The Trinity in the Old Testament: What Genesis, Isaiah, and the Angel of the LORD Reveal
This is Part 2 of a 7-part series: The Holy Trinity — Answering Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Introduction
A common assumption — promoted heavily by the Watchtower Society — is that the Trinity is a New Testament idea, or worse, a post-biblical invention. According to this view, the God of the Old Testament is simply a solitary, unipersonal deity with no hint of plurality in His nature.
But this is not what the Old Testament itself reveals. When we read the Hebrew Scriptures carefully, paying close attention to the language, grammar, and literary patterns of the text, we find that the plurality within God’s nature is being disclosed — carefully, progressively, and deliberately — from the very first chapter of Genesis onward.
This is not eisegesis (reading ideas into the text). This is exegesis — reading out what the text actually says. Let us examine the evidence.
1. The Plural Language of Genesis
The very first chapter of the Bible presents us with a puzzle. God — who is described as absolutely one and unique throughout the Old Testament — speaks of Himself using plural language.
“Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.'” (Genesis 1:26, ESV)
This is followed immediately by:
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him.” (Genesis 1:27)
Notice the shift: God speaks in the plural (“Let Us“), and then the narrative describes the act of creation using the singular (“in His own image,” “He created him”). This is not careless writing. The inspired author moves fluidly between singular and plural — describing one God who nonetheless speaks with an internal plurality.
The same pattern reappears later:
“Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of Us in knowing good and evil.'” (Genesis 3:22)
“Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language.” (Genesis 11:7)
The Watchtower attempts to explain these plural pronouns as a “royal we” — the way a king might say “we decree” — or as God speaking to the angels. Both explanations fail. The “royal we” was not a Hebrew literary convention; it does not appear elsewhere in the Old Testament in the mouth of a king. And the angel explanation makes no sense: God would not say “let us make man in our image” to angels, since man is not made in the image of angels. Hebrews 1:5 explicitly states that God never said to any angel, “You are my Son.” The plurality here is within God Himself.
2. The Hebrew Word for God: Elohim
The primary Hebrew word for God used throughout the Old Testament is Elohim — and it is grammatically plural. This is remarkable. The word for the one God of Israel is a plural noun.
Critics sometimes argue this is simply a “plural of majesty.” But this explanation is unsatisfying for several reasons. First, the “plural of majesty” as a grammatical category is largely a modern invention used to explain away the evidence; it does not appear to have been a recognized feature of Biblical Hebrew grammar in the way grammarians sometimes claim. Second, when the same word elohim refers to false gods in the plural sense, it takes plural verbs and adjectives — and yet when referring to the God of Israel, it routinely takes singular verbs. This is not the behavior of a simple plural of majesty. This is the behavior of a word that holds something unique: a genuine plurality that is nonetheless a genuine unity.
The Shema — Israel’s foundational monotheistic confession — is illuminating here:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
The Hebrew word translated “one” here is echad — a word that in Hebrew can describe a composite unity. The same word is used in Genesis 2:24: “the two shall become one [echad] flesh.” A husband and wife — two persons — become echad, one. The Hebrew language had a word for absolute numerical singularity — yachid — but that is not the word used in the Shema. God is echad: a unified one that contains genuine plurality.
3. The Angel of the LORD
One of the most striking and theologically rich features of the Old Testament is the figure called “the Angel of the LORD” (mal’ak YHWH). This figure appears throughout the Hebrew Scriptures in a way that is deeply unusual: He is simultaneously distinguished from YHWH and yet identified as YHWH Himself.
Consider the account of the burning bush in Exodus 3:
“And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush… When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, ‘Moses, Moses!'” (Exodus 3:2, 4)
The Angel of the LORD appears — and then the text says God Himself is speaking. The Angel and God are distinguished and yet identified. This same pattern appears in:
Genesis 16 — The Angel of the LORD speaks to Hagar, and Hagar responds: “You are a God of seeing” (v. 13). She names the place “the one who sees me.” She addresses the Angel as God.
Genesis 22 — The Angel of the LORD stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac and says: “…you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me” (v. 12). The Angel speaks as God Himself.
