Context:
Isa 48:2 For they call themselves of the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel; The LORD of hosts is his name.
Isa 48:11 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.
Isa 48:12 Hearken unto me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.
Isa 48:13 Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together.
Isa 48:14 All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; which among them hath declared these things? The LORD hath loved him: he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall be on the Chaldeans.
Isa 48:15 I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous.
Isa 48:16 Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.
Isa 48:16 קרבו אלי שׁמעו־זאת לא מראשׁ בסתר דברתי מעת היותה שׁם אני ועתה אדני יהוה שׁלחני ורוחו׃
Isaiah 48:16 reveals Three Persons/Beings in context.
"... the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me."
"the Lord GOD" is the Person/Being of the Father in this verse.
"Spirit" is the Person/Being of the Holy Ghost/Spirit of "the Lord GOD" (the Father) in this verse.
"me" is the Person/Being of the Son of "the Lord GOD" in this verse, who is also identified in vss 12-13, as "I am ... the first and also the last", who hath "laid the foundation of the earth ... spanned the heavens", even "the LORD of hosts" in vs 2 (for the Son is the Captain over the armies of His Father, the Son is Michael archangel, being the highest messenger who is like unto God His Father).
Therefore according to the context, "The Lord GOD", and his "Spirit" had sent "the LORD of Hosts".
Is. 48:16 - Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now
the Lord G
OD [Jehovah], and his spirit, hath sent
me. - KJV.
Commenting on this scripture some trinitarians will say: "The speaker of Is. 48:16 is Jehovah as identified by context in the first part of the verse and as shown by his identification in verse 17 where he continues to speak. But notice that Jehovah, who is speaking, says: `The Lord G
OD [Jehovah] ... hath sent
me.' Therefore there must be at least two persons who are Jehovah!"
The answer to such "proof" is obvious: "speaker confusion." Isaiah, like most other Bible writers, often interspersed the conversation of one person with statements by others and often doesn't identify the new speakers. Very often they appear to be comments by Isaiah himself.
That this is very likely the case here is shown, not only by context, but by these modern trinitarian Bible translations: The
RSV and the
NIV Bibles (and others) show by quotation marks and indenting that
Isaiah himself made the final comment in Is. 48:16.
The
NAB also indicates a new speaker there, and, in the St. Joseph edition of the
NAB, a footnote for Is. 48:16 tells us that the final statement was made by
Cyrus! And the very trinitarian
Holy Bible:
Easy-
to-
Read Version, World Bible Translation Center, 1992, comes right out and says at Is. 48:16,
" 'Come here and listen to me! ... from the beginning, I spoke clearly, so that people could know what I said.' Then
Isaiah said, `Now the Lord [Jehovah] my master sends me and his Spirit to tell you these things.' "
The New English Bible (
NEB),
The Revised English Bible (
REB), and the Bible translation by Dr. James Moffatt (
Mo) consider the last statement of Is. 48:16 to be spurious and leave it out of their translations entirely.
Certainly these
trinitarian translations would have rendered this scripture (and punctuated it accordingly) to show a
two-Jehovah meaning (or given such an alternate rendering in the footnotes)
if their trinitarian translators had thought there was even the slightest justification for such an interpretation! (Also analyze Jer. 51:19 -
Jacob is the former of all things - Jehovah of hosts is his name, according to this trinitarian-type "speaker confusion" reasoning!)
Some notes by trinitarians on this scripture:
"The
prophet himself, as a type of the great prophet, asserts his own commission to deliver this message:
Now the Lord God (the same that spoke from the beginning and did not speak in secret)
has by his Spirit sent me,
v. 16." -
Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on the Whole Bible, Isaiah Chapter 48 verse 16.
.............................................
"And, like almost every other prophecy of Christ in the Old Testament, it is subject to
all kinds of interpretations.
Calvin and many other scholars have seen it as a prophecy of the
sending of Isaiah.
Barnes agreed with this, stating that, 'The scope of the passage
demands, it seems to me, that it should be referred to the prophet
Isaiah.'
"However, we believe that
Hailey is correct in his declaration that, 'The coming of Jesus is the theme of this prophecy; the entire Old Testament looks forward to
Christ's coming to carry forward the purpose of Jehovah; and the Holy Spirit would accompany Christ on that mission, and then complete the work after the Son's return to the Father; let it be remembered that the prophecy is here declaring new things to come in the future.'
"
Lowth explained the passage thus: 'Who is it that saith in Isaiah, "And now hath the Lord sent me and his Spirit"? in which, as the passage is
ambiguous, is it the Father and the Holy Spirit who hath
sent Jesus; or the Father who hath
sent both Christ and the Holy Spirit? The latter is the true interpretation.' The Father sent Jesus when he was born in Bethlehem; and the Father sent the Holy Spirit upon the occasion of the baptism of Christ (Matthew 3:16).
"Thus, as
Kidner put it, 'This is a glimpse from afar of the Trinity.' [?] As
Cheyne expressed it, 'I cannot but
think that we have both here and in Gen. 1:2 an early trace of what is known as the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit.' [?]
"
The speaker here is therefore, the pre-incarnate Christ who identifies himself as the one sent ... to convey God's message of salvation to mankind. ....
"
Jamieson, noting that
Isaiah, not Christ, is the author of the passage, stated that,
'Isaiah here speaks not in his own person so much as in that of the Messiah, to whom alone, in the fullest sense, the words apply.'" -
Coffman Commentaries on the Old and New Testament, Is. 48:16.