Isaiah 44:6 — I am the first and the last

“Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.”

Isaiah 44:6

Context: Deutero-Isaiah as a monotheistic manifesto

Isaiah 40–55 (so-called Deutero-Isaiah) is the theological summit of the Old Testament’s monotheistic language. Written in the Babylonian exile or immediately after it, the text stands within an intellectual-historical situation in which Israel is confronted with the religious plurality of Babylon: Marduk, Bel, Nabu, Ishtar and a whole pantheon of astral deities. The prophet does not respond to this with a comparison, but with a declaration of war: there is only one God. All others are nothing — wood, stone, illusion (Isa 44:9–20).

YHWH’s monotheistic self-statements become a recurring refrain in this writing: 41:4 (“I am the first, and with the last I am he”); 43:10 (“Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me”); 44:6 (“I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god”); 44:8 (“Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any”); 45:5 (“I am the LORD, and there is no other; besides me there is no God”); 45:21–22; 46:9; 48:12. This density is literarily and theologically without parallel.

44:6 itself stands out once more from this series, because here YHWH not only declares his uniqueness but also introduces himself with three titles: “LORD” (YHWH), “King of Israel,” “Redeemer” (gô’el). It is a self-authenticating opening formula, of the kind that also appears in the messenger formulae of the prophets, but here in unique density. The speaker legitimates himself before formulating the monotheistic peak statement. Whoever speaks like this knows no higher one — not in the sense of a hierarchy, but in the strict sense of the Shema: there is no other.

The wider context (44:7–8) reinforces this: YHWH challenges the gods of the nations to legitimate themselves by foretelling the future. They are silent. Only YHWH speaks and acts in history. The point is not philosophical (“ontologically only one divine being exists”), but experiential-theological: only YHWH is experienceable as the acting, speaking, liberating God. All others are ’eli’lim — nothings.

The phrase “and besides me there is no god” (’umibbal’aday ’ên ’elôhim) is the strongest possible grammatical form of negation: a prepositional exclusion formula (mibbal’aday = “without me, apart from me”) plus a negated existence predicate (’ên ’elôhim = “there is no god”). The statement leaves no room for a second magnitude alongside YHWH that could carry the designation “God” in the strict sense.

The Socinian core thesis

Socinianly, Isaiah 44:6 together with Deuteronomy 6:4 is the exegetical foundation of monotheism against which every later doctrine of God must be measured. If YHWH himself categorically declares that there is no God besides him, then the question how the New Testament situates Christ is not a question about a second person of the same God — but a question about the relation of Christ to the one God who is his Father.

The Racovian Catechism (1605), the theological compendium of the Polish-Brethren Socinianism, expressly cites Isa 44:6 in its discussion of how to handle the fact that Revelation transfers the title “the first and the last” onto Christ. Sozzini and his disciples insist on two things: first, that in the OT passages (Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12) the speaker is unambiguously YHWH; second, that the NT applications (Rev 1:17; 2:8; 22:13) transfer the title onto the Risen One without thereby abolishing the OT confession of YHWH’s uniqueness.

The solution of the Racovian Catechism is subtle and exegetically sustainable: Christ bears this title not essentially, but by conferral, and that with a view to his role in the economy of salvation. He is the first because he has been first called by the Father to this work, and he is the last because he will complete the same work (last judgement, consummation of the world). This application follows a linguistic pattern current in Scripture: what is said primarily of God can be transferred to his commissioned ones without their thereby becoming God themselves. So Moses too is called “Deliverer” and “God” (Exod 7:1; Acts 7:35) without being God in the strict sense.

From this it follows socinianly: Christ is the highest one authorized by the one God; his dignity is real and great, but it is received, not essential. He is the exalted mediator, set by the Father at his right hand (Phil 2:9; Heb 1:3–4); he is not the sender, but the sent one; not the one confessed, but the one confessing (Mk 12:29; John 17:3). Isaiah 44:6 thus remains untouched: besides YHWH there is no God.

