Christ is the 'root', he is the offspring of David, and the 'root of Jesse'. What is the 'root and offspring of David' but the 'root of Jesse'? A complete commentary on D&C 113 is not needed here in this discussion but such a commentary can be found with this link for those who wish to further consider the matter. And as to limiting the 'umbrella' of just whom the 'root of Jesse' may or may not cover to just Jesus Christ or to just Joseph Smith, I would caution against such views as they in their enthusiasm tend to begin to attribute scripture which is purely messianic to others, including to Joseph Smith. To this end I will quote Elder Bruce R. McConkie speaking about one such overly enthusiastic application of what is being spoken of which he references as the 'Davidic Myth'.

"The wresting of the written word assumes that someone of prophetic stature will arise in the Church in the last days, to preside as a Second David, and prepare the way before the Second Coming of the Son of Man. That there may be one or many brethren called David who preside over the Church in this dispensation is of no moment. The scriptures that speak of King David reigning in the last days are Messianic, they have reference to the Millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ." ~ Bruce R. McConkie, 'A New Witness for the Articles of Faith', p. 518

It has been one of the criticisms that non-LDS have toward the Church is that we treat Joseph Smith as though he were the Christ, which indeed he is not. They state that we worship Joseph Smith and not Jesus Christ. While part of this comes from the fact that we treat Joseph Smith with the respect due a prophet of God and revere him as such, even the very prophet of the seed of Joseph of Egypt's promises, there is another lurking danger, which we may have already, began to fall into.

That danger is to begin to apply to Brother Joseph various scriptural verses, which are only attributable to the Lord, even Jesus Christ. This falls out of attempting to make of Joseph Smith to be one and the same as the 2nd century AD Rabbinical Messiah Ben Joseph. Messiah Ben Joseph is first formally recognized separate from the single Messiah doctrine when the so called Classical Jewish Rabbis began to divide the two various aspects of Christ's two various comings, missions and visits into two separate characters. The eminent Jewish scholar Raphael Patai, who "taught Hebrew at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem" and served as Professor of Anthropology at Dropsie University, said this of the two-messiah theory:

"When the death of the Messiah became an established tenet in Talmudic times, this was felt to be irreconcilable with the belief in the Messiah as Redeemer who would usher in the blissful millennium of the Messianic Age. The dilemma was solved by splitting the person of the Messiah in two: one of them, called Messiah ben Joseph, was to raise the armies of Israel against their enemies, and, after many victories and miracles, would fall victim Gog and Magog. The other, Messiah ben David, will come after him (in some legends will bring him back to life, which psychologically hints at the identity of the two), and will lead Israel to the ultimate victory, the triumph, and the Messianic era of bliss." (Patai, Raphael, The Messiah Texts, Avon Books, (c) 1979, p. 166)

And since the men of Judah who were responsible for the compilation of the Bible after the Babylonian captivity did in large part lacked the prophetic enlightenment to properly comprehend the scriptures which they did select and archive, their understanding and interpretation of such has become quite muddled. They not only failed to keep the truth about the Christ straight but they began to pick and chose what did and what did not apply to him or to the two Messiahs which they later thus created.

Scriptures such as the two dead prophets of the last wars about Jerusalem who would lie dead in the streets became incorporated into the the 'suffering' Messiah legend, thus removing him even further from the life of Jesus. And The redeeming Savior of the World became but the one time visitor we know as the Christ of the Second Coming. And the arguments have prevailed as to what and which apply to each of the two Messiah's to the point that there is little agreement at all about who and what they truly are. And many a modern Jewish person has even taken to not believing in any type of Messiah figure at all due to the resulting confusion.

And then today, some of our own scholars and writers have endeavored to barrow the confused creation of the two Messiah's and further apply them to Joseph Smith being Messiah ben Joseph and leaving Christ as but Messiah ben David. This does not help much when a enlightened scholar reviews the LDS position, only to find it hip deep in this controversy but with an all together differing twist of making one of its own prophets into a 'Messiah.'

