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Messianic Prophecies

Isaiah 48:12

This passage comes from the wider catalog — a broader, more lightly curated list than the core set. Both readings are shown as peers; GEBible takes no side.

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Isaiah 48:12

“Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel my called: I am he. I am the first. I am also the last.

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They are created now, and not from of old. Before today, you didn’t hear them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’

Yes, you didn’t hear. Yes, you didn’t know. Yes, from of old your ear was not opened, for I knew that you dealt very treacherously, and were called a transgressor from the womb.

For my name’s sake, I will defer my anger, and for my praise, I hold it back for you so that I don’t cut you off.

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver. I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.

For my own sake, for my own sake, I will do it; for how would my name be profaned? I will not give my glory to another.

“Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel my called: I am he. I am the first. I am also the last.

Yes, my hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand has spread out the heavens. when I call to them, they stand up together.

“Assemble yourselves, all of you, and hear! Who among them has declared these things? He whom Yahweh loves will do what he likes to Babylon, and his arm will be against the Chaldeans.

I, even I, have spoken. Yes, I have called him. I have brought him and he shall make his way prosperous.

“Come near to me and hear this: “From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time that it happened, I was there.” Now the Lord Yahweh has sent me with his Spirit.

Yahweh, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says: “I am Yahweh your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go.

The counter-reading

How this passage is read within its own context.

On the critical reading, Isaiah 48:12 is YHWH's self-identification as the eternal deity who encompasses history, spoken within Deutero-Isaiah's monotheistic polemic. Revelation's use of 'the first and the last' for Christ is a deliberate literary appropriation by an author steeped in Isaiah, who constructs Christ's self-identification out of YHWH's language; on this account the correspondence exists because it is composed, not because Isaiah predicted a coming figure. The identification is therefore the Revelation author's christological program applied to an Isaianic title, and the connection to John 1:30 (which speaks of temporal priority, not of 'first and last') is looser still.

The fulfillment reading

How this passage is read as pointing to the Messiah.

On the messianic-fulfillment reading, the book of Revelation openly appropriates YHWH's self-designation 'the first and the last' from Isaiah 48:12 (and 41:4; 44:6) and applies it to Christ (Revelation 1:17; 2:8; 22:13), pairing it with 'the Alpha and the Omega' (1:8; 22:13). Proponents argue that a title Isaiah reserves for the eternal God can be true of Christ only if he shares YHWH's eternal nature, so the transfer signals a comprehensive identification of Jesus with the God who spans all history. Read alongside John 1:30's affirmation of Christ's priority ('he was before me'), this is taken as revelation of Christ's genuine divine identity rather than mere borrowing.

How the New Testament uses this passage

Each entry names how the New Testament author draws on the passage — a direct quotation, an allusion, an echo, or a typological reading. An echo or an allusion is not the same as a prediction; the label says which is which.

  • John 1:30 Allusion

    Revelation 1:17 (with 2:8; 22:13) reproduces Isaiah's 'the first and the last' title verbatim but without any citation formula, appropriating it as Christ's self-designation — an unmarked title-allusion rather than a formal quotation.

  • Revelation 1:8 Allusion

    Revelation 1:17 (with 2:8; 22:13) reproduces Isaiah's 'the first and the last' title verbatim but without any citation formula, appropriating it as Christ's self-designation — an unmarked title-allusion rather than a formal quotation.

  • 17 Allusion

    Revelation 1:17 (with 2:8; 22:13) reproduces Isaiah's 'the first and the last' title verbatim but without any citation formula, appropriating it as Christ's self-designation — an unmarked title-allusion rather than a formal quotation.