The polemical edge against the doctrine of the Trinity runs as follows: if the one God of the Old Testament really is numerically one and tolerates no other beside himself, then the Niceno-Constantinopolitan conception of three consubstantial persons in one Godhead is a construction which does not honour the OT confession but softens it. The one God remains one — and Christ remains his sent Son, most highly honoured, but not himself the one God.

Core statement

Key terms

Four terms philologically decide the interpretation of Isaiah 44:6:

ri’shôn we’acharôn — “the first and the last”

The Hebrew formula ri’shôn we’acharôn appears in Deutero-Isaiah three times as God’s exclusive self-statement (Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12) and nowhere else in the Old Testament. In context it is not an ontological statement about timeless existence, but a salvation-historical statement about YHWH’s rule over the beginning and end of the history of salvation: he is the beginning of all works (creation) and the goal of all works (eschaton). No one has been before him, no one will be after him.

The Septuagint consistently translates prôtos kai eschatos. Precisely this formula appears in Revelation three times, transferred to the Risen One (Rev 1:17; 2:8; 22:13). The question of interpretation is not whether this application happens (it does happen), but how: as an essential identification of Christ with YHWH (trinitarian) or as a conferred salvation-title for the one exalted by the Father (Socinian). The Racovian Catechism decides exegetically for the second reading and adduces a whole series of analogous cases (see the Sozzini citations below).

mibbal’aday ’ên ’elôhim — “besides me there is no god”

The expression mibbal’aday is a prepositional exclusion formula meaning “without me, apart from me.” In the OT it belongs to the strongest forms of negation. ’ên is the negated existence predicate: “there is not.” The whole expression means literally: “apart from me there is no god.” A philologically more watered-down reading is not possible.

The LXX translates plên emou ouk estin theos. Here too plên + genitive is a hard exclusion formula. Hellenistic-Jewish usage (Philo, Josephus, the Book of Wisdom) consistently takes up this language in a monad-monotheistic sense. A trinitarian reading of the formula is unthinkable in the Hellenistic-Jewish horizon; it is only a later ecclesiastical construction.

gô’el — “Redeemer” as YHWH’s self-predicate

The Hebrew gô’el designates in the OT the relative who has the right and duty to ransom one in distress: out of debt-slavery (Lev 25), from the hand of the enemy (Josh 20, avenger of blood), through the levirate marriage of a childless widow (Ruth). In Deutero-Isaiah this title becomes a central self-predicate of YHWH: he alone is Israel’s gô’el (Isa 41:14; 43:1.14; 44:6.22–24; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7.26; 54:5.8). The title is therefore not arbitrary; it is dense and programmatic within the book.

For the understanding of Isa 44:6 this means: the same YHWH who here categorically declares that besides him there is no God is at the same time the only Redeemer. When the New Testament calls Christ “Redeemer” (Lk 24:21; Titus 2:14; 1 Pet 1:18), Christ acts as the executor of divine redemption, not as a second Redeemer-God. Cf. the construction in 1 Tim 2:5: one God and one mediator — not two Gods and one mediator.

melek Yisra’el — “King of Israel”

YHWH introduces himself in Isa 44:6 as “King of Israel.” In the book of Deutero-Isaiah this title has political-theological weight: Israel has no king of its own any more in exile; yet the true King of Israel continues to reign — it is he who steers the fortunes of the nations (Isa 44:28–45:7: the Cyrus oracle). YHWH’s kingship is universal and exclusive.

Christ is called in the New Testament “King of the Jews”/“King of Israel” (Mk 15:2.32; John 1:49; 12:13). Socinianly this is a functional title: Christ reigns as the Messiah-King installed by the Father (Ps 2:7; 110:1), not as the one God and King himself. Here too the transfer principle of the Racovian Catechism applies: a kingly title of YHWH can pass over to the Messiah without his being ontologically identified with YHWH.

