〜(ら)れる - Ambiguity between passive and Keigo


In my Japanese Bible, it often uses the 〜(ら)れる Keigo form when talking about
God's actions. However, there are certain cases when talking about both people
and God in the same sentence where the use of 〜(ら)れる is ambiguous as to
whether it's the Keigo for God's actions, or the passive of what will happen
to the people.

Take this verse:

> あなたが叫【さけ】べば「わたしはここにいる」と **言われる** 。ー イザヤ書 58:9  
>  When you call to me, I will respond. - Isaiah 58:9

So I'm confused as to whether this is shortened from

> あなたが叫べば（ **あなたが** ）「わたしはここにいる」と **言われる** → If you call, _you will be told_
> "I am here"

or

> あなたが叫べば（ **神様【かみさま】が** ）「わたしはここにいる」と **言われる** → If you call, _God will say_
> "I am here"

  
Are there any indicators as to which it might be? Does it even matter?




I agree with sawa that from syntactic clues this fragment is ambiguous, but
there are actually more syntactic clues if you look at the whole sentence,
which is:

> あなたが呼べば **主は答え** 、あなたが叫べば「わたしはここにいる」と **言われる** 。

It would be possible, but quite perverse (and impious, as Sawa notes!) to
interpret the 言われる in the second half as a passive rather than an honorific
form parallel to 主は答え. Note that you can see the same construction, right down
to the subject-dropping, in the Vulgate version, where "dicet" ("(He) will
say") is parallel to "Dominus exaudiet" ("The Lord will hear"):

> tunc invocabis et **Dominus exaudiet** clamabis et **dicet** ecce adsum




Just from syntactic clues, this sentence is ambiguous. Taking into
consideration that this is from the bible, it is very likely that the usage
here is subject honorification. If it were passive, then it would slightly
entail that あなた (or you) is bothered by the God by being said that he is here.
That would be an impolite thing to write for a God.

