Isaiah 11

Isaiah 11 comes right after the Assyrian "forest" is cut down in 10:33–34. The chapter answers with an image of new growth from another cut-down tree, the house of David. It has three parts: the ideal king (vv. 1–5), the peace of his realm (vv. 6–9), and the gathering of scattered Israel (vv. 10–16).

In the translation, "the LORD" stands for the divine name YHWH, and "the Lord" (v. 11) stands for Adonai. Where the Hebrew is uncertain or can be read more than one way, I say so in the commentary.

claude.ai translation from original Hebrew.

Part One: The King (vv. 1–5)

Verse 1
A shoot will come out from the stump of Jesse, and a sprout from his roots will bear fruit.

The word for "stump" is geza' (גֵּזַע), the part of a tree left in the ground after it is felled (Job 14:8; Isa 40:24). The prophet assumes the Davidic dynasty will be cut down to almost nothing, like Assyria in the previous verses. The difference is that Assyria's forest stays cut down, while Jesse's stump grows again.

"Shoot" is ḥoter (חֹטֶר), a rare word for a twig or rod that appears elsewhere only in Proverbs 14:3. "Sprout" is nēṣer (נֵצֶר), a green shoot. Many interpreters think Matthew 2:23 ("he shall be called a Nazarene") plays on this word.

The line goes back to Jesse rather than David. That points to the dynasty's humble beginnings in Bethlehem, before the power and corruption of the later kings.

"Will bear fruit" (yifreh) is read by the Septuagint and Targum as "will grow up/blossom." Some scholars therefore emend it to yifraḥ, "will sprout." Either way, what looked dead is alive and productive.

Verse 2
The Spirit of the LORD will rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and might, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

"Rest" (nuaḥ) means to settle and remain, as when the Spirit rested on the seventy elders in Numbers 11:25. That permanence contrasts with Saul, from whom the Spirit departed.

The gifts come in three pairs:

• Wisdom and understanding are intellectual discernment.
• Counsel and might ('eṣah u-gevurah) are practical statecraft. Gevurah is often military strength, and here it is joined to counsel: strategy and power belong together.
• Knowledge and the fear of the LORD are covenant relationship. Da'at is knowing God relationally, not only knowing facts.

The Septuagint translates the first "fear of the LORD" as "piety" (eusebeia), which makes a list of seven. That list became the traditional "seven gifts of the Holy Spirit" in Christian theology.

Verse 3
His delight will be in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what his eyes see, nor decide by what his ears hear.

"His delight" translates wa-hariḥo, literally "his smelling" or "his scenting." To "smell" something in Hebrew idiom is to take pleasure in it; in Amos 5:21, God says he will not "smell" Israel's assemblies. The king breathes in reverence for God the way one enjoys a fragrance. Some scholars suspect this line is an accidental copying of the end of v. 2, but the idiom makes good sense as it stands.

The second half is the core of the passage. Ordinary judges depend on appearances and testimony, which can be manipulated. This king judges from a deeper, Spirit-given perception.

"Decide" (yokiaḥ) is a legal term: to arbitrate, set right, or reprove.

Verse 4
But with righteousness he will judge the poor, and decide with equity for the humble of the land. He will strike the land with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.

This king's justice leans toward those with no power: the dallim (poor, weak) and the 'anvei-areṣ (humble or afflicted of the land). Mishor, "equity," literally means level ground: a legal field without tilt.

The second half is striking. The shevet (rod or scepter) is the symbol of royal power, and in 10:5 Assyria was God's "rod of anger." This king's rod is his mouth. His ruaḥ, meaning breath or spirit, echoes the ruaḥ of God that rests on him in v. 2. His power works through spoken judgment.

The verse is not pacifist, though. The breath of his lips kills the wicked.

Many scholars emend "strike the land" (ereṣ) to "strike the ruthless" ('ariṣ), a one-letter change that makes a tighter parallel with "the wicked." The New Testament uses this verse in 2 Thessalonians 2:8, and the image of the sword from the mouth in Revelation 19:15 comes from it.

Verse 5
Righteousness will be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

The 'ezor is the waistcloth tied up before labor or battle. The king is "dressed for action," and his equipment is his character: ṣedeq (righteousness) and 'emunah (faithfulness, reliability).

Isaiah 59:17 gives God himself a similar armor of righteousness. Paul picks up the image in Ephesians 6:14.

Part Two: The Peaceable Realm (vv. 6–9)

Verse 6
The wolf will live as a guest with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; the calf and the young lion and the fattened animal together, and a little boy will lead them.

"Live as a guest" is gar, from the verb for residing as a ger, a resident foreigner under someone else's protection. The wolf is not just tolerated. It becomes the lamb's guest, which reverses the usual power relationship.