Sozzini in the original: The Racovian Catechism on Isaiah 44:6

The Racovian Catechism (1605) treats Isa 44:6 in detail at the place where it asks how the title “the first and the last” can be applied in Revelation to Christ without thereby suspending the uniqueness of God. The argumentation is exegetically dense and is one of the most mature passages of Polish-Brethren Christology.

“The third we read in Isaiah 41:4; 44:6 and 48:12: ‘I am the first, I am the last.’ The same, however, is said of Christ in Revelation 1:17 and 2:8.”

Racovian Catechism, on the transfer of OT divine titles onto Christ

Sozzini and his disciples pose the question openly and exegetically: since the same title is in some places ascribed to YHWH and in other places to Christ, it must be clarified what the theological implication of this doubling is. The trinitarian answer would be: therefore Christ is YHWH. The Racovian Catechism contradicts this and adduces a series of analogous cases in which OT divine titles are transferred without ontological identification:

“Also where Christ is called the first and the last and where it is said that he searches hearts and reins, no passages of the Old Testament are cited, but tacitly that which was once said of God is also predicated of Christ — even if perhaps allusion is being made to those passages. For it is common practice among all that words both of divine and of secular authors, although they were uttered about other things, are applied to one’s own subject, especially when one wants thereby not so much to prove something as rather to indicate and emphasise.”

Racovian Catechism, on the practice of transferring OT statements onto Christ

The key sentence reads: the transfer serves to indicate and emphasise, not to prove. The title is ascribed to Christ in order to mark his unique standing in the work of salvation; it does not thereby prove that Christ is essentially God. Sozzini sees here a linguistic-rhetorical figure current in Scripture which is not to be pressed ontologically.

“Even if all those testimonies of the Old Testament which speak of God had been applied to Christ — as we in fact concede for some — no divine nature in him would nevertheless follow from this. For this could have happened for another reason, namely on account of that highest union which exists between God and Christ, and on account of the similarity which is necessary for that union… If now Scripture transmits about Moses that he led Israel out of Egypt and that he was the deliverer of that people (Acts 7:35), and about others the same that is quite manifestly written about God himself — although neither Moses nor the others had such a great union with God as exists between God and Christ —, then all this, which was in the first reference said of God, can all the more be applied to Christ, on account of that highest and closest union between God and Christ.”

Racovian Catechism, the Moses argument against the ontological reading

The Moses argument is exegetically decisive: Moses is called in Scripture “Deliverer,” “Redeemer” and even “God” (Exod 7:1) — without anyone inferring from this his ontological consubstantiality with YHWH. If this is not so with Moses, then neither is it so with Christ. On the contrary: if OT divine titles are already applied to Moses, who had a far lesser union with God than Christ, then all the more to Christ — without thereby abolishing YHWH’s uniqueness.

“Furthermore, because God so administers the entire economy of our salvation through Christ that he, as the first commissioned by God to this work, has begun it and at the last will complete the same, he is therefore called, like God, with a view to our salvation, ‘the first and the last’ (Rev 1:17; 2:8).”

Racovian Catechism, the salvation-historical explanation of the title

Here the Racovian Catechism gives its most precise positive solution: Christ bears the title “the first and the last” with a view to the work of salvation. He is the first because he was commissioned first by God to this work; he is the last because he will complete the same work (last judgement, new creation). His being-first and being-last is economic-salvific, not ontological. YHWH remains the First and the Last in the strict sense out of himself; Christ bears this title by conferral, with reference to the plan of salvation into which the Father has installed him.

