Questions on Isaiah

A section built entirely of questions and answers about another book — and the only place in the frozen Doctrine and Covenants that cites scripture the way a commentary does, by chapter and verse number.

What this page maps. Modern revelation, reported as the text gives it. The section alternates between question verses and answer verses; the answers are marked in the text by “thus saith the Lord” and the questions are not, and this page keeps that distinction. One question is attributed in the verse text itself (D&C 113:7); the others are unattributed there, and the wiki does not supply attributions from outside the verse text.

Standing disclosure — KJV-overlap material. This page reports verbal correspondence with the King James text as textual fact, including where the correspondence follows the KJV’s English translation. What that correspondence implies about the origin of the Doctrine and Covenants text — in any direction — is an external question outside this wiki’s scope.

Account

The form: a text about a text

Every verse in the section is either a question about a named passage or an answer to one. The citations are given as ordinals, in a form found nowhere else in the frozen corpus: “the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th verses of the 11th chapter of Isaiah” (D&C 113:1); “the first verse of the 11th chapter of Isaiah” (D&C 113:3); “the 10th verse of the 11th chapter” (D&C 113:5); “Isaiah, 52d chapter, 1st verse” (D&C 113:7); “2d verse” (D&C 113:9); and, in the last answer, a direction to read on: “See the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses.” (D&C 113:10).

Because the section names its source by book, chapter, and verse, every connection below was ruled at the 2026-08-10 editorial review and carries asserted_by: "source" — the text itself asserts the link, and each naming was re-verified against the frozen text before minting.

Isaiah 11 — three figures, three answers

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 113:1: “Who is the Stem of Jesse spoken of in the 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th verses of the 11th chapter of Isaiah?” - 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 is one clause: “Verily thus saith the Lord: It is Christ.” (D&C 113:2). Divergences reported: in the prophecy the stem is the thing the rod comes out of and is not itself the subject; the question treats it as a person to be identified. Capitalization diverges — “Stem” in the revelation, “stem” in the prophecy. The run “stem of Jesse” stands at four distinct frozen verses in the corpus: D&C 113:1, D&C 113:3, Isaiah 11:1, and 2 Nephi 21:1, which reproduces the prophecy inside the Book of Mormon and is already registered against it on Isaiah.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 113:3: “What is the rod spoken of in the first verse of the 11th chapter of Isaiah, that should come of the Stem of Jesse?” - 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 identifies a person without naming him: “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.” (D&C 113:4). Divergences reported: the prophecy’s rod “come[s] forth” out of the stem; the question’s rod “should come of” it. The identification is the revelation’s own and has no counterpart in the prophecy’s verse. Registered separately from the record above because it pairs a different question verse with the same prophecy verse — a different verse pair.

[Textual] — distinctive shared phrasing. () - D&C 113:5: “What is the root of Jesse spoken of in the 10th verse of the 11th chapter?” - Isaiah 11:10: “And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.”

The answer names an office rather than a person: “it is a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood, and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days” (D&C 113:6) — which carries the prophecy’s own word “ensign” into the answer. The run “root of Jesse” stands at four distinct frozen verses in the corpus: D&C 113:5, Isaiah 11:10, 2 Nephi 21:10, and Romans 15:12, “And again, Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse” — disclosed, not paired. D&C 64:42 is already registered against Isaiah 11:10 on The Gathering to Zion for the ensign clause; that is a different verse pair.

Isaiah 52 — two questions, and the one question with a name on it

The second half of the section changes in one respect the text itself marks: the questioner is named in the verse. “Questions by Elias Higbee: What is meant by the command in Isaiah, 52d chapter, 1st verse, which saith: Put on thy strength, O Zion—and what people had Isaiah reference to?” (D&C 113:7). This is the section’s only in-text attribution of a question, and it is the only place in these sixteen sections where a verse quotes another book and cites it by chapter and verse in the same breath.

[Textual] — verbatim quotation. () - D&C 113:7: ”…What is meant by the command in Isaiah, 52d chapter, 1st verse, which saith: Put on thy strength, O Zion—and what people had Isaiah reference to?” - Isaiah 52:1: “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.”

