In 1992 a book was published called Old Testament Yahweh Texts in Paul’s Christology by David Capes. The book focused on texts that refer to YHWH being applied to Jesus, e.g., Phil 2:10-11 “every knee will bow, every tongue confess” Paul quotes from Isa 45:23.

Ever since the publication of Capes’ book prominent scholars and apologists use so-called Yahweh texts applied to Jesus to prove that Jesus is YHWH. The problem is that the OT writers identify YHWH as the Father and never the Son! So, instead of talking about YHWH texts applied to Jesus, they are really Father texts applied to the Son! This doesn’t work for Trinitarians because it would prove too much, i.e. that the Son is the Father. That would be Oneness or Modalism.

The fact is that from Moses, to the other OT prophets and kings of Israel YHWH is the Father!

In Deuteronomy 32.6a Moses writes: “Israel, the LORD is your Father, the one who created you.” So, when Paul echoes the Shema of Deut 6.4 in 1 Cor 8:6 it doesn’t mean Paul split the Shema so Jesus could be added to it, as many prominent scholars say.

In Isaiah 63:16; 64.8 the prophet identifies YHWH as “our Father.” So, when Paul says in Phil 2.10-11 that “every knee will bow” and “every tongue confess that Jesus the Messiah is lord,” Paul was not saying Jesus was YHWH, i.e., the Father!

Same with John 12:41 when Jesus says the prophet Isaiah saw his glory. This does not mean the prophet identified Jesus as the Father sitting on the throne in Isaiah 6! The point is that Isaiah was prophesying, i.e., predicting about the future suffering servant of Yahweh who Isaiah also calls “the branch of Yahweh” (4.2) that grows up like a young plant before Yahweh (53.2); that bears the sins of all peoples and whom Yahweh will cause to suffer (53.2, 6) and of course eventually die. And however you define death we know scripture repeatedly says God cannot do it!

As a result, YHWH the Father shares His “glory” with His anointed servant, as Jesus says in Matthew 16.27: “For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds.”

Also note that Isaiah was one among many who “saw” Messiah’s glory in promise, not in reality as 1 Peter 1:10 Even the prophets, who prophesied [i.e., foretold] about the grace that was to be yours, carefully researched and investigated this salvation. 11 They tried to find out what era or specific time the Spirit of the Messiah in them kept referring to when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow.

And lastly in Ps 103.13 king David says: “As a father has compassion for his children, so the LORD has compassion for those who fear him.” So, when Hebrews 1:10-12 applies the doxology in Ps 102:25-27 about the Father to the Son, it does not mean the Son is the Father, the Creator of Genesis 1!

If true, that would overturn 50+ statements in both Testaments where the Father, alone, unaccompanied, “by Myself” (as He says in Isa 44:24) is the Creator of Genesis!

The fact is that the creation spoken about in Heb 1.10-12 has to do with “the inhabited earth of the future” (Heb 2.5) not the distance past! That’s why the Hebrews writer cites the Messianic Ps 102 which was “for a future generation…a people yet to be created,” Vv. 18-19; 20-23! Heb 1.10-12 fulfills OT prophecies like Isa 51:16 where “the servant of Yahweh” is made “to establish the heavens, to found the earth” (following the NASB). And just like the original, pre-flood Genesis Creation was changed (2Pet. 3.3-13; Rev. 6.12-14; cp. Isa 34.4), the present creation will undergo a further renewal at the parousia. This marks the beginning of the millennial kingdom reign described in Rev 20, which itself will come to an end, i.e., yet another renewal.

Lastly, Heb 1.10-12 cites the Greek translation of Ps 102 which at many points reads differently than the Hebrew. The most obvious is the addition of a 2nd lord who God is addressing as the one who establishes the heavens and earth. God calls this 2nd lord by the generic kyrie, the vocative case for kyrios used for humans. In other words, this 2nd lord is not Yahweh or Adonai.

It would be clear Polytheism to have 1 YHWH God talking to another YHWH God!