Logical arguments

From Isaiah 44:6 the following linguistic-theological arguments arise against the trinitarian identification of Christ with the one God:

1. Argument from the exclusion predicate. “Besides me there is no god” (mibbal’aday ’ên ’elôhim) is in Hebrew the strongest possible exclusion formula. It admits no second magnitude that would be “God” in the strict sense of the word. Whoever introduces Christ as ontologically the same God alongside the Father violates the statement of Isa 44:6 grammatically.
2. Argument from the density of the evidence. Deutero-Isaiah repeats the monotheistic self-statement with unparalleled density (41:4; 43:10–11; 44:6.8; 45:5.6.14.18.21–22; 46:9; 48:11–12). This density is no literary ornament, but a categorical theological commitment. NT Christology stands within this tradition; it does not undermine it.
3. Argument from Septuagint usage. The LXX translates the Shema and Isa 44:6 with heis respectively plên emou ouk estin theos. In Hellenistic-Jewish Greek (Philo, Josephus, Book of Wisdom) these formulae are strictly monad-monotheistic. The NT authors write in this language. An ontological multi-personality of God is not laid down in the linguistic horizon of the NT.
4. Argument from the Moses precedent. The Old Testament itself transfers titles of God onto his commissioned ones without ontologically identifying them with God (Moses as “God,” Exod 7:1; as “Deliverer,” Acts 7:35; human judges as ’elôhim, Ps 82:6; John 10:34–36). If this transfer principle also applies to Christ — which the Racovian Catechism establishes exegetically — then the transfer of “the first and the last” in Rev 1:17 is no proof of his ontological deity.
5. Argument from John 17:3. Jesus himself prays to the Father as “the only true God” (monos alêthinos theos) and sets himself alongside as “the one whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.” In this the exalted Christ himself confirms the Shema-line and Isa 44:6: the one true God is the Father, and Christ is his sent one. A stronger NT confirmation of OT monotheism is not conceivable.
6. Argument from 1 Cor 8:6 and 1 Tim 2:5. Paul formulates the NT confession with prepositional sharpness: one God, the Father (ex hou ta panta, source), and one mediator, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tim 2:5). The prepositional semantics distinguishes first cause (ex) and mediating cause (dia). Precisely this distinction is the NT application of Isa 44:6: one God + one mediator, not one triadic God.
7. Argument from John 20:17. The Risen One himself says: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Whoever has a God is not himself this one God. This is the NT confirmation of Isa 44:6 from the mouth of the Risen One, who in Rev 1:17 is honourably greeted with the title “the first and the last” — and yet relates himself to the Father as his God.
8. Argument from the prophetic self-comparison. In Isa 44:7–8 YHWH challenges the gods of the nations to prove their divinity by foretelling the future. They are silent. This test is not applied to Christ; his being-first-and-last is a different phenomenon, one of sending and exaltation. The structures of the self-statement in Isa 44 and the application in Rev 1 are not identical.
9. Argument from 1 Corinthians 15:28. Paul draws the eschatological end-picture thus: Christ will at the end “subject all things to the Father, that God may be all in all.” The last sovereignty lies with the Father, not in a triadic essential unity. This is the NT realisation of Isa 44:6 as the final state: the same one God to whom everything is subjected.
10. Argument from hermeneutics. The clear interprets the obscure. Isa 44:6 is the clearest monotheistic self-statement of YHWH; it has hermeneutical priority. Passages such as Rev 1:17 or John 1:1 are shorter, more condensed, more ambiguous. They must be interpreted from Isa 44:6, not the other way round. Whoever inverts the relationship has abandoned the Scripture principle.

Objections and Socinian answers

Objection 1: “In Revelation Christ bears the same title — therefore he is God in the strict sense.”

Objection: Rev 1:17 (“I am the first and the last”), 2:8 (“The words of the first and the last”) and 22:13 (“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end”) apply the title directly to Christ. If only YHWH may be called this, then Christ must be YHWH.

Answer: The Racovian Catechism resolves this argument through the principle of title-conferral: what is said primarily of God can be transferred onto his commissioned ones without ontologically identifying them with God. A precedent is Moses: he is appointed in Exod 7:1 as “God to Pharaoh” and designated in Acts 7:35 as “Deliverer” of Israel — without anyone inferring his divine nature from this. Human judges too are called in Ps 82:6 ’elôhim; Jesus himself quotes this in John 10:34–36 as a precedent for his own designation as “Son of God.”