The familiar phrase "the lion shall lie down with the lamb" is not actually in the text. It blends this verse with 65:25.

"Fattened animal" (meri') is read by some as a verb, yimre'u, "will feed together." The Septuagint reflects something like that.

The "little boy" (na'ar qaṭon) shepherding predators shows how completely danger has been removed. The child may also echo the royal child of 9:6.

Verse 7
The cow and the bear will graze; their young will lie down together; and the lion, like the ox, will eat straw.

This recalls Genesis 1:29–30, where every creature eats plants. The messianic age restores creation as it was at the beginning. Predation ends, not just war.

Verse 8
The nursing infant will play over the cobra's hole, and on the viper's den the weaned child will put his hand.

Peten is probably the cobra or asp, and ṣif'oni is a viper or adder. Two words here appear only once in the Bible: me'urah (den or opening) and hadah (stretch out or put). The picture is still clear.

This reverses Genesis 3:15, the hostility between the serpent and the offspring of the woman. A mother's worst fear becomes a scene of play.

Verse 9
They will not harm and will not destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

This is the key to the section. Peace comes from de'ah, knowledge of God, the same kind of knowledge that rested on the king in v. 2. What the king has personally eventually fills the whole earth. Habakkuk 2:14 repeats the line almost word for word.

"They" is deliberately ambiguous: it could be the animals or people. Interpreters have long divided over whether vv. 6–8 are literal or figurative. Maimonides (Laws of Kings 12:1) read the predators as a parable for violent nations who will live in peace with Israel. Many Christian readers, and Latter-day Saint teaching about the Millennium, take the change in nature more literally. The text supports both readings: the peace between nations in Isaiah 2:4 and a renewed creation.

Part Three: The Gathering (vv. 10–16)

Verse 10
In that day the root of Jesse, who stands as a banner for the peoples — the nations will seek him, and his resting place will be glorious.

The image shifts from "shoot" (v. 1) to "root," as if the new growth has become the source.

Nes is a military standard raised on a hill to rally troops. In 5:26, God raised a nes to summon Assyria against Israel. Here the banner draws the nations to seek, not to attack.

Menuḥah, "resting place," is temple language: "this is my resting place forever" (Ps 132:14).

Paul quotes this verse from the Septuagint in Romans 15:12 as a prophecy of the Gentiles' hope in Christ. Many scholars treat vv. 10–16 as a later expansion from the time of the exile. Traditional readers see them as Isaiah looking further ahead. Either way, the verse links the king to the gathering.

Verse 11
In that day the Lord will again, a second time, extend his hand to reclaim the remnant of his people who remain, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.

The Hebrew is compressed: literally "the Lord will add a second time his hand." Some emend the word for "second time" to "to lift." The meaning is plain either way.

The first time God stretched out his hand was the Exodus. Liqnot, "to reclaim" or "to acquire," is the verb of Exodus 15:16: "the people whom you purchased."

The list covers the known world. Pathros is Upper Egypt, Cush is Nubia (modern Sudan), Elam lies east of Babylon, Shinar is Babylonia, Hamath is in Syria, and the "coastlands" are the Mediterranean islands and shores.

"Remnant" (she'ar) recalls the name of Isaiah's son Shear-jashub, "a remnant shall return" (7:3).

For Latter-day Saint readers this verse is foundational. Nephi's "set his hand again the second time" (2 Ne 6:14; 25:17; 29:1) comes from it. In 1823, Moroni quoted Isaiah 11 to Joseph Smith and said it was about to be fulfilled (JS–H 1:40).

Verse 12
He will raise a banner for the nations and gather the banished of Israel, and the scattered of Judah he will collect from the four corners of the earth.

"Banished" (nidḥei) is masculine and "scattered" (nefuṣot) is feminine. The pairing signals completeness: all of them, men and women.

"Corners" is kanfot, literally "wings" or "hems," as of a garment. The earth is pictured as a cloth, and God gathers from its edges.

Doctrine and Covenants 113:6 identifies the "root of Jesse" as a descendant of Jesse and of Joseph who holds the priesthood and the keys of the kingdom "for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days." It interprets the banner of vv. 10–12 as priesthood authority. (D&C 113:1–4 also separates the "stem," which is Christ, from the "rod," a servant in Christ's hands, a distinction not made in most other traditions.)

Verse 13
The jealousy of Ephraim will depart, and the hostile ones of Judah will be cut off; Ephraim will not be jealous of Judah, and Judah will not harass Ephraim.

This addresses the split between the northern kingdom (Ephraim) and the southern kingdom (Judah) after Solomon. It had turned violent in Isaiah's own day, when Ephraim allied with Aram against Judah (ch. 7).

Ṣorerei Yehudah can mean "Judah's enemies" or "the hostile ones within Judah." The mirrored second half, where Judah must stop harassing Ephraim, supports the second reading: both sides must give up their hostility.

