The use of OT Yahweh texts for Jesus

     In my post from last week, in which I reviewed and rebutted the arguments in Robert Bowman Jr. and J. Ed. Komoszewski’s book Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ, I was unfortunately unable to get to some of their arguments for lack of space. One of the main arguments that I didn’t get to rebut was the argument from the NT application of OT Yahweh texts to Jesus. This is often used as a slam-dunk argument by trinitarians; after all, if the authors of the New Testament directly quoted biblical texts about Yahweh and re-applied them to Jesus, doesn’t this mean that Jesus is Yahweh? In this blog post, I will be explaining the unitarian interpretation of OT Yahweh texts applied to Jesus.

    How do the New Testament authors quote the Old Testament?

One fact that is often forgotten in this debate is how loosely the authors of the New Testament quote the Old Testament. This is especially the case when it comes to Messianic prophecies; many of the prophecies cited in the New Testament to apply to Jesus originally referred to an individual or entity long before Jesus. One of the most famous examples of this is Matthew 2:14-15:

Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother at night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called My son.” [Hosea 11:1]

The prophecy quoted here, Hosea 11:1, clearly referred to Israel in its original context: “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I have called My son.”

    The same issue occurs in Matthew 1:23, where the author states that Jesus was born of a virgin to fulfill Isaiah 7:14, “The virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call him Immanu’el.” However, the original passage spoke of a child who was born in the 8th century BC, before Assyria’s conquest of Israel (Isa. 7:14-17). Furthermore, in Matthew 2:17-18, the author says that the slaughter of the infants in Bethlehem fulfilled Jeremiah 31:15: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” But the context of the original passage makes clear that this was about the 6th century BC exile of Judah to Babylon!

    So was the author of Matthew just completely ignorant about his own Scriptures? Of course not; if he knew of all of these prophecies, he should have known their immediate contexts as well. Rather, it was common in the first century AD for Jewish authors to interpret biblical passages symbolically, in reference to the events of their own time (a practice called “midrash”). This falls into two categories: remez, which is typological interpretation, and derash, which is application of a passage to the present-day based on one or more points of similarity. [1] Matthew’s citation of Hosea 11:1 was a form of remez, interpreting Israel as a type of Christ, whereas his citation of Isaiah 7:14 was derash, based on the fact that both the original child and Jesus were born of a young woman/virgin. [2]

    Matthew was not the only New Testament author to allegorically interpret the Old Testament. The gospel accounts repeatedly apply verses from the Psalms to Jesus, even though most of these passages were written in the first person by David and other pre-Exilic figures. [3] Paul also allegorically interpreted many Old Testament passages. [4] The Hebraist might be the most guilty of this, since he takes many Old Testament verses out of context and applies them to Jesus. For example, Psalm 2:7 (originally about David) is applied to Jesus in Heb. 1:5 and 5:5, Psalm 45:8 (originally about Solomon?) is applied to Jesus in Heb. 1:8, and Psalm 18:2, 22:22, and Isa. 8:18 are all applied to Jesus in Heb. 2:12-13.

    Therefore, when the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament, this doesn’t automatically mean that the original referent of the passage is the same as the referent of the New Testament passage. We should always be on the lookout to make sure that the passage isn’t being interpreted loosely or allegorically. This is important to take into account when we consider the ‘Yahweh texts’ applied to Jesus. Did the authors of the New Testament really intend to say that Jesus is the same as Yahweh, or were they using these passages in a more allegorical sense?

    How did ancient Jewish authors use ‘Yahweh texts’?

We’ve already seen that the authors of the New Testament frequently changed the referent of Old Testament passages to apply them to more current people and events. But did they do the same for texts about Yahweh, the God of Israel, or was this considered blasphemous? It must not have been considered sacrilegious, because there are numerous ancient Jewish texts that re-applied passages about God to other referents. Typically, this was only done for those considered agents of Yahweh.

