The Sender and the Sent

Isaiah 48:16

The Sender and the Sent

One Sender, His own Spirit, and a comma the Hebrew never wrote

The only second sender ever found here was placed by a comma --- and a comma is not God.

--- The Standing Stone ---

Behind “LORD” in your Bible lies a hidden name --- in the Hebrew it is Yahuah Psalm 83:18**; Yahuah is the Father** Isaiah 63:16**; Yahuah is the only God, beside Him there is no other** Isaiah 45:5**; therefore Yahuah the Father is the only true God, leaving no room for a second or third person** 1 Corinthians 8:6**.**

Isaiah 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 (Yahuah), and his Spirit, hath sent me.

1 --- The Verse and What Is Read Into It

This verse is brought forward as one of the clearest proofs that three persons live inside the one God. The reasoning runs like this. A speaker is talking. He says he has been sent. And he names who sent him: “the Lord GOD, and his Spirit.” So in one short line you seem to have three at once --- the One who sends, the Spirit who sends with Him, and the one who is sent. Put a name on each and you have a Father, a Spirit, and a Son standing together in a single sentence of the Old Testament.

It looks tidy. But the whole picture rests on two tiny things printed on the page --- a comma and a capital letter --- and on a guess about who the “me” is. Take those away and look at the Hebrew underneath, and the verse says something very different. It says exactly what the rest of the chapter has been saying all along.

2 --- A Chapter About One Thing

Isaiah 48 is a single speech, and it has one theme from start to finish. Yahuah is proving that He alone is God by one simple test: He tells you things before they happen. Isaiah 48:3 --- “I have declared the former things from the beginning.” Isaiah 48:5 --- “Before it came to pass I shewed it thee.” No idol can do that. That is the argument of the whole chapter.

So when the speaker says, “I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I,” he is making that same point one more time. I told you openly. I was there when it happened. This is Yahuah’s signature, repeated all through the chapter. It belongs to Him.

Hold on to that, because the reading we are testing has to quietly take this line away from Yahuah and hand it to somebody else.

3 --- What the Hebrew Actually Says

Here are the last words of the verse, in the order the Hebrew puts them.

שְׁלָחַנִי וְרוּחוֹ

shelachani we-rucho

He has sent me --- and his spirit

Read the order slowly. The verb comes first: “He has sent me.” Then, after the verb, comes “and his spirit.” In the Hebrew, “his spirit” does not stand out front as one of the senders. It trails behind the verb.

And the verb is singular. “He sent.” One sender, not two. If the Lord GOD and the Spirit were two persons sending together, the plain way to say it would be “they sent.” It is not written that way. It is one hand: He sent me.

So the bare Hebrew reads: “And now the Lord GOD (Yahuah) has sent me --- and his spirit.” One Sender, Yahuah. And His own Spirit named after the verb, either as what He also sends, or as the power by which He sends.

4 --- The Comma Was Added

Open a King James Bible and you see it punctuated this way: “the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.” Those two commas fence off “and his Spirit” and lift it up front, so it reads like a second person doing the sending. But Hebrew has no commas. None at all. Every comma in your English Bible was placed there by a translator. They are helps for the eye. They are not the words of Yahuah.

This is not a new idea. Even old, careful translators of Isaiah kept the Hebrew order --- “hath sent me, and his Spirit” --- because they could see that the common English wording quietly hides a meaning the original makes plain.

And the English Bibles do not even agree among themselves. Several keep the Hebrew order, with “his spirit” after the verb. Others go further and make the Spirit the means, not a second sender --- one reads, “By the power of his Spirit the Lord God has sent me.” Once the Spirit is the power by which Yahuah sends, the idea of two senders is gone entirely.

And this is not some modern way of slipping around the verse. Long before the church ever wrote down its creeds, early readers already understood the line to mean that both the Messiah and the Spirit were sent by the Father --- neither one a second sender. The plain reading is the old reading.

5 --- “There Am I” Is Not “I AM”

One more move has to be answered. Some hear the words “there am I” and reach for the great name of God, the “I AM” of Exodus. They say only a divine person could speak this way, so the “me” who is sent must be God the Son talking before His birth.

But the Hebrew here is not the divine Name. It is two plain words.

שָׁם אָנִי

sham ani

there --- I; that is, “I am there,” a word of place

“Sham” means “there.” “Ani” means “I.” Put together they say, “I am there” --- a statement about being present, not a claim to the eternal Name. There is no “I AM” in this verse at all. That belongs to another passage with different words.

And the presence it speaks of is presence at the very events Yahuah has been announcing --- “from the time that it was, there am I,” meaning, when the thing came to pass, I was on the scene. Careful translators agree this line is almost certainly not a claim about existing before the world. It is about being present at what was foretold.

6 --- “Sent” Settles It

Now take the strongest form of the other reading. Suppose the “me” is the Messiah, Yahushua, speaking ahead of time. Even then the verse does not hand you a second God. It hands you the opposite.

Look at the one word that decides everything: sent. The one who is sent stands under the one who sends him. Yahushua said it Himself --- a servant is not greater than his master, and the one who is sent is not greater than the one who sent him John 13:16. To be sent is to be given a task by someone higher. It marks rank, and the rank is below.

This is exactly the picture Isaiah paints of the coming servant. Isaiah 42:1 --- “Behold my servant… I have put my spirit upon him.” Isaiah 61:1 --- “The Spirit of the Lord GOD (Yahuah) is upon me; because the LORD (Yahuah) hath anointed me.” The same three pieces appear every time: Yahuah, His Spirit, and a servant whom He fills and sends. That is the role of Yahushua --- sent, anointed, carrying His Father’s word. It is not the role of a second God who shares the throne.

Conclusion

The Verdict

Read it slowly, the way the Hebrew lays it down. Yahuah, the only One who can tell the end from the beginning, has hidden nothing. He was present at every word He foretold. And now He sends His servant, by His own Spirit, to carry the message home.

There is no committee in this verse. There is a King, His own breath, and a messenger under orders. Everything the speaker claims --- the open speaking, the being there when it happened --- the chapter has already claimed for Yahuah alone.

The only second sender ever found in Isaiah 48:16 was placed there by a comma --- and a comma is not God.