True, Joseph Smith is a descendant of Ephraim, as a great number of us are. Thus he is a 'son of Joseph' in the same sense that many of us are. And true, Joseph Smith's calling was foreordained and he was anointed to become the Lord's prophet of the latter-days, the very promised prophet of the promises of Joseph of Egypt. And as concluded, the Prophet Joseph Smith has done more than any other person save Jesus Christ himself toward the ends of the salvation of mankind by being the instrument of the restoration (D&C 135:3). But Brother Joseph is not the Messiah and should not be associated with the taking upon himself a definition which would bestow upon him the very scriptural attributes that are singular to the only one and true Messiah of the World, even Jesus Christ, Jehovah.

In confusing Messiah Ben Joseph with Joseph Smith, as some have done, this is what is placed before the world. The suffering Messiah who died that we might live was Jesus Christ. And just because the Jews and even most of the rest of the world cannot reconcile how he can be both a descendant from Joseph by legal right and of Judah by bloodline, is no reason to begin to disassemble his parts and attribute them to another. Joseph Smith is not the author of such thinking. Such has evolved out of too intellectual a consideration of the things of God above what the Spirit of God would otherwise reveal. And as providence would dictate, it is the learned scholarly who have taken such liberties by the assumptive knowledge which their higher levels of the learning of men have elevated them to in their pride of their educational and scholarly prowess.

This has and is occurring in relation to Isaiah 11 which is Messianic in its content through the learned scholar's dissection of it without the required spirit of revelation to guide them beyond their supposed assumptive understandings of the matter. But it comes from mixing oranges with apples and coming out with a mixed fruit product which is not the pure truth of the matter.

Joseph Smith is the anointed prophet and head of this latter-day dispensation of time who was anointed and called as was all such prophets of God before the foundation of the world. And he is the promised prophet of the prophecies of Joseph of Egypt that would be raised up in these latter-days. Yet as great as that makes him, he is not the Messiah and does not merit the title, Messiah ben Joseph.

Next comes the question, was there to be a Messiah ben Joseph according to the scriptures of God's word. And the answer to that is yes, as supported by the evidences here in established. In fact Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David are one and the same person. The misunderstanding comes from who King David and his father Jesse and his grandfather Obed really were. It is true that they were of the bloodline of Judah through the Jewish man named Boaz. But Boaz fully understood what it was he was doing in marrying Ruth and raising up seed unto the dead. His first born son, who Obed was, was the legal and rightful seed of Ruth's first husband Mahlon and of the house of Elimelech.

Why the Jewish compilers of the scriptures did not provide that lineage line of the rightful ancestors of Obed, Jesse and David or more likely keep it preserved likely lies in the envy and vexation between Ephraim and Judah. There is no logical reason why the Jewish Biblical compilers of the Old Testament would make this oversight as they were sticklers for the letter of the law. And the Law of Moses clearly established that Obed was the rightful heir and legal seed of the house of Elimelech and his son Mahlon and not Boaz, as good of a man and person he may well have been.

The full implications of the 'rod of the stem of Jesse' can only be summarized here. What well trained grade school child could not diagram the compound sentence structure of Isaiah 11:1 and denote that the joint subjects of the parallelism of that verse was not the Rod and the Branch? And what well trained Christian Bible student would not have known the identity of he who was the Rod and the Branch to be but the Messiah, Jesus Christ? When Joseph Smith asked the poorly formed question that placd a prepositional phrase as the direct object of the pronoun of, "Who was [of] the stem of Jesse?', the Lord answered though Joseph 'It is Christ.' The true antecedent of the pronoun 'who' was the Rod and the Branch. And Jesus answered referring to himself, the Christ, in the third person pronoun 'it' refering to the symbolic Rod and/or Branch. And he used 'it' because the question as stated was really asking after a 'thing' rather than a person. The question as stated in best translated as, 'Who is the posterity of Jesse?' Thus 'it' equates to 'posterity' rather than a person which would have been 'he' in it proper third person pronoun usage form.