    A major example of this re-use of ‘Yahweh texts’ is from the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Qumran community, specifically, the scroll labeled 11QMelch. This scroll took passages from the Psalms and Isaiah about God and re-applied them to Melchizedek, whom the Qumran community believed to be a celestial being that God would use to judge all people. 11QMelch states:

It is the time for the “year of the favor of” Melchizedek [Isa. 61:2] and of his armies, the nation of the saints of God, of the rule of judgment, as it is written about him in the songs of David, who said, “God will stand in the assembly of God, in the midst of the gods he judges.” [Psa. 82:1] And about him he said, “And above it, to the heights, return: God will judge the peoples.” [Psa. 7:8, 9]

As for what he said, “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?” [Psa. 82:2] Its interpretation concerns Belial and the spirits of his lot, who […] turning aside from the commandments of God to commit evil. But, Melchizedek will carry out the vengeance of God’s judgments.

The author of 11QMelch obviously did not believe that Melchizedek was God Himself, but that God would empower Melchizedek to carry out judgment in the last days. This author quoted Isaiah 61:2, which talks about the “year of the favor of Yahweh,” but replaced Yahweh’s name with Melchizedek’s. Likewise, he interpreted Psalm 82 (which is about God judging celestial beings) and Psalm 7 (which talks about Yahweh’s judgment) to refer to Melchizedek. This shows that at least some ancient Jewish authors had no qualms about applying Yahweh texts to agents of God.

    Many other Yahweh texts are used to refer to non-God entities in Jewish midrash. One example is Psalm 68:18, which states about Yahweh, “You have ascended on high and led captive the captives, You have received gifts from men”. Many ancient Jewish texts, rather than applying this to God, applied it to Moses by allegorically interpreting it as Moses’ ascent to Mt. Sinai. [5] This also happens to be one of the Yahweh texts applied to Jesus (Eph. 4:8). Another example is Isaiah 59:20, which says about Yahweh, “The Redeemer will come to Zion”; this is interpreted in b. Sanhedrin 98b as referring to the Messiah, and again by Paul as referring to Jesus (Rom. 11:26-27).

    There are several other examples of Yahweh texts that are sometimes, but not always, applied to non-God entities in ancient Jewish literature. For example, Deuteronomy 32:43 states, “Let all the angels of God worship Him.” This was applied to Yahweh in Targum Neofiti, but in other texts (Targum Onqelos and the Masoretic text) it was taken to refer to God’s people instead. This was applied to Jesus in Hebrews 1:6. Isaiah 60:1-2 says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come and the glory of Yahweh has risen upon you.” Most ancient Jewish texts apply this to Yahweh in line with what the text actually says, but two texts re-interpret “the glory of Yahweh” as “the light of the Messiah.” [6] Paul alludes to this passage when he says, “Awake, sleeper... and Christ will shine on you” (Eph. 5:14).

    Finally, one last Yahweh text which is applied to a non-God entity in Jewish midrash is Psalm 102:25-27. Whereas the Masoretic Hebrew text has the Davidic king speaking to God about His creation of the heavens and the earth, the Septuagint (LXX) replaces “I said” with “He answered him,” thus changing this passage into Yahweh speaking to another person about their creation of the heavens and the earth! [7] This may seem absurd, since the Old Testament is clear that God alone created the heavens and the earth (see esp. Isa. 44:24). However, in Jewish midrash, the Messiah was credited with a role in creation, because the spirit of Wisdom given to the Messiah was thought to be the same spirit involved in creation in Genesis 1:2. [8] Similar reasoning may have been involved in the LXX rendering of Psalm 102:25-27, as well as Hebrews 1:10-12 which quotes Psalm 102:25-27 (LXX) in reference to Jesus.

    Yahweh texts and Jesus in the New Testament

We’ve now seen how some Yahweh texts were interpreted in Jewish midrash, and how these methods of allegorical interpretation were also used by the authors of the New Testament. But are all of the Yahweh texts applied to Jesus in the New Testament allegorical, or were they intended to show that Jesus is actually Yahweh Himself? Let’s examine each of these passages in turn. Five of them were already mentioned above as being used midrashically in other Jewish texts, so we won’t cover those in this section.