Ezekiel 37:15–28, the two sticks joined into one, develops the same hope. Latter-day Saints also read that passage in connection with the Book of Mormon.

Verse 14
They will swoop down on the slopes of the Philistines to the west; together they will plunder the people of the east; Edom and Moab will be in their grasp, and the Ammonites will obey them.

This verse is the hardest in the chapter. A few lines after wolves lie down with lambs, reunited Israel goes to war against its old neighbors.

The image is a bird of prey swooping down on the Philistines' katef, their "shoulder" or foothill slopes. "In their grasp" is literally "the reach of their hand." "Will obey them" is literally "their obedience."

The nations named are roughly David's empire, so the verse pictures the restored kingdom reaching its old borders. It also reverses 9:11–12, where Aram and the Philistines devoured Israel.

The prophet apparently saw no contradiction between the peaceable kingdom and this campaign. One reading is that unity (v. 13) is what makes a people able to act with power at all. Another is that the fighting belongs to the time of restoration, before full peace arrives. Honest interpretation should note the tension rather than smooth it over.

Verse 15
The LORD will devote to destruction the tongue of the Sea of Egypt; he will wave his hand over the River with his scorching wind, and strike it into seven streams, and let people cross in sandals.

The verb is heḥerim, from ḥerem, the holy-war term for things "devoted to destruction" (as at Jericho). The Septuagint and Targum seem to read heḥeriv, "dry up," which fits the context. The two words differ by one letter. The Masoretic text as it stands applies ḥerem, the language of total war, to the sea itself.

The "tongue" of the Sea of Egypt is probably a gulf, such as the Gulf of Suez. The "River" is the Euphrates.

Ba'yam, "scorching," occurs only here, and its meaning is uncertain.

Splitting the river into seven streams makes it shallow enough to walk across in sandals. The Exodus crossing is repeated on two waters at once.

Verse 16
And there will be a highway for the remnant of his people who remain from Assyria, just as there was for Israel on the day they came up from the land of Egypt.

Mesillah is a built-up road, the "highway" of 35:8, 40:3, and 62:10. The phrase "the remnant of his people who remain" repeats v. 11 and closes the section.

The Exodus comparison is now explicit. Chapter 12, a song of thanksgiving, follows the way the Song of the Sea (Exod 15) follows the crossing.

Why this chapter matters for a theology of righteous power

Several threads here bear directly on how power is used:

• Might is joined to counsel as a gift of the Spirit (v. 2).
• Judgment rests on discernment, not appearances, and favors the weak (vv. 3–4).
• The ideal ruler's force works mainly through his word, yet it is not pacifist (v. 4).
• Righteousness and faithfulness are the ruler's battle gear (v. 5).
• The peaceable kingdom and a military campaign sit in the same chapter (vv. 6–9 and v. 14).
• Ḥerem, the vocabulary of total war, is turned against the forces of nature (v. 15).

How does D&C 113 compare with Jewish and Christian readings of the "rod" and "root?"

Almost every Jewish and Christian tradition reads Isaiah 11 as describing one royal figure: the shoot of verse 1, the Spirit-filled judge of verses 2–5, and the root of verse 10 are the same person. D&C 113 is unusual because it divides the imagery among three figures. It isn't the only reading ever to divide the imagery, though, and some of its features have surprising parallels.

What D&C 113 actually says

The revelation (Far West, March 1838) answers questions using the King James wording of verse 1: "there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots." It identifies:

• The stem of Jesse as Christ.
• The rod as a servant in the hands of Christ, descended from both Jesse and Ephraim (the house of Joseph), "on whom there is laid much power."
• The root of Jesse (v. 10) as a descendant of Jesse and Joseph to whom rightly belong the priesthood and the keys of the kingdom, "for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days."

It says nothing about the "Branch" of verse 1.

Two textual points matter. First, the KJV "stem" translates geza', the cut-down stump. In the Hebrew, then, D&C 113 identifies Christ with the trunk the new growth comes from, not with the growth itself. Every other tradition does the opposite and makes the Messiah the emerging shoot. Second, "upon him" in verse 2 refers grammatically to the shoot. So on D&C 113's reading, it's an open question whether verses 2–5 describe Christ or the servant. Most Latter-day Saint commentators still apply those verses to Christ.

The revelation doesn't name the servant. Several prominent Latter-day Saint writers, Bruce R. McConkie among them, have proposed Joseph Smith, whose patriarchal lineage was declared to be Ephraim. Others have suggested a future figure, or have taken the rod and the root to be the same person. The Church hasn't formally settled the question.

Jewish readings

Jewish tradition read the chapter messianically very early.

