Who has worked and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I, Yahweh, the first, and with the last, I am he.”
⛓ Read Isaiah 41 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.
Allusion3
A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.
'I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he' (egō eimi) furnishes the same self-predication tied to God's sovereignty over the generations. Recurrence with 43:10 strengthens the case that John draws the absolute 'I am he' from Deutero-Isaiah's monotheistic self-declarations.
Medium confidence'Who has performed this... calling the generations from the beginning? I, the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he' supplies the over-the-generations claim implicit in standing before Abraham. Moderate Volume; reinforces the Isaianic I AM backdrop.
Medium confidence'I, the LORD, the first, and with the last, I am he' — third witness to the first/last self-predication, calling the generations from the beginning. Reinforces 22:13.
Medium confidenceEcho2
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
A third Isaianic 'I, the first... and the last' that also pairs with 'I am he,' echoed in Christ's 'I am the Living one.' Medium because slightly less verbally exact than Isa 44:6/48:12, but it deepens the recurrence pattern.
Medium confidenceThe title “who was and who is and who is to come” paraphrases the divine self-identification of Deutero-Isaiah — 'I, Yahweh, the first... and the last, I am he' — the eternity formula Revelation triples into past-present-future (cf. Isa 44:6; 48:12). Coherence is strong with Revelation's Alpha-and-Omega theology, but the threefold temporal expansion is John's own (likely shaped by Hellenistic-Jewish renderings of the divine Name / Exod 3:14 'I am who I am' tradition). Medium: conceptual, not verbal, dependence on this specific verse.
Medium confidence