    The first Yahweh text applied to Jesus in the New Testament is Isaiah 40:3: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of Yahweh, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” This is quoted in Matt. 3:3, Mark 1:3, and Luke 3:4, in reference to John the Baptist and Jesus. Since this is a Yahweh text applied to Jesus in the very first gospel (Mark), it’s sometimes thought to prove that the earliest Christians already believed that Jesus was Yahweh. However, NT scholar J. R. Daniel Kirk has noted that Mark actually modifies this verse and combines it with another Old Testament quotation (Exod. 23:20), thus changing the meaning of the text: [9]

...as it is written in Isaiah the prophet, “I [God] will send My messenger [John] ahead of you [Jesus], who will prepare your [Jesus’] way” — “a voice of one [John] crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord [Jesus], make straight his [Jesus’] paths.’” (Mark 1:2-3)

By adding in Exodus 23:20, Mark makes this about three people (God, Jesus, and John), instead of just two (God and His messenger). Furthermore, when quoting Isa. 40:3, Mark deliberately omits “our God,” replacing it with just “him,” which is difficult to explain if Mark was actually trying to say that Jesus is God. Therefore, this should be taken as an allegorical application of Isa. 40:3, rather than a declaration of Jesus’ deity.

    Another Yahweh text applied to Jesus is Zechariah 12:10, in which God says that “they will look upon Me, the one whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for him [sic] as one mourns for an only child”. This is applied to Jesus in John 19:37 and Revelation 1:7. However, in both cases this passage is quoted as saying, “They will look upon him whom they pierced.” For this reason, and because of the pronoun discrepancy in Zech. 12:10, some commentators have argued that the original Hebrew text referred to “him whom they pierced.” [10] Even if this isn’t the case, the fact that the text has been changed in the NT quotation implies that this is a midrashic reading, not a literal reading.

    The next Yahweh text applied to Jesus is Joel 2:32, which states, “everyone who calls upon the name of Yahweh shall be saved.” In the original context, this passage is about Israelites in Jerusalem being saved during the Day of the Lord. However, in Romans 10:9-13, Paul re-applies this passage to mean that everyone, Jew or Gentile, can be saved by calling on the name of “the Lord” (Jesus). Since this is not the original meaning of the passage, we can infer that Paul applying a midrashic interpretation, and we’re not meant to conclude that Jesus is Yahweh.

    Another Yahweh text is Isaiah 45:23, in which Yahweh swears that “every knee will bow to Me and every tongue will swear allegiance to God.” This is alluded to in Philippians 2:9-11, in which Paul says:

Therefore God highly exalted him and gave him the name above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father.

Many trinitarians believe that the application of Isa. 45:23 to Jesus proves that he is Yahweh Himself, but the context doesn’t support this. Paul says that Jesus deserves these honors because he was given God’s name, and that this is ultimately to the glory of God, the Father. Based on this, it’s most likely that Paul is applying this Yahweh text to Jesus as an agent of God, just as various Yahweh texts were applied to Melchizedek in 11QMelch.

    The next Yahweh text is Jeremiah 9:24:

“Let the one who boasts boast in this, that they understand and know Me, that I am Yahweh, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight,” says Yahweh.

Paul applies this to Jesus in 1 Corinthians 1:31 and 2 Corinthians 10:17. However, he shortens it to “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord [Jesus],” whereas the original passage talks about boasting in Yahweh’s attributes like lovingkindness and righteousness. In the previous verse, Paul stated that Jesus has become the embodiment of God’s attributes like wisdom, righteousness, and sanctification (1 Cor. 1:30). Therefore, by citing 1 Corinthians 1:31, Paul isn’t equating Jesus with Yahweh Himself, but with Yahweh’s attributes of lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness.

