Mark 1.3 and the Deity of Christ

The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God.
Just as it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
“Look! I send my messenger before your face,
who will prepare your way;
a voice crying out: ‘In the wilderness¹,
prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight’”
Mark 1.1-3

In Mark’s prologue, he quotes from two areas of the Old Testament, Isaiah 40.3 and Malachi 3.1 (with allusions to Exodus 23.20) concerning the ministry of John the Baptist. As I was translating verse three, I was reminded of a translational issue on where to place the phrase “in the wilderness.” In most of our translations, the phrase is considered to be modifying the phrase “a voice crying out” so translations like the ESV will have “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” There is a very good possibility that it could/should be rendered as I have it above, modifying the phrase “prepare the way of the Lord.” Not remembering why this was the case, I looked up the quotation in the Septuagint (The Greek version of the OT) and some English translations of the Hebrew text to see where they put the phrase (Interestingly enough, the quoted verse, Isaiah 40.3, appears like I have it above in the ESV). In looking at the Greek of the Septuagint, I realized something else about Mark’s verse. He made a very small change to the text, but I think the small change has huge implications. I will quote both Mark 1.3 and Isaiah 40.3 in Greek, with words that are different in bold:

Isaiah 40.3: φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ Ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου, εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν·
Mark 1.3: φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου εὐθείας ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους αὐτοῦ

Notice that Mark’s quotation is essentially a direct quotation of Isaiah, with one little difference. Where Isaiah has the phrase “Our God’s paths…,” Mark has changed his quote to say “His paths…” When you read the entire prologue (and the Gospel itself), you realize the the “He” in question here is Jesus of Nazareth, whom John baptizes in v.9 ff. As I said, the textual change itself is fairly small, but in terms of Mark’s Christology, it is huge- Mark is equating Jesus with the God of Israel. In just one small textual change, Mark has begun his Gospel with a proclamation of the Deity of Christ.

And I was worried about where to put the phrase “in the wilderness.”²

¹I chose to put the phrase here in accordance with the rendering of the verse in Isaiah.
²That’s not to say where we place this phrase could be important. Certainly, placing it where I did emphasizes the connection between Christ and the exodus, as well as Christ and the prophets, particularly Elijah. I think most translations place where they do to emphasize that John the Baptist is the prophesied ‘coming of Elijah.’