Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Liz,

>> >God does not speak of himself in the third person.
>> >Where does that occur?
>>
>> Isaiah 45:1 is an example.
>
>Thus says YHWH to his anointed:
>"To Koresh whom I take by his right hand."
>This is not God speaking of himself in the third person.
>This is the prophet quoting what God said.

Liz, you can read it that way, but the NIV treated the speech as beginning
with "Thus says the Lord," without including an quotation marks before "To
Koresh." It is possible that the Lord begins a long address with "to
Cyrus," but it seems more natural to treat the verse with "to Koresh" as
appositional to "to his anointed."

Isa 48:14 seems another place, set as it is between verses 13 and 15, where
God is clearly the speaker.

Isa 51:3 seems another, set between verses 1-2 and 4, where God is the 
speaker.

Isa 54:6 seems particularly clear:

"The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed
in spirit--a wife who married young only to be rejected," says the Lord
your God.

See the speech in 55:3-5:

I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to
David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and
commander of the peoples. Surely you will summon nations you know not, and
nations that do not know you will hasten to you, because of the Lord your
God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with glory.

You can break off the last words as Isaiah's, but the NIV does not do so.

Likewise, God speaks in 55:8-11. You can break off verses 12-13 as Isaiah's
words, but the NIV does not do so.

Likewise, God speaks in Isa 60:15-17 and 21-22. It seems natural to think
that the Lord is speaking in 60:18-20 as well.

Isa 13:13: "Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will
shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his
burning anger."

Since Isaiah speaks for God, there is little reason to make a big fuss
about who is talking. But I am comfortable, after many years of reading the
Bible, with the idea that God at times speaks of himself in the third
person.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard