Jeremiah 1:9
Jeremiah 1:99Then the LORD reached out His hand, touched my mouth, and said to me: “Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
Cited as ordinary prophetic-call language: "the word of Jehovah" comes to Jeremiah, Jehovah inspires the prophet, the prophet speaks. The personal detail — that "Jehovah stretched out his hand and touched my mouth" — is read figuratively, since the Watchtower holds that no one has ever literally seen God (cf. , ).
The verse fits a wider Old Testament pattern in which "the word of Jehovah" appears as a visible, embodied person who acts as Yahweh. In , the word of the Lord comes to Abraham in a vision and speaks in first person as Yahweh. In , "Jehovah came and stood" before Samuel; verse 21 says Jehovah "kept revealing himself by the word of Jehovah." Here Jehovah's hand touches Jeremiah's mouth. A message has no hand. , 14 names the visible Word: "the Word was God" and "the Word became flesh." The Old Testament Word who appeared to the prophets is the same person who later took on flesh in Jesus.