myBibleHistory

Journey of a Passage

Isaiah 48:16

"The Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me"

"And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me." A sudden first-person speaker: the prophet, the servant, or (in early Christian reading) the Son. The Hebrew can mean that God and his Spirit sent me, or that God sent me and his Spirit. The Hebrew witnesses agree (1QIsa-a; 4QIsa-d partly); the Greek and the Vulgate keep the same ambiguity.

Same letters, different readings: the consonants agree, but ancient readers vocalized or interpreted them differently

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

Every witness, in order

  1. 8th–6th century BC (by section; debated)

    The oracle as first spoken or written

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. The oldest copies of Isaiah are the Qumran scrolls: the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa-a, about 125 BC, nearly complete), 1QIsa-b (1Q8) and some twenty other fragmentary manuscripts.

  2. c. 125 BC (palaeography; reported)

    Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa-a), Qumran Cave 1

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The oracle as first spoken or written

    How the site knows this: Described from a published transcription of the manuscript. Described in the site's own words from Martin Abegg's transcription (ETCBC/CACCHT Dead Sea Scrolls dataset v2.0.5); the transcription itself is not reproduced. Photographs and DJD XXXII not yet checked.

    Hebrew numbering: Isaiah 48:16. "And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit" as in the Masoretic Text; earlier in the verse "at the time" for "from the time," and a short erasure. Otherwise the differences are of spelling (fuller use of vowel letters) and small grammatical forms.

  3. 1st century BC – 1st century AD (reported)

    4QIsa-d (4Q58), Qumran Cave 4

    ◐ Contains part of itDescends, through lost copies, from The oracle as first spoken or written

    How the site knows this: Described from a published transcription of the manuscript. Described in the site's own words from Martin Abegg's transcription (ETCBC/CACCHT Dead Sea Scrolls dataset v2.0.5); the transcription itself is not reproduced. Photographs and DJD XXXII not yet checked.

    Hebrew numbering: Isaiah 48:16. A fragmentary copy: only parts of these verses survive, and in the transcription much of the passage is restored by the editors. Preserves parts of the verse, including "sent me" in part, agreeing with the Masoretic Text.

  4. Jerome c. AD 400, from Hebrew; edition 1592

    Latin Vulgate (Clementine)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Hebrew text Jerome used

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Accedite ad me et audite hoc: non a principio in abscondito locutus sum: ex tempore antequam fieret, ibi eram: et nunc Dominus Deus misit me, et spiritus ejus.

    Latin numbering: Isaiah 48:16. Jerome translated Isaiah from Hebrew (c. AD 400).

  5. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from The oracle as first spoken or written

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    קִרְב֧וּ אֵלַ֣י שִׁמְעוּ־זֹ֗את לֹ֤א מֵרֹאשׁ֙ בַּסֵּ֣תֶר דִּבַּ֔רְתִּי מֵעֵ֥ת הֱיוֹתָ֖הּ שָׁ֣ם אָ֑נִי וְעַתָּ֗ה אֲדֹנָ֧י יְהוִ֛ה שְׁלָחַ֖נִי וְרוּחֽוֹ׃

    Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time it came to be, I was there. And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit

    Hebrew numbering: Isaiah 48:16.

  6. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    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.

  7. Greek translation c. 2nd century BC; French 1872

    Greek Isaiah (library: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from the Old Greek Isaiah

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    Approchez-vous de moi, écoutez ce que je vais vous dire Dès le commencement je n’ai point parlé en secret; quand les choses ont été résolues, j’étais là, et maintenant le Seigneur Maître m’a envoyé, et avec lui son Esprit.

    Greek (digital file) numbering: Isaiah 48:16. Giguet's 1872 French of a printed Greek text (D check only); a C check needs Ziegler's Göttingen Isaiah or Rahlfs–Hanhart.

What changed, and why

Classification: stable text; an interpretive question of speaker and syntax.

Compare 61:1, "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me."

Origen and other early Christian writers read the verse as Father and Spirit sending the Son (reported).

What the evidence shows

  • DisputedThe speaker of 48:16 is the prophet.
  • Independently documentedThe Hebrew of 48:16 is syntactically ambiguous.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Isaiah 48: Go Ye Forth of Babylon →Jacob swears by the LORD's name, "but not in truth" (48:1–2). God announced former things beforehand because Israel was obstinate, "thy neck is an iron sinew", so they could not credit an idol (vv. 3–5); now he announces new things, hidden until now (vv. 6–8). For his name's sake he restrains his anger: "I have refined thee, but not with silver; I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction" (vv. 9–11). The LORD loves the one who will do his will on Babylon (vv. 12–15). "And now the Lord God, and his Spirit, hath sent me" (v. 16). "O that thou hadst hearkened… then had thy peace been as a river" (vv. 17–19). "Go ye forth of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans"; water from the rock. "There is no peace, saith the Lord, unto the wicked" (vv. 20–22).