawned upon the church in Kirtland in all the bitterness of the spirit of apostate Mobocracy; which continued to rage and grow hotter and hotter until Elder Rigdon and myself were obliged to flee from its deadly influence as did the apostles and prophets of old, and as Jesus said ‘when they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”1
Joseph and Sidney’s journey to Far West took place in the middle of winter and under extreme conditions. Joseph described the circumstances as follows:
The weather was extremely cold, and we were obliged to secrete ourselves in our wagons, sometimes, to elude the grasp of our pursuers who continued their race more than 200 miles, armed with pistols &c seeking our lives. They frequently crossed our track, twice they were in the houses where we stopped. Once we tarried all night in the same house with them, with only a partition between us & them, and heard their oaths, and imprecations, and threats concerning us if they could catch us, and late in the evening they came in our room and examined us, but decided we were not the men. At other times we passed them in the Streets, and gazed upon them and they on us, but they knew us not.2
Joseph arrived in Far West on March 14 and was warmly greeted by the Saints there. Shortly after his arrival, he answered a series of questions related to the prophecies of Isaiah. These answers, some of which begin with “thus saith the Lord,” were inscribed by George Robinson in a record book for the First Presidency known as the “Scriptory Book of Joseph Smith.” The first three questions and their corresponding answers were written in the book under the heading “Quest. On Scripture.”3 The remaining two questions and their answers were recorded under the heading “Questions by Elias Higby.”4 The first three questions all relate to Isaiah 11, a chapter quoted to Joseph Smith during his first experience with the Angel Moroni in 1823 (Joseph Smith—History 1:40). The last two questions relate to Isaiah 52, one of the most important Old Testament passages on the mission of Jesus Christ.
The answers to the questions in Doctrine and Covenants 113 are written in revelatory language and clearly came from divine inspiration. Because of this, Brigham Young had the revelation added to the 1876 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.
See “Historical Introduction,” Questions and Answers, between circa 16 and circa 29 March 1838–A [D&C 113:1–6]; and “Historical Introduction,” Questions and Answers, between circa 16 and circa 29 March 1838–B [D&C 113:7–10].
1. JS History, vol. B-1, p. 780, JSP.
2. JS History, vol. B-1, p. 780, JSP.
3. Questions and Answers, between circa 16 and circa 29 March 1838–A [D&C 113:1–6], p. 17, JSP.
4. Questions and Answers, between circa 16 and circa 29 March 1838–B [D&C 113:7–10], p. 18, JSP.
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