Zechariah 3:2 - Does Jehovah Ask Jehovah to Rebuke Satan?

Zechariah 3:1-2 - And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Jehovah, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his adversary.[2] And Jehovah said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? -- American Standard Version.

 Deuteronomy 6:4 - Hear, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah. -- American Standard Version.

Zechariah 3:2 is sometimes quoted as proof that Jesus is called "Jehovah" and therefore it is claimed that Jesus is a person of the trinitarian concept of three persons in God. Of course, there is nothing all here that presents any concept that the one Jehovah is more than one person, or that He is three persons, etc. Such concepts have to imagined, assumed, added to, and read into what is stated.

As it reads in the translation above, it would appear that there are two different Jehovahs, one Jehovah who speaks of another Jehovah, and that one Jehovah calls upon another Jehovah to rebuke Satan. There cannot actually be two Jehovahs, since Deuteronomy 6:4 tells that the God of Israel is only one Jehovah. We could simply leave the matter as it is without any explanation, or we could use our reasoning to come to a logical conclusion.

Many would imagine, assume, add to, and read into what is stated that the angel of Jehovah here is Jesus, who supposedly speaks to Satan and says, "Jehovah rebuke you." Some trinitarians have claimed that "Jehovah" in this context is God the Father, and they claim that the the angel is God the Son, thus it is claimed that two persons of the trinity are spoken of here.

We should first point out that the above viewpoints are more eisegesis than exegesis, for they read into the verse that the angel of Jehovah is is one whom Jehovah anointed and sent (Isaiah 61:1), and then further imagine, assume, add to and read into this verse that there is something here about the trinity. There is nothing at all in this or the rest of Zechariah that would point to the idea that the angel of Jehovah who was speaking for Jehovah was in reality Christ, and certainly nothing about the Messiah being a person of his God, Jehovah. Such ideas have to be assumed, although we concede that Jesus could have appeared as an angel of Jehovah in his prehuman existence, but we believe that it could have been Gabriel, the angel of Jehovah who appeared* as recorded in Luke. Regardless, the idea of three persons in one God would have to be read into the verse, for it certainly is not there.
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*See our studies related to:
Angel of Jehovah

Nevertheless, many trinitarians imagine, assume, add to, and read into the scriptures that the angel of Jehovah is the visible form of Jehovah as the second person of their trinity, and Numbers 12:8 and Hebrews 1:3 are given to support this idea. The idea is that the second person of Jehovah can be seen while the first person of Jehovah can be seen. They would, at least in their minds, reword Zechariah 3:2 to have it say: "And the second person of Jehovah said unto Satan, The first person Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; yea, the person of Jehovah that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? -- American Standard Version.

However, there is nothing in Zechariah 3:2 that shows that the Son is called  Jehovah (Yahweh). The idea that the angel of Jehovah is Jesus is but an assumption to begin with, and even if the angel of Jehovah was Jesus, at most this would only prove that he was being called Jehovah as the spokesperson for Jehovah.

We believe that the most logical reasoning it that the angel of Jehovah is speaking is left "understood" in verse 2, for it is directly stated in verse 3 that it is the "angel" of Jehovah who is speaking and not Jehovah himself. With this thought even many trinitarian translators have agreed, as we show in the translations quoted below:

And the angel of the Lord said to Satan, "May the Lord rebuke you, Satan; may the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand snatched from the fire?" -- Confraternity-Douay Version.

And the angel of the Lord said to Satan, "May the Lord rebuke you, Satan; may the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a brand snatched from the fire?" -- New American Bible.

The angel of Yahweh said to Satan, 'May Yahweh rebuke you, Satan! May Yahweh rebuke you, since he has made Jerusalem his choice. Is not this man a brand snatched from the fire?' -- New Jerusalem Bible.

We also wish to point out that the Syriac Peshitta text also reads "angel of Jehovah", and not just "Jehovah", in Zechariah 3:2.

Regardless, the context shows that it is the angel of Jehovah speaking for Jehovah. (Zechariah 2:3; 3:1,6) One would have to assume that the angel that speaks here was actually Jesus, which is not clearly shown from the scripture itself.

Some parallel this verse with Jude 9, and claim that these two verses show that Jesus is Jehovah. This approach to the scriptures becomes a problem for those trinitarians that do not wish to accept that Jesus is Michael the archangel.* However, many trinitarians do believe that Jesus is Michael the archangel.
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*See our short study on Jude 1:9; see also our studies on:
Michael the Archangel

If the angel of Jehovah in Zechariah 3:2 is the archangel spoken of in Jude 9, then the angel in Zechariah 3:2 would be Michael the archangel. While it is possible that the angel of Jehovah in Zechariah 3:2 could have been Jesus, we we don't think this to be true. We certainly see nothing here that says that the one Jehovah is more than one person, or that Jesus is Jehovah, and definitely nothing that says that Jesus is a person of Jehovah.