"What man has not taken his own life into his own hands and so shaped and formed it into what it has become? Who is there that does not take that responsibility upon himself when he enters into this mortality?" ~ Author

What did Jephthah state to the Ephraimites who questioned him concerning his actions? Did he not state the underlying truth of life when he said, "When I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life in my hands, ... ?" (Judges 12:3) And when in premortality, who did not take his own agency unto himself and choose between Lucifer, and God and Jehovah? So also has Christ, he being but a servant unto God, taken his own life into his own hands by the exercise of his own agency to come down to earth and according to his own design chosen to suffer, bleed, and die for man. For no man had power to take His life from Him, but that he gave it freely of his own agency, of his own hand and of his own will. Therefore he was "a servant in the hands of Christ" who was but himself who did control his own life by his own agency even as we all have done who have come to earth to exercise our own agencies in our own behalf unto the attaining to the degree of our own determined rewards to be received, "for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts." (D&C 29:7)

"What is the rod spoken of in the first verse of the 11th chapter of Isaiah, that should come of the Stem of Jesse?
"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." ~ Doctrine and Covenants | Section 113:3-4

Christ was only partly descended of man, he being the Son of Man, even of that Man of Holiness who is the Celestial Heavenly Father of the spirits of us all. And that part that was of Mary was that which was "of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or of the house of Joseph." This was and is of direct line or lineal descent. Obed was the first born son of Ruth, the wife of Mahlon who was as was he father an Ephrathite meaning Ephraimite. And not only Ephraimite, but they were the heirs of the patriarchal birthright of the covenant of Joseph, the last great Patriarch of the Patriarchal Order by whom the rights of the earthly line of the high priesthood of God did remain with man on earth. Obed like his son Jesse were also Ephrathites meaning Ephraimites. Boaz, according to the Law of Moses, the Law of God, was but the surrogate who provided seed to be raised up unto the dead, the house of Mahlon, Elimelech and Naomi (Deut. 25:5-10; Ruth 4:5 & 10 & 14-17). And may it be noted here that the editors and scribes of later years divided the chapters that became the book of Ruth from the prophet written words from the end of the book of Judges. And it was they who added verses 18-22 as Jewish commentary that ought to be matched with that commentary of 1 Chronicles 5:1-2, which speaks of the birthright being of Joseph's and his sons, but they, the Jews, had determined to keep the genealogy of the Messiah to come after that of the surrogate bloodline of Judth. And that was in opposition to the intent of the good man Boaz and the Law of God as given in Deuteronomy. In short, the Messiah was and is of the house of Joseph, even Messiah ben Joseph.

When asked, 'What is the rod?' the Lord is left to only refer to the question 'what' in terms of 'it.' The 'rod' is but the symbol used to portray a person, Jesus Christ in this case as he is that 'branch', 'shoot', 'stem', 'staff' and/or 'rod'. If he would have been asked, 'Who' is the rod?, then he could have properly replied with the pronoun 'he' but instead, since he is asked about the 'symbol', it the rod, then he replies by adressing it as 'IT'. But as most every good Biblical scholar will tell you, the 'rod that shall come forth out of the stem of Jesse' stated in Isaiah 11:1 has direct reference to Jesus Christ and none other. Yet here, the Lord, as he frequently did in the scriptures, refers to himself by using third person pronouns. How often in the Old Testament did Jehovah state that he would put his spirit upon him when referring to himself in both instances of he and his, and him? (see Isaiah 42:1-4) This is the Lord saying of himself, 'I will put my spirit upon myself.' And that which is said and meant there is about the same as stating, 'I am the servant in my own hands' or 'I will take my life in my own hands.' And is that not the great purpose of mortality, for man to raise up and become self actuated by taking his own life into his own hands and making of it what he will? There is no inconsistancy to be found in the fact that the Lord speaks of himself in the third person of taking his own life into his own hands.

Thus of more than mere couriousity, one should consider just what was Christ's ancestry truly is. He had a mortal mother in Mary by which all his atested mortal ancestry and rights came by in association also with his being 'adopted' of Joseph the carpenter. Christ was only 'partly' of any mortal ancestry and He was partly, though assuredly dominately the literal 'Son of God' in the flesh. Now if I was to state that I was the a descendant of Ephraim as well as of Joseph, I would NOT be stating that I was necessarily of two differeing houses. Thus consider, if Christ is speaking of himself or Joseph Smith or some other in the following response.

