the malak yahweh-jesus, the divine messenger of the old testament - by anthony rogers

8/4/2019 The Malak Yahweh-Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament - By Anthony Rogers

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The Malak Yahweh:

Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testamen t1

Part I

By Anthony Rogers

Introduction

A diverse body of writings attests the belief among pre-Christian Jews that the Malak Yahweh , who features so prominently in the Old Testament, was a divine figure, properlydenominated Yahweh, but nonetheless distinct from another called Yahweh .2 The earliestChristians ,3 as well as many other Christian worthies throughout the centuries ,4 have alsoviewed the Malak Yahweh as a distinct divine person within the Godhead, further explicatingit as a Christophany, that is, an appearance of the pre-incarnate Logos or Word of God – theLord Jesus Christ. The Scriptural basis for this view, beginning with the Old Testament andconcluding with the New, is the subject of the following articles.

Theophanies in General

To begin with, the Bible clearly teaches not only the possibility but the willingness andreality of God‘s condescending to reveal Himself to His creatures. Although God has surelyrevealed Himself in other ways, such as through the created order and the internal dispositionof man (Psalm 19:1-7; Romans 1:18ff., 2:14-16), as well as in more special ways such as bythe communications of created angels to the prophets (e.g. Daniel 8:1-27), and by means of inspiration, inclusive of dreams (e.g. Genesis 37:1-11), visions (e.g. Obadiah 1:1), and

putting His words in a person‘s mouth (e.g. 2 Samuel 23:2), none of this implies any lack of ability or volition on the part of God to do so in more direct and extraordinary ways, such asby means of an audible voice (e.g. 1 Kings 19:9-18), or through visible means like a smokingfirepot (Genesis 15:1-21), a burning bush (Exodus 3:1-14), a pillar of fire and cloud (Exodus13:21), the Shekinah glory in the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-38) and later in the Temple (2Chronicles 5:11-14), and even human form, the latter of which is sometimes attended by anoutward display of glory (Ezekiel 1:22-28) and at other times is very unassuming (Genesis18), without any outward pomp or comeliness.

Divine manifestations and revelatory experiences of the latter sort are commonly calledtheophanies (i.e., appearances of God). One of the most important forms that theophaniestake in the OT is that of the Malak Yahweh , commonly translated as ―the Angel of theLORD‖ or ―the Angel of Yahweh‖. According to the Old Testament Scriptures, this figure is

an appearance of Yahweh in human form.

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The Meaning of the Word „Angel‟

The way the word ―angel‖ is commonly understood creates no little confusion when it comesto this subject. In common usage, the word has come to refer exclusively to created heavenly

beings or spirits who inhabit heaven. For this reason it is important to point out that the wordangel is not actually found in the Hebrew Old Testament and is not even a translation intoEnglish of any word found in the Bible. The word ―angel‖ is simply a transliteration intoEnglish of the Greek word angelos (Gr. ἄγγελος), which is used in the Septuagint (LXX), i.e.the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and in the Greek New Testament.

The word that is used in the Hebrew text is malak ( ). The lexical sources are unanimousthat the Hebrew word malak , in its original signification and as it is used in the Bible, means―one sent; a messenger‖ (e.g. Gesenius; Brown, D river and Briggs ;5 et al.), as such it refers tothe function rather than to the nature of an agent, and could just as well refer to one who isdivine or human rather than just to a supernatural being as the word angel is normallyunderstood. In other words, the nature of t he agent is something that can‘t be determined bythe word alone and has to be determined by other factors. Accordingly, after discussing theetymology of the word, James Battenfield concludes: "The root idea of [malak ], then, isone sent, a messenger, or an envoy. Only in context does the term take on specificity." 6

This is why the word malak is used for any messenger or message-bearer in the Hebrew OldTestament, whether the Angel of Yahweh, whom we will see exists in a class of His own,created angels, or human beings. In fact,

The Hebrew term (mal’ak ) is used some 214 time s7 in the Old Testament. Nearly 50percent of these occurrences clearly have reference in their context to human messengers whobore the messages of ordinary men such as Jacob (32:3) and of kings and military leaders (1Sam. 19:11-21). Someti mes, even God‘s prophets are termed His messengers (2 Chron.36:15-16 cf. Jer. 25:3-7; 26:20-23; Hag. 1:13; Mal. 3:1a). The postcaptivity priests are alsocalled God‘s messengers in Malachi 2:7.

The remaining Old Testament usages of ―messenger‖ are divide d between references to theMessenger of Jehovah (approximately 33 percent) and references to finite, createdmessengers, commonly called angels (about 17 percent). Thus, only the context can clearlyreveal whether the term messenger , or angel , refers to the office of the one who is sent (inwhich case it could be Christ) or to the nature of created angels as finite beings. The term

may denote office, function, or responsibility, rather than the nature of the being .. .8

(Emphasis original)

The same thing is true of classical Greek, where the word angelos is used, for example, of Hermes, the messenger god, as well as of angels and humans.

