Isaiah 48:16
Isaiah 48:1616Come near to Me and listen to this: From the beginning I have not spoken in secret; from the time it happened, I was there.” And now the Lord GOD has sent me, accompanied by His Spirit.
The Watchtower handles by treating the speaker shift as a transition from Jehovah to the prophet (Isaiah) or to a Messianic spokesman speaking on Jehovah's behalf. The "and his spirit" tail-clause is read as an inclusion of Jehovah's active force in the sending — a way of saying Jehovah sent the speaker along with his energising power, not that the Spirit is a third sending party.
is the Old Testament's most explicit three-party divine syntax. The speaker who says "from the time it happened I was there" (the same speaker who, in 48:12-13, has just declared himself the First and the Last who laid the earth's foundation) now says "the Sovereign Lord Jehovah has sent me, and his spirit." Three parties, one sentence: Jehovah the Sender, Jehovah the Sent, Jehovah's Spirit alongside. The NWT preserves the structure word-for-word — no brackets, no restructuring. The verse cannot be smoothed into bi-personalism without refusing what the text says. Pair with (the apostolic benediction's three-party formula) and (the Trinitarian baptismal formula). is the Old Testament charter the New Testament's three-party formulae build on.