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 the house of Joseph, on whom there is laid much power." ~ D&C 113:4

First the phrase 'a servant in the hands of Christ' ought to remove Jesus from consideration and insert such as Joseph Smith in this verse, for such was the case in the calling forth of Joseph Smith to be that promised prophet of the restoration, a descendant of Joseph as 2 Nephi 3 and JST Genesis 50 do report. That he is also 'partly descendant' only ought not to be of great surprise, for with the mixed marriages of man who would not be any more than such. But in spirit and influencial linage, as Brigham Young so states, Joseph was 'purely an Ephraimite'. Does this mean that Jesse is superimposed by Ephraim? Or in truth does it also mean that Jesse was legally and rightfully that 'Ephrathite' of Bethlehem, meaning considered to be legally and rightfully of the tribe of Ephraim also? And this as explained throughout this text.

Thus the phrase 'a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or the house of Joseph' could just as well include both Jesse as well as Ephraim in the logic flow of this verse as being of one singular and liniar ancestral house and that being the only 'house' so mentioned, the house of Joseph. That is the 'or' of 'or the house of Joseph' is in respect to both Jesse and Ephraim being of that same house of Joseph together. In this respect, it seems significant that the 'house of Judah' is NEVER mentioned. That is the house of Joseph is the sole ancestoral house of Ephraim as well as Jesse, and which Ephraim is who is in turn the 'in-line' ancestor of Jesse. Thus we have herein set out that this would be true of both Joseph Smith of and of Jesus Christ, whom the Apostle Paul would define that D&C 133 verses 5 and 6 speak of, as well as to possibly a number of others of this latter-day generation as well. They all were or are descendant from Jesse as well as Ephraim in an inline ancestral relationship just as I am descended from both my father and his father or my grandfather. Now we know that in the case of Joseph Smith, he was a 'pure Ephraimite' in terms of Israelite descent, which leads to and supports the conclusion that both his ancestors, Jesse, as well as Ephraim where of the house of Joseph. And that would make of Joseph Smith a 'pure Ephraimite' without any doubt if Jesse was considered legally of the house of Joseph as well as Ephraim. But Jesus Christ could also be considered as 'partly' of the house of Joseph as was Joseph Smith, he was 'pure Ephraimite' upon his mother Mary's part. But Christ could have only been 'partly' of the house of Joseph, as his father was God the Father, and Christ was only partly of mortal parentage. Thus the verse does well seem in this respect to imply that it is Christ and only Christ who is being spoken of here, the servant in his own hands doing his own work which he has been given to him to do of himself out side of the immediate presence of the Father here within this second estate mortal responsibility, for no other could have done the work which was given Him to so do.

Now Joseph Smith is the prophet who was to oversee the work outlined in verses 10-16 of Isaiah 11, but the questions of D&C 113:1-4 dealt with verses 1-5 and/or 9 of Isaiah 11, which all dealt with Christ and his work and mission. That is why Isaiah chapter 11 is a Messianic chapter, because the leading topic of the chapter deals with the Messiah, even Christ.

Now what that tends to reveal about Christ, the 'rod from the stem of Jesse,' is that he was legally the descendant of Ephraim or of the house of Joseph. And so was Obed, Jesse and David in the same manner. They were the blood of Judah, but their legal ancestry was that of the house of Elimelech and Mahlon which thus would be of the tribe of Ephraim and of the house of Joseph. This would make the Savior both Messiah Ben Joseph and Messiah Ben David as David himself was legally of the house of Ephraim though of the blood of Boaz and Judah.

And this would explain why Joseph's patriarchal blessing given by Jacob stated that 'from thence would be the shepherd and stone of Israel' and Judah's only referenced Shiloh and that the scepter would not pass from between his feet as in truth Obed, Jesse, and David where of the blood of Judah. They were produced by Boaz and Ruth though Boaz was legally raising up seed to the family of Elimelech and Mahlon and not his own house.