This is less the case in the New Testament (q.v. Thayer; Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich, Danker; et.al.), which uses the word ―angel‖ at a time when the process of associating the wordexclusively with created heavenly beings was already well underway, a process that beganwith (or at least is already seen in) the Septuagint, which occasionally uses another word

presbus to translate the Hebrew malak when a human messenger is believed to be in view .9

As Balz and Schneider say, ―In the great majority of occurrences ἄγγελος is used for the(heavenly) messenger of God, but can also designate a human messenger …‖10 The rare

























exceptions in view here are Luke 7:24, 9:52, James 2:25, Matthew 11:10, and Mark 1:2 (thelast two are quotations of the OT), all of which use the word angelos for human messengers.

This shows that the word does not tell us anything specifically about the nature of an ―angel‖,particularly in the inspired Hebrew Scriptures, and is something that has to be discerned from

context and other relevant factors.

But even this may not say it all, for a strong case can be made, and has been by a number of scholars, that even the idea of ―messenger‖ as it is commonly understood does not quitecapture the full implications of the word as it is used for the Angel of the LORD, especiallyas the word is used for Him in the book of Genesis. So Juncker:

First, a fairly persuasive case can be made that the word [malak ] in the OT does notmean ―angel‖ at all, at least not in the modern sense of a distinct, creaturely spirit. Instead,the word means only ―presence‖ or ―manifestation‖ with the ontological sta tus of the onepresent contextually determined. But second, and more importantly, a variety of recentliterary analyses of the OT have tended to confirm the view that the Angel of the LORD isYHWH or a narratologically sophisticated and theologically subtle way of speaking abouthim. Perhaps the most fascinating recent literary analysis involves a careful comparison of the Angel of the LORD texts in Genesis with ―[t]he entirety of the narrative material of theSumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Ugarit ic, and Egyptian literature.‖ The mainconclusion of this analysis is noteworthy: when the angel in the Genesis narratives acts heperforms the functions of the deity in the extra-biblical narratives rather than those of themessenger or agent of the deity; and when the angel in the Genesis narratives speaks hespeaks as the deity in the extra-biblical narratives and not as the messenger or agent of thedeity. The narratives in the ANE that most closely resemble those in Genesis are the epiphanynarratives where the deity himself appears.

Juncker then goes on to quote Dorothy Irvin:

[W]hen the messenger of Yahweh or Elohim speaks, he is not understood to be acting as amessenger, even though he is called a messenger. On the basis of comparable narrativematerial, it can be said that no delivery of a message takes place. It can be concluded that themessenger of Yahweh or Elohim is not thought of in these Genesis stories as being, in fact, amessenger … [I]n the Genesis messenger stories the word ―messenger‖ is used, but theconcept of the being, brought out by what he does, is the concept of a god … The wordmal’ak as used there is empty of content, other than the concept identical to the role played

by the deity in similar extra-Biblical stories. Nothing of the belief in the angel as we know itfrom post-exilic thought, the angel functioning as intermediary , is found in our stories.(Italics and brackets as found in Juncker )11 ,12

In any event, neither the lexical meaning of the word nor the way it is used in the Scripturesrules out the application of the term to an appearance of God.

Definite or Indefinite?

When it comes to the Angel of Yahweh, the definite article sets Him off from other angels

and also ties together the various episodes featuring someone called ―the Angel of the Lord‖,showing that the Angel is one and the same person in all of these divine-human encounters.










Some have argued that since there is no definite article in the Hebrew phrase Malak Yahweh ,then it should be translated into English as ― an Angel of the LORD‖, but this is surelymistaken. In Hebrew, nouns and their modifiers are in agreement, such that if Yahweh isdefinite then Malak is definite as well. Since Yahweh is a proper noun – indeed, it is thedistinctive name of the God of Israel – according to the rules of Hebrew grammar it is

intrinsically and therefore always definite. In other words, the grammatical construction of Malak Yahweh in Hebrew, where the second noun, a proper noun, Yahweh , is definite,requires that the first noun, which is in the construct state, be understood in a definite way aswell .13

In response to this, some have argued that the phrase then is determinate merely because thisis required by the construction in Hebrew, such that the inspired authors could not havespoken of the Angel as ―an‖ angel of Yahweh even if they wanted to. But this is alsomistaken. In such a case, if the author wanted to render the phrase indefinite, all that hewould need to do is include a lamed preposition between Malak and Yahweh . TheologianGerhardus Vos 14 speaks to this error:

―The objection, that before a proper noun the preceding noun standing in the construct statebeco mes inevitably determinate, in other words that it would be impossible to make ‗Angelof Jehovah‘ undeterminate, even though it may have been intended so, does not hold good.The Hebrew has a way of saying ‗an Angel of Jehovah.‘ All that is necessary is to insert the

preposition ‗lamed‘ between Angel and Jehovah: ‗an Angel to Jehovah.‘ ‖15

It is highly instructive therefore that the Hebrew Old Testament never employs such aconstruction: the phrase that is used is invariably Malak Yahweh .

