Isaiah 48 – Whom Did God Send?
9 For My name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for My praise will I refrain for thee, that I cut thee not off.
10 Behold,I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction.
11 For Mine own sake, even for Mine own sake, will I do it: for how should My name be polluted? and I will not give My glory unto another.
12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, My called; “I am He. I, the first, I also the last
13 Mine hand laid the foundation of the earth; My right hand has spanned the heavens. I call to them, they stand up together.
14 All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? The LORD (YHWH) hath loved him: He will do His pleasure on Babylon, and His arm shall be on the Chaldeans
15 I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.
16 Come near to Me; hear this: I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. From the time that it was, there [am] I; and now Adonai YHWH and His Spirit (ruach) have sent me..
17 Thus says YHWH your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I YHWH your Elohyim, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go.”
18 O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea:
19 Thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof; his name should not have been cut off nor destroyed from before Me.
20 Go forth of Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The LORD hath redeemed His servant Jacob
21 And they thirsted not when He led them through the deserts: He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: He clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.
22 There is no peace, saith the LORD, unto the wicked.
The speaker throughout the passage is YHWH God. YHWH chose Israel, it is for the sake of God’s name that Israel is preserved. It is YHWH who will not give His glory to another, and Who is the ‘first and the last’. YHWH called and brought “him” who would have his way upon the Chaldeans. This is confirmed in v 17, when Isaiah wrote, “Thus says YHWH your redeemer…YHWH Elohyim who teaches you to profit…” The entire passage, which is prophecy and therefore a pronouncement from YHWH God, is spoken in the first-person as God.
Therefore the speaker in v 16 who refers to himself as being someone whom “Adonai YHWH” and “His Spirit” ‘have sent” must also be YHWH . There is no change of speaker in this single verse, to change the identity of the first-person singular pronoun used throughout the chapter.
V 16 shows individuality of Adonai YHWH , individuality of “His Spirit” as two having independent action, and individuality of the speaker both previously and subsequently identifiedby himself as YHWH, [their] Redeemer, “I YHWH your Elohyim”. Three individuals identified, two named as YHWH , and two stated to perform a function, affecting a third.
Moreover v 16 says that the speaker ‘was’ from the time that it was – he is eternal – and that He spoke in the beginning. Gen 1 clearly states that God spoke in the beginning, and ‘it’ became. There is no other entity identified as being in existence at the time when God spoke creation. Until God created time, it did not exist. Since all creatures, including ‘spirit creatures’ (angels) are created, they could only exist in time. They did not exist prior to ‘time’, or in ‘eternity’ past.
The statement is that the Speaker ‘was’ and ‘spoke’ from the beginning, and ‘has now’ been sent by YHWH and His Spirit.
All previous statements were made by “YHWH your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, ….YHWH your Elohyim who teaches you to profit…”
The conclusion then is that the speaker is YHWH, and He Who sent Him is also somehowYHWH. If YHWH is rightly called in the plural: Elohyim, or literally ‘mighties’, then Isaiah 48 suggests strongly that there are two members of a divine quantity Who are equally named “YHWH” – Who is that He is. If this conclusion is reasonable – and I maintain that it is not only reasonable but necessary and the only possible conclusion – it will be supported by other texts, which in fact it is. I intend over time to post a number of examples of Old Testament (Tanakh) texts that indicate a plurality of personalities within the quantity that is “God”. There is one God – Elohyim – and there is one YHWH; a corporate entity with three individual and separate members.
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