---
title: Mark 1:2
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/mark-1-2/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/mark-1-2.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Mark 1:2
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Mark 1:2

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:  “Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way.”

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Just as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: "Look! I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way.""

## JW Usage

JWs identify the messenger as John the Baptist and the one whose way is prepared as Jesus — the same as everyone else. The Watchtower reading holds that Jehovah sent John ahead of Jesus, and that Jesus came as Jehovah's representative, so the prophecy is fulfilled "by means of" the Son without Jehovah himself arriving. Agency again carries the weight: Jesus stands in for Jehovah rather than being him.

## Protestant Usage

Take the quotation back to its source and read who is speaking. Mark is citing Malachi 3:1, where the speaker is Jehovah and the words are "I am sending my messenger, who will prepare the way before me." Not before my representative — before me. Then Mark changes the pronoun to fit his sentence: "ahead of you." The "you" in Mark's version is Jesus, occupying the slot Malachi assigned to Jehovah himself. Then read straight on to verse 3, because that is where the point lands hardest. Mark quotes Isaiah 40:3, and the road being cleared is the road for Jehovah. The road Mark then describes John clearing is the road for Jesus. Ask kindly: if John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus, and the prophecy says the way being prepared is Jehovah's own, what does that make Jesus? The agency answer does not reach, because Malachi has Jehovah speaking about his own arrival in the first person. Compare Mark 1:1, Malachi 3:1, Luke 2:49.

## NWT Issue

The NWT's rendering of the following verse is where this passage turns. Mark 1:3 in the Greek reads "prepare the way of the Lord" — kyriou, the ordinary Greek word for Lord, which is what every manuscript of Mark carries. The NWT prints "Prepare the way of Jehovah! Make his roads straight." Substituting the divine name here is a translator's decision, not something present in the Greek text, and it has a consequence the translators may not have intended: it states plainly that the road John cleared was Jehovah's road. The Gospel then has John clearing that road for Jesus. Read Mark 1:2-3 aloud from the NWT and the identification is sharper in their Bible than in most others.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Messenger of the Covenant](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/malachi-3-1-messenger.md) — Malachi 3:1 — Jehovah comes to His own temple as the messenger [Deity of Christ]