The fact that this phrase refers to one and only one is underscored by the fact that the phraseis never used of angels in the plural; in all of the writings of the Old Testament, the Biblicalauthors never speak of malakim Yahweh , i.e. ―angels of Yahweh‖. It may be replied that theydo, however, even if only on certain rare occasions, speak of ―angels of God ‖ (e.g. Genesis28:12; 32:1; and 2 Chronicles 36:16), but in this case it needs only to be pointed out that onceagain a distinction is drawn between angels of God in general and the Angel of God inparticular. Whereas the phrase Malak Yahweh does not permit using the definite article, forits definiteness is determined by the use of the proper name of God, Yahweh , the phrase

Malak Elohim , which uses the more general term for deity, does permit such a construction,as in Genesis 31:11 (q.v. Exodus 14:19; Judges 6:20, 13:6, 9; 2 Samuel 14:17, 20, 19:28; and2 Chronicles 36:16), but for all that it never uses the definite article when speaking of angels

in the plural. It speaks of ―the Angel of God‖ and ―angels of God‖, but never does it speak of ―the angels of God‖, thereby once again drawing a clear distinction between this Angel and all others.

One and the Same Angel

Even if the question of whether the phrase is definite or indefinite could not be settled ongrammatical grounds alone, and from the above it can be seen that all the evidence says that itcan, it would still be possible to deduce that God was not dispatching many different angelson the occasions when the Bible uses the phrase Malak Yahweh , and that one specific and

special Angel is in view throughout:














After God tested Abraham‘s faith by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac, which Abrahampromptly set out to obey, we are told that ―the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham fromheaven …‖ (Genesis 22:11) telling him not to harm Isaac, for Abraham‘s faith had been

proved; after Abraham sacrifices a ram in the place of his son, we are then told ―The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time …‖ (Genesis 22:15), showing that it

was the same Angel as at the first. Of course it might be argued that this is ambiguous, as itmight just indicate that Abraham heard a second time from an angel and not that it was thesame angel, or that it is of minimal significance since this doesn‘t entail that the same Angelappeared to Hagar before him or that it was the same Angel who appeared later to Isaac,Jacob and others under the name ―angel of Yahweh‖, but eve n if this is granted no suchambiguity or insignificance attaches to the following.

When Jacob – of whom we read many times that ―the Angel of the LORD‖ appeared to him – prays in Genesis 48 that ―God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the Godwho has fed me all my life long to this day, the Angel who has redeemed me from all evil‖will bless his descendants after him, it is clear that he thinks that one and the same Angel, theone before whom His Father‘s Abraham and Isaac walked and by who m they wereshepherded, was responsible for delivering him from all his afflictions (and also, given thatthis is a patriarchal benediction, that he confidently expects the Angel to play the same role inthe lives of his descendants). Moreover, this was th e very thing ―the Angel of Yahweh‖

promised to Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28: ―Behold, I am with you and will keep youwherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I havedone what I have promised you.‖ Furthermore, when the Angel of Yahweh appears to Jacobin a dream in Padan-aram, He identifies Himself as the same one who appeared to him atBethel (Genesis 31:11- 13). Accordingly, every time we are told ―the Angel of the LORD‖appeared or spoke to Jacob or to his fathers before him, even though these encounters areseparated by time and place, it was the self-same Angel. As well, this passage also leads us toexpect future engagements of the Angel as the shepherd and redeemer of Jacob‘sdescendants. The passage is both retrospective and prospective in its deliverances about theAngel.

In the book of Exodus we read that the Angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in the burningbush, saying of the name Yahweh , ―This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-nameto all generations ‖ (Exodus 3:1, 15); and in the book of the prophet Hosea we are told byway of a strong implication that the Angel who appeared to Moses is the same one whowrestled with Jacob before his encounter with Esau in Genesis 32, and who later appeared toJacob after his return to Bethel from Paddan-aram as recorded in Genesis 35:9-15:

―In the womb he [i.e. Jacob] took his brother by the heel, and in his maturity he contendedwith God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought His favor. Hefound Him at Bethel and there He spoke with us, even the LORD, the God of hosts, the

LORD is His memorial name. ‖ (Hosea 12:4 -5).

Since the Angel who appeared to Moses said, ―[Yahweh] is My memorial -name to allgenerations‖, and since Hosea says of the Angel, the one with whom Jacob wrestled andwhose favor he sought, ―Yahweh is His memorial name‖, then the Angel who appeared toMoses can be none other than the Angel who appeared to Jacob (and the other patriarchs)before him.