In the case of Christ, the salvation-historical grounding is added to the title-conferral: he is the first who was sent by the Father to this work, and the last who will complete the work. This first- and last-standing is functional, not ontological. It honours Christ in the highest possible way without dissolving the uniqueness of YHWH. — Moreover, it must be noted: if Rev 1:17 really meant an ontological identification of Christ with YHWH, then Revelation would contradict Isa 44:6, whose speaker categorically declares that there is no God besides him. A canon-coherent reading is only the conferral-reading.

Objection 2: “The OT statement applies only to the gods of the heathen, not to Christ.”

Objection: Isa 44:6 is polemically directed against the heathen gods of Babylon (Marduk, Bel, Nabu), not against a later-revealed multi-personality of God. Therefore the verse is christologically indifferent.

Answer: This argumentation artificially narrows the verse. YHWH does not say “besides me there is no heathen god,” but simply “besides me there is no god.” That is a universal, not a particular negation. Also the “before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me” (Isa 43:10) repeated in the same book explicitly excludes a future revelation of further persons in God.

Secondly: NT language confirms this reading. Paul cites the monotheistic peak formulae of Deutero-Isaiah (cf. Rom 14:11 after Isa 45:23) and does not interpret them trinitarianly, but distributes the functions with prepositional sharpness between Father (first cause, ex) and Christ (mediator, dia) (1 Cor 8:6). Jesus himself quotes the Shema in full (Mk 12:29) and identifies the Father as the only true God (John 17:3). The NT line of interpretation on Isa 44:6 is therefore not: “This statement no longer applies today.” But: “This statement applies, and the one God is the Father.”

Thirdly: ecclesiastical tradition itself has never declared Isa 44:6 “obsolete.” Rather it has tried to accommodate the verse within the trinitarian model through complex auxiliary terms (one substance, three persons; perichôrêsis; opera ad extra indivisa). Socinianly this construction is not exegetically demonstrable; it is a later auxiliary assumption to rescue the model, not a reading of the text itself.

Objection 3: “The OT confession is progressive revelation — the NT overtakes it.”

Objection: In the OT God is not yet revealed as Trinity; the NT first unfolds the complete doctrine of God. Therefore Isa 44:6 is a pre-trinitarian statement to be read in the light of the NT.

Answer: The argument of “progressive revelation” is hermeneutically two-edged. If Scripture were to contradict itself — the OT confession monad-monotheistic, the NT confession triadic — then the Scripture principle would be violated. Socinianly the rule is: Scripture interprets itself; the clear interprets the obscure. Isa 44:6 and the Shema are clear; individual NT passages (John 1:1; 10:30) are open to interpretation. Hermeneutically therefore the direction is: Isa 44:6 interprets the NT passages, not the other way round.

Moreover the NT itself is not trinitarian. Paul formulates consistently: “For us there is one God, the Father” (1 Cor 8:6); “one God and Father of all” (Eph 4:6); “one God and one mediator” (1 Tim 2:5). These formulae are the direct NT application of Isa 44:6: one God (the Father) plus one mediator (Christ). Whoever wishes to call this “NT trinitarian” has nothing in the texts themselves on which he could rely; he must project the formula of the Council of Nicaea onto the NT texts.

Thirdly: the Racovian Catechism draws the hermeneutical consequence with emphasis: if Isa 44:6 is true and the NT does not abolish this truth but confirms it (1 Cor 8:6; Eph 4:6; 1 Tim 2:5; John 17:3; Mk 12:29), then the doctrine of the Trinity is a later construction which cannot be brought into accord with biblical language and logic. “Progressive revelation” is an auxiliary term to bridge the discrepancy — it is not a scriptural proof.

Objection 4: “But Christ is worshipped (Phil 2:10; Heb 1:6) — therefore he is God.”