    The last Yahweh text applied to Jesus in the New Testament is Isaiah 8:12-13, in which God says to the prophet Isaiah, “Do not call conspiracy that which these people call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, or be in dread. But you shall regard Yahweh of hosts as holy”. In context, this passage is about not fearing Judah’s enemies. 1 Peter 3:14-15 states, “But even if you suffer for what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear them or be in dread, but regard Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts.” Clearly, this passage is alluding to Isa. 8:12-13, but the meaning is changed from “Do not fear what they fear” (Judah’s enemies) to “Do not fear them” (persecutors). Since this is a midrashic interpretation, the point isn’t to equate Jesus with Yahweh, but simply that we should trust Jesus rather than fear persecution.

    In summary, none of the Yahweh texts applied to Jesus in the New Testament actually imply that he is Yahweh Himself. Five of them are applied to non-God entities in other ancient Jewish texts (Deut. 32:43; Psa. 68:18; 102:25-27; Isa. 59:20; 60:1-2). The meanings of five other Yahweh texts have been changed in the New Testament, which means that these texts are being interpreted midrashically, and not indicating that Jesus is Yahweh (Isa. 8:12-13; 40:3; Jer. 9:24; Joel 2:32; Zech. 12:10). One last Yahweh text, Isa. 45:23, is applied to Jesus in a context where it is clear that he is given this privilege as an exalted agent of Yahweh (Phil. 2:9-11).

    Conclusion

Many trinitarians claim that because OT Yahweh texts are applied to Jesus in the NT, the authors of the NT must have believed that he was God Himself. This is one of the primary arguments for ‘early high Christology’ (the view that the earliest Christians believed Jesus was God). However, in other Jewish texts from the same time as the NT, Yahweh texts are applied to non-God entities, either because those entities are agents of God or because a midrashic interpretation is being applied. The NT also frequently uses Jewish midrash to interpret OT passages, and as it happens, this pertains to all of the Yahweh texts applied to Jesus. [11] In contrast, the Father is repeatedly the subject of Yahweh texts that are not interpreted midrashically (e.g., Mark 12:29-30). Therefore, the application of Yahweh texts in the NT is perfectly consistent with unitarian Christian belief.

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[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardes_(exegesis).

[2] The Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 states that the mother of the child was an almah, which simply means “young woman,” whereas the Greek translation in the Septuagint (which was used by the New Testament authors) refers to a parthenos (“virgin”).

[3] For example, see Psalm 2:7 in Acts 13:33, Psalm 22 in the crucifixion accounts of all four gospels, Psalm 41:9 in John 13:18, and Psalm 69:9 in John 2:17; as a counter-example, see Psalm 110:1, which was written in the third person and is widely considered to be a true Messianic prophecy.

[4] For example, see Hosea 1:10 and 2:23 in Romans 9:24-26; Deut 25:4 in 1 Cor. 9:9-10; 2 Sam. 7:14 in  2 Cor. 6:16-18; and Gen. 2:24 in Eph. 5:29-32.

[5] Targum Psalms 68.19; Ruth Rab. 2.3; Pesiqta Rab. 20.4; Bavli Shabbat 89a; Exodus Rab. 28.1.

[6] b. Sanhedrin 99a; Pesiqta Rabbati 36.2.

[7] B. W. Bacon, “Heb I, 10-12 and the Septuagint Rendering of Ps 102, 23,” ZNtW 3 (1902): 280-285; L. D. Hurst, “The Christology of Hebrews 1 and 2,” in The Glory of Christ in the New Testament, eds. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1987), 160-162.

[8] Genesis Rab. 2.4 equates the spirit of God which was involved in creation in Genesis 1:2 with “the spirit of King Messiah,” based on an allegorical interpretation of Isaiah 11:2; see also Midrash Tanhuma, Toledot 11, which credits the patriarch Jacob with creation by allegorically interpreting Jeremiah 10:16a.

[9] J. R. Daniel Kirk, A Man Attested by God: The Human Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016).

[10] Carol L. Myers and Eric M. Myers, Zechariah 9–14, Anchor Bible Series 25C (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 336.

[11] With the sole exception of Isa. 45:23, which is applied to Jesus in Phil. 2:9-11 by virtue of his being the human agent of God.