The Aramaic Targum makes this explicit in verse 1, roughly: "a king shall come forth from the sons of Jesse, and the Messiah shall be anointed from his sons' sons." It treats verse 10 the same way. Shoot and root are one king, the Messiah son of David.

At Qumran, the chapter was read as a war text. The Isaiah commentary 4Q161 applies verses 1–5 to the "Branch of David" who will arise at the end of days, rule the nations, and judge as the priests instruct him. The War Rule fragment 4Q285 has the Branch of David killing the leader of the Kittim, the sectarians' code name for their Gentile enemy, probably Rome. Here the "rod of his mouth" became a literal sword. Given your subject, this is worth noting as an early example of messianic prophecy used to justify holy war.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 93b) uses verse 3 as a test for a claimed messiah. Bar Kokhba, who led the revolt against Rome in 132–135 CE, is said to have claimed the title. The rabbis cited wa-hariḥo, the Messiah "smells and judges," meaning he judges by intuitive, Spirit-given discernment rather than evidence. When Bar Kokhba could not do this, they rejected him. Whatever its historical value, the story uses verse 3 as a safeguard against attaching messianic hopes to a military leader.

Medieval commentators such as Rashi and Radak read the chapter as describing the King Messiah. Some interpreters mentioned by Ibn Ezra applied verses 1–5 to Hezekiah instead. Maimonides (Laws of Kings, chapters 11–12) insisted that the Messiah is a fully human king, that the natural order will not change, and that the wolf and lamb are a parable for hostile nations.

The closest Jewish parallel to D&C 113 comes from outside Isaiah 11. The Talmud (Sukkah 52a) and later tradition describe a Messiah son of Joseph, an Ephraimite figure who comes before the Messiah son of David, fights Israel's enemies, and dies in battle. Jewish tradition does not derive him from this chapter, and he differs from D&C 113's servant in important ways. Still, both traditions picture a latter-day figure from Joseph's line who prepares the way for the Davidic king. That fits well with verse 13's reconciliation of Ephraim and Judah, and some Latter-day Saint writers have made the connection.

Christian readings

The New Testament uses both images for Jesus. Romans 15:12 applies verse 10's "root of Jesse" to Christ as the hope of the Gentiles. Revelation 5:5 calls him the "Root of David," and 22:16 calls him "the root and the offspring of David." In that last phrase he is both the source of David's line and its descendant, which comes close to D&C 113's idea of Christ as the stump. Matthew 2:23 probably plays on nēṣer, "shoot," with "Nazarene."

The Latin tradition also split the imagery, in a different way. Jerome's Vulgate reads verse 1 as virga de radice Iesse … et flos: a rod (virga) from the root of Jesse, and a flower (flos). Jerome and later writers connected virga with virgo, "virgin," so the rod became Mary and the flower became Christ. This reading produced the medieval Tree of Jesse in art (the famous window at Chartres, for example), the carol "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming," and the Advent antiphon "O Radix Jesse." So Christians also found two figures in verse 1: the Messiah and a human instrument through whom he comes.

The Reformers returned to a single Christological figure. Calvin emphasized the stump as a sign that Christ would come when David's house had fallen to nothing, a carpenter's family in Nazareth.

Modern historical-critical scholarship usually reads verses 1–9 as an 8th-century hope for an ideal Davidic king, and often treats verses 10–16 as a later expansion from the exile. On that view, the "root" of verse 10 reinterprets the "shoot" of verse 1 for a gathering of the dispersed.

How they compare

Question	Jewish tradition	Mainstream Christian	Latin/medieval Christian	D&C 113
Who is the shoot/rod?	Messiah son of David	Christ	Mary (virga)	A latter-day servant of Jesse and Ephraim
Who is the stump/stem?	Jesse's reduced line	Jesse's reduced line	Jesse's line	Christ
Who is the root (v. 10)?	Same Messiah	Christ	Christ	A latter-day holder of priesthood keys
Is the ensign a person or an institution?	The Messiah	Christ, and the gospel to the Gentiles	Christ	Priesthood keys for the gathering

Compared with these traditions, D&C 113 does four distinctive things:

1. It places Christ at the source rather than the growth.
2. It creates room for a subordinate latter-day agent who carries "much power" under Christ, which none of the other traditions derive from this text.
3. It gives that agent a Josephite lineage, which ties Isaiah 11 to the Ephraim–Judah reconciliation of verse 13.
4. It turns the military banner of verses 10–12 into priesthood authority, so the gathering happens through keys rather than armies.

That last point sets it apart from the Qumran reading, which took the same banner and the same "rod of his mouth" in a literal military direction. For a book about the proper use of power, the contrast is useful. The same chapter has been read as a charter for holy war (Qumran), as a warning against military messianism (the Bar Kokhba story), and as a mandate for gathering by delegated authority (D&C 113).

Claude is AI and can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.