Isaias 48:12
Hearken to me, O Jacob, and thou Israel whom I call: I am he, I am the first, and I am the last.
Open Isaias 48:12 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Audi me, Jacob, et Israël, quem ego voco : ego ipse, ego primus, et ego novissimus.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Ἄκουέ μου, Ἰακώβ, καὶ Ἰσραὴλ ὃν ἐγὼ καλῶ· ἐγώ εἰμι πρῶτος, καὶ ἐγώ εἰμι εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα,
- Hebrew (WLC)
- שְׁמַ֤ע אֵלַי֙ יַֽעֲקֹ֔ב וְיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מְקֹרָאִ֑י אֲנִי הוּא֙ אֲנִ֣י רִאשׁ֔וֹן אַ֖ף אֲנִ֥י אַחֲרֽוֹן
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian Against Hermogenes, The Shifts to Which Hermogenes is Reduced, Who Deifies Matter, and Yet is Unwilling to Hold Him Equal with the Divine Creator
He declares that God’s attribute is still safe to Him, of being the only God, and the First, and the Author of all things, and the Lord of all things, and being incomparable to any, qualities which he straightway ascribes to Matter also. He is God, to be sure. God shall also attest the same; but He has also sworn sometimes by Himself, that there is no other God like Him. Hermogenes, however, will make Him a liar. For Matter will be such a God as He, being unmade, unborn, without beginning, and without end. God will say, “I am the first!” Yet how is He the first, when Matter is co-eternal with Him? Between co-eternals and contemporaries there is no sequence of rank. Is then, Matter also the first? “I,” says the Lord, “have stretched out the heavens alone.” But indeed He was not alone, when that likewise stretched them out, of which He made the expanse. …
St Augustine City of God, That in the Books of the Old Testament, Where It is Said that God Shall Judge the World, the Person of Christ is Not Explicitly Indicated, But It Plainly Appears from Some Passages in Which the Lord God Speaks that Christ is Meant
There are many other passages of Scripture bearing on the last judgment of God, so many, indeed, that to cite them all would swell this book to an unpardonable size. Suffice it to have proved that both Old and New Testament enounce the judgment. But in the Old it is not so definitely declared as in the New that the judgment shall be administered by Christ, that is, that Christ shall descend from heaven as the Judge; for when it is therein stated by the Lord God or His prophet that the Lord God shall come, we do not necessarily understand this of Christ. For both the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the Lord God. We must not, however, leave this without proof. …
St John Damascene An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Regarding the things said concerning Christ
The things said, then, that refer to the period before the union will be applicable to Him even after the union: but those that refer to the period after the union will not be applicable at all before the union, unless indeed in a prophetic sense, as we said. Those that refer to the time of the union have three modes. For when our discourse deals with the higher aspect, we speak of the deification of the flesh, and His assumption of the Word and exceeding exaltation, and so forth, making manifest the riches that are added to the flesh from the union and natural conjunction with the most high God the Word. And when our discourse deals with the lower aspect, we speak of the incarnation of God the Word, His becoming man, His emptying of Himself, His poverty, His humility. For these and such like are imposed upon the Word and God through His admixture with humanity. …
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter IX. The objection that the Son, being sent by the Father, is, in that regard at least, inferior, is met by the answer that He was also sent by the Spirit, Who is yet not considered greater than the Son. Furthermore, the Spirit, in His turn, is sent by the Father to the Son, in order that Their unity in action might be shown forth. It is our duty, therefore, carefully to distinguish what utterances are to be fitly ascribed to Christ as God, and what to be ascribed to Him as man
75. Regard not, therefore, the narrow bounds of human language, but the plain meaning of the words, and believe facts accomplished. Bethink you that our Lord Jesus Christ said in Isaiah that He had been sent by the Spirit. Is the Son, therefore, less than the Spirit because He was sent by the Spirit? Thus you have the record, that the Son declares Himself sent by the Father and His Spirit. “I am the beginning,” He saith, “and I live for ever, and My hand hath laid the foundations of the earth, My right hand hath made the heaven to stand abidingly;” and further on: “I have spoken, and I have called; I have brought him, and have made his way to prosper. Draw ye near to Me, and hear these things: not in secret have I spoken from the beginning. …
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter IX. Various quibbling arguments, advanced by the Arians to show that the Son had a beginning of existence, are considered and refuted, on the ground that whilst the Arians plainly prove nothing, or if they prove anything, prove it against themselves, (inasmuch as He Who is the beginning of all cannot Himself have a beginning), their reasonings do not even hold true with regard to facts of human existence. Time could not be before He was, Who is the Author of time--if indeed at some time He was not in existence, then the Father was without His Power and Wisdom. Again, our own human experience shows that a person is said to exist before he is born
108. But neither had the Son of God any beginning, seeing that He already was at the beginning, nor shall He come to an end, Who is the Beginning and the End of the Universe; for being the Beginning, how could He take and receive that which He already had, or how shall He come to an end, being Himself the End of all things, so that in that End we have an abiding-place without end? The Divine Generation is not an event occurring in the course of time, and within its limits, and therefore before it time is not, and in it time has no place.
Aphrahat Aphrahat: Select Demonstrations, Of Christ the Son of God
7. How dost thou understand this? For one prophet says: Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place. And another said: I will dwell in them and walk in them. First, He became to us a dwelling-place, and afterwards He dwelt and walked in us. For the wise both things are true and simple. For David says: Thou, Lord, hast been our dwelling-place for generations, before the mountains were conceived and before the earth travailed, and before the world was framed. And thou knowest, my beloved, that all cre ated things that are above and that are beneath were created first, and after them all, man. …