Judges 13 — The Angel of the LORD appears to Manoah and his wife. When Manoah asks His name, the Angel replies that it is “wonderful” (pele — a divine name, cf. Isaiah 9:6). When they offer a sacrifice, the Angel ascends in the flame. Manoah cries out: “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.”
Zechariah 1–3 — The Angel of the LORD is distinguished from YHWH and yet intercedes before YHWH and speaks with divine authority simultaneously.
The most natural explanation of this consistent pattern is that the Angel of the LORD is a pre-incarnate appearance of the Son of God — a Theophany. The Second Person of the Trinity, who had not yet taken on flesh, appearing to the patriarchs and prophets of Israel. This is how the early church fathers understood these texts, and it remains the most exegetically satisfying explanation.
4. The Threefold Aaronic Blessing
In Numbers 6:24–26, God commands Moses to give the priests of Israel a specific formula for blessing the people. Read it carefully:
“The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
The name of the LORD (YHWH) is pronounced three times over the people. Three distinct blessings. Three invocations of the divine Name. And in verse 27, God says: “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them” — one name, three pronouncements. The early church fathers saw in this passage a hint of the Trinitarian nature of the God whose name is being invoked. This threefold pattern is not coincidental — it recurs in Isaiah’s vision of the divine throne room.
5. Isaiah’s Trisagion: “Holy, Holy, Holy”
In Isaiah 6, the prophet is granted a vision of the heavenly throne room. The seraphim — burning angelic beings — cry out to one another in worship:
“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)
Why three times? In Hebrew, repetition intensifies meaning — saying something twice is emphatic, as in “truly, truly I say to you.” But the threefold repetition of “holy” is unique in all of Scripture. It is the only attribute of God that is stated three times consecutively. The New Testament itself connects this vision to the Trinity: in John 12:41, John says Isaiah “saw [Christ’s] glory and spoke of him” — the vision of Isaiah 6 was a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ. And in Acts 28:25, Paul quotes the divine voice of Isaiah 6 and attributes it to the Holy Spirit.
The same vision — the same divine glory — is attributed to the Father (Isaiah 6 in its context), the Son (John 12:41), and the Holy Spirit (Acts 28:25). One vision, three Persons of the Trinity.
6. The Spirit of God and the Word of God
Genesis 1 opens with a startling scene:
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void… And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said…” (Genesis 1:1–3)
Three distinct actors are present at creation: God (the Father), the Spirit of God (the Holy Spirit, actively involved in creation), and the Word of God by which everything is made. This corresponds precisely to what the New Testament reveals: all things were created through the Son/Word (John 1:3; Col. 1:16), by the agency of the Spirit (Job 33:4; Psalm 104:30), at the initiative of the Father. The doctrine of the Trinity is not imported into Genesis 1 from the outside — it is the scaffolding on which the creation account is already built.
7. Two Lords in Psalm 110
Psalm 110:1 is the most frequently quoted Old Testament verse in the entire New Testament:
“The LORD [YHWH] said to my Lord [Adonai]: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.'”
David, the author, calls this figure “my Lord” — and yet this Lord is also addressed by YHWH Himself as an equal, invited to sit at His right hand. Jesus uses this very verse in Matthew 22:41–46 to challenge the Pharisees: if the Messiah is merely David’s human descendant, why does David call him “Lord”? The answer is that the Messiah is both David’s Son (human) and David’s Lord (divine) — precisely what the doctrine of the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity teaches.
Conclusion: The Old Testament Lays the Foundation
Far from being silent about the Trinity, the Old Testament lays a careful, progressive foundation for the full Trinitarian revelation of the New Testament. We see:
Plural language for the one God in Genesis
Elohim — a plural noun used for the singular God
The Angel of the LORD — simultaneously distinguished from and identified with YHWH
The threefold Aaronic blessing invoking one Name three times
The Trisagion of Isaiah 6, attributed to all three Persons in the NT
The Spirit and the Word active alongside the Father at creation
Two Lords in Psalm 110:1, one of whom is YHWH addressing another divine Lord
The Triune nature of God is not a theological invention of the fourth century. It is the very shape of Old Testament revelation — waiting to be made fully explicit by the coming of the Son into the world and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
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