Objection: Whoever is worshipped is God. Christ is worshipped (Phil 2:10; Heb 1:6; Rev 5:12–14). Therefore Christ is God in the strict sense — and thus also “the first and the last” in the strict sense.

Answer: The argumentation confuses functional worship with ontological identification. Phil 2:9–11 says expressly: “God has exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name… to the glory of God the Father.” The worship of Christ takes place to the glory of the Father. It is acknowledgement of the dignity conferred by the Father, not assertion of essential deity. Also in Rev 5 the Lamb is worshipped because it was slain and through its blood has purchased people (Rev 5:9) — that is, on account of its act of salvation, not on account of its essence.

The Racovian Catechism argues: if God has exalted Christ and bestows worship upon him (Heb 1:6), then the worship of Christ is obedient acknowledgement of this conferral — not a second worship alongside the worship of the one God. Cf. John 5:22–24: the Father “has given to the Son all honour, that all may honour the Son as they honour the Father.” The honour of the Son is the conferred honour, not the essential. Precisely the same logic applies to the title “the first and the last.”

Objection 5: “If Christ is not the one God, then Christianity is only monotheism with appendages.”

Objection: A Socinian Christology reduces Christ to a hero, a bringer of salvation without ontological depth. With that the specific element of Christianity is lost; what remains is a diluted monotheism with a special prophet.

Answer: This caricature does not strike Socinian Christology. Socinianly Christ is the Son sent by the one God, the firstborn of all creation in the salvific sense (Col 1:15), the mediator of the new covenant (Heb 9:15; 12:24), the one exalted at the right hand of the Father (Phil 2:9; Acts 2:33), to whom all worship of the universe belongs (Rev 5). He is not a mere prophet, but the unique mediator — unique in salvation history, unique in dignity, unique in function. His being-first-and-last in the plan of salvation is not less honourable because it is conferred and not essential; it is even more glorious, because it shows the love and power of the one God who exalts his Son so highly.

The specifically Christian element lies socinianly not in trinitarian speculation, but in the saving action of God through Christ: through his life, death and resurrection the one God works the reconciliation and the salvation of the world. This soteriology needs no ontological consubstantiality of Christ with God; it needs the sending, the exaltation and the universal efficacy of Christ. Christianity thereby remains fully and entirely Christianity — and fully and entirely monotheistic in the sense of Isa 44:6.

Cross-references

Theological consequences

Summary

Isaiah 44:6 is the harshest monotheistic self-statement of the Old Testament. YHWH introduces himself as “King of Israel” and “Redeemer” and declares categorically: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.” The Hebrew exclusion formula mibbal’aday ’ên ’elôhim is linguistically the strongest negation whatsoever; it categorically excludes a second magnitude alongside YHWH that would be “God” in the strict sense of the word.

Socinianly Isa 44:6 is not a preliminary statement overtaken by the NT, but the abiding foundational formula of every biblical doctrine of God. The NT confirms it consistently: Jesus quotes the Shema in full (Mk 12:29); he identifies the Father as the only true God (John 17:3); Paul formulates “one God, the Father” (1 Cor 8:6; Eph 4:6) and “one God and one mediator” (1 Tim 2:5). The NT application of the OT title “the first and the last” onto the exalted Christ (Rev 1:17; 2:8; 22:13) is, according to the Racovian Catechism, a conferral in the salvific sense: Christ is the first who was sent by the Father to this work, and the last who will complete the same work.

The Moses argument of the Racovian Catechism is exegetically decisive: if OT divine titles can pass over onto Moses (Exod 7:1; Acts 7:35) without ontologically identifying him with YHWH, then all the more does this hold for Christ, who has an incomparably closer union with God than Moses — but is nevertheless not himself the one God. Isa 44:6 thus remains untouched: the one God is the Father, and Christ is his unique Son, most highly honoured, but not himself the one God.