How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

New to a term? The Glossary explains every abbreviation and term on the site in plain words.

Intertextuality Pair

Isaiah 6:8 → Genesis 1:26

Echo

Later text

Isaiah 6:8BSB

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: "Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?" And I said: "Here am I. Send me!"

Earlier text

Genesis 1:26BSB

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, and over all the earth itself and every creature that crawls upon it."

Significance

Isaiah 6:8 records the LORD asking "Whom shall I send? Who will go for Us?" (לָנוּ, lanu — first person plural), echoing Genesis 1:26 where God says "Let Us make (נַעֲשֶׂה, na'aseh) man in Our image." Both texts use the enigmatic divine plural — a shift from singular "I" to plural "us" within the same divine speech. The singular-to-plural movement in Isaiah 6:8 ("I send" / "for Us") mirrors Genesis 1:26's pattern. While various explanations exist (divine council, plural of majesty, trinitarian foreshadowing), the shared grammatical phenomenon links the creation of humanity to the commissioning of the prophet, both described as acts of divine deliberation expressed in the first person plural.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Echo
Connection Method(s): Longitudinal Theme — the divine-plural deliberation motif: Genesis 1:26's "Let Us make man in Our image" and Isaiah 6:8's "Who will go for Us?" both shift from divine singular to plural within a single divine speech, a rare canonical thread (Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8) of God deliberating in council at decisive junctures — the creation of the image-bearer and the commissioning of the prophet — whose fullness the NT unveils when John identifies the glory Isaiah saw in that throne room as Christ's (John 12:41).