Divergences reported: capitalization only inside the quoted run — “Put” where the prophecy has “put”, the revelation’s quotation beginning a sentence. The answer supplies both an identification and a definition: the command refers to “those whom God should call in the last days, who should hold the power of priesthood to bring again Zion”, and “to put on her strength is to put on the authority of the priesthood, which she, Zion, has a right to by lineage” (D&C 113:8). The run “put on thy strength” stands at four distinct frozen verses in the corpus: D&C 113:7, Isaiah 52:1, 2 Nephi 8:24, and 3 Nephi 20:36 — the last two reproducing the prophecy inside the Book of Mormon, and 2 Nephi 8:24 already registered against Isaiah 52:1 on Isaiah; both are disclosed, not paired.

[Textual] — paraphrase / allusion. () - D&C 113:9: “What are we to understand by Zion loosing herself from the bands of her neck; 2d verse?” - Isaiah 52:2: “Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.”

Divergences reported: person — the prophecy commands in the second person (“loose thyself”, Isaiah 52:2) where the question describes in the third (“Zion loosing herself”, D&C 113:9), which changes “thy” to “her”. The answer both interprets and defines: “the scattered remnants are exhorted to return to the Lord from whence they have fallen”, and “The bands of her neck are the curses of God upon her, or the remnants of Israel in their scattered condition among the Gentiles.” (D&C 113:10). Registered as allusion rather than shared phrasing because the pronoun change breaks the run: “bands of her neck” stands at exactly two distinct frozen verses in the corpus, both in this section (D&C 113:9, D&C 113:10), while “bands of thy neck” stands at three — Isaiah 52:2, 2 Nephi 8:25, and 3 Nephi 20:37. The chapter is named two verses earlier, at D&C 113:7, not in the question verse itself; the record was nonetheless minted asserted_by: "source" at the 2026-08-10 editorial review, the citation carrying within the one continuous discussion.

[Textual] — paraphrase / citation chain. (, , ) The last answer closes with a direction to read on — “See the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses.” (D&C 113:10) — and the full citation stands three verses earlier (“Isaiah, 52d chapter, 1st verse”, D&C 113:7), the discussion never having left that chapter, so the bare ordinals inherit Isaiah 52 from it. The three verses pointed at: - Isaiah 52:6: “Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I.” - Isaiah 52:7: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!” - Isaiah 52:8: “Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the LORD shall bring again Zion.”

The answer’s own gloss leans on the first of the three: “he will speak to them, or give them revelation” (D&C 113:10) glosses Isaiah 52:6’s “I am he that doth speak”. All three records were minted asserted_by: "source" at the 2026-08-10 editorial review.

Significance

The section’s form is its most reportable feature: it is the only place in the frozen Doctrine and Covenants that works as a commentary, quoting a numbered verse of another book and answering a question about it. Everywhere else the corpus’s overlap with older scripture arrives unannounced, as wording that happens to run together; here the older text is cited, by name and number, before it is interpreted.

The answers themselves are worth noting for what they do not do. Three of the five identify a figure without naming him — “a servant in the hands of Christ” (D&C 113:4), “a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph” (D&C 113:6) — supplying a description precise enough to exclude most candidates and short of a name. Whether any particular person is meant is a question the verses do not answer, and the wiki does not answer it either.

Key references

D&C 113:1–2 — the Stem of Jesse, answered “It is Christ”
D&C 113:3–4 — the rod: a servant, described but not named
D&C 113:5–6 — the root of Jesse: priesthood, keys, ensign, gathering
D&C 113:7–8 — the named question, and strength defined as priesthood authority
D&C 113:9–10 — the bands of the neck, defined as curses and scattering

Isaiah · Zion · The Gathering to Zion · Covenant of Israel · The Two Priesthoods · Index · Connections

Sources

Doctrine and Covenants section 113 throughout (verse text only; headnotes excluded). Isaiah 11 and Isaiah 52 quoted alongside it; 2 Nephi 8, 2 Nephi 21, 3 Nephi 20, Romans 15, and D&C 64 are cited, and Romans 15 quoted, inside disclosures.

Every quote is verbatim from the frozen source text, cited to its exact reference and checked character-for-character; no quote crosses a verse boundary. Eight connection records are registered on this page, all [textual], all asserted_by: "source" — minted at the 2026-08-10 editorial review; the questions name their Isaiah texts by book, chapter, and verse. Phrase distributions are counts of distinct frozen verses in the corpus, derived by script at the time of writing on the stated basis.