Moreover, the Angel who appeared to Moses is the same name-bearing Angel whoaccompanied Israel in her wilderness wanderings and eventually brought her into the land of Canaan: ―Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you intothe place which I have prepared. Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him,for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him ‖ (Exodus 23:20ff.). [We

are already led to expect this very thing in the story of the patriarchs, where God promises tobring the children of Israel up out of Egypt, and foreshadows it in the story of Jacob, who isredeemed by the Angel (more on this later).]

Since the Angel who appeared to Jacob is the same Angel who appeared to his fathers beforehim, and since the Angel who appeared to Moses is the same Angel who brought the childrenof Israel up out of Egypt, and who also accompanied them through the wilderness and ledthem into the land of Canaan, then the Angel of the patriarchs is the Angel of the Exodus andConquest.

When the book of Judges later speaks of one called ―the Angel of the LORD‖, it records himsaying: ―I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers‖ (Judges 2:1), thus showing continuity of identity betw een the Angel of theExodus-Wilderness-Conquest period and the Angel of the time of the Judges. [It is also of interest that the Angel in the book of Judges acts very much like the Angel who appeared toJacob, for when Jacob asks the Angel for His name, He replies, ―Why do you ask My name?‖(Genesis 32:29), which is similar to the reply given to Manoah when he asks the samequestion: ―Why do you ask My name? It is beyond understanding [Lit. ―Wonderful‖]‖(Judges 13:18).]

Since the Angel of the patriarchs is the Angel of the Exodus, and since the Angel of theExodus and Conquest is the Angel who appeared in the time of the Judges, then the sameAngel is in view in all three periods – Patriarchal, Exodus-Wilderness-Conquest, and Judges.

Thus, even if the grammatical issue above could not be settled, copious evidence exists inScripture that one agent in particular is in view in ―the Angel of Yahweh‖ passages and thatthis one stands uniquely apart from all other angels and is intimately involved with the wholecourse of Old Testament history.

It is with good reason, then, that Jews and Christians as well as most scholars down to thepresent day, even those who do not otherwise agree on other points that swirl about thisdiscussion, have viewed the various men tions of ―the Angel of the LORD‖ to be references to

the same Angel.

Other Names for the Angel

While ―The Angel of the LORD‖ is by far the most common designation for Him, the Angelis referred to in other ways as well. He is called: ―the Angel of God‖ (Judges 13:9); ―theAngel of His Presence/Face‖ (Isaiah 63:9); ―the Angel of Great Counsel‖ (Isaiah 9:6 (LXX));―the Angel of the Covenant‖ (Malachi 3:1); ―the Angel‖ (Genesis 48:15-16); ―My Angel‖(Exodus 23:23); ―the Captain of the Lord‘s Host‖ (Joshua 5); and ―Wonderful‖ (Judges13:18).

That these names all refer to the Angel of Yahweh can be seen from the following:



―The Angel of God‖ is used interchangeably with ―the Angel of the LORD‖ in Judges 6:20and 21 as well as in 13:9 and 13:13, which shows that the two titles are synonymous; ―theAngel of His presence‖ is obviously derived from passages like Exodus 23:20 -23 and 33:12-23;16 ―the Angel of Great Counsel‖ is based on the observation that ―wonderful, counselor‖ inthe Hebrew text of Isaiah 9:6 is treated by some as one title (i.e. wonderful-counselor), and

the word ―wonderful‖ is only otherwise used of the Angel of Yahweh (Judges 13:18); ―theAngel of the Covenant‖ is obviously the Angel of Yahweh since He is the one whosovereignly establishes the covenant and even refers to it as ―My covenant‖ (Judges 2:1 -3).That ―the Angel‖ is a reference to ―the Angel of Yahweh‖ follows from the observationsalready made above on Genesis 48 which speak of Him as the ―God before whom my fathersAbraham and Isaac walked‖ and as the one who ―redeemed me from all evil‖. Finally, giventhe conspicuous parallels between Moses encounter with the Angel of Yahweh in the burning

bush in Exodus 3 and Joshua‘s encounter in Joshua 5, ―the Captain of the LORD‘s host‖ mostnaturally refers to the Angel of Yahweh.

Many of these names are quite significant in themselves, and the divine and messianicovertones are hard to miss (but more will be said about this later).

It will also be argued in the course of this series that God and Lord and above all God‘sCovenant Name, Yahweh , are also among the Angel‘s names (some glimpses of this havealready been seen above but will be discussed at greater length in what is to come).

The Central Importance of the Angel

The central importance of this Angel is pointed up by the frequent mention made of Him inthe Old Testament, particularly in the patriarchal period and in Israel‘s early history: Genesis16:7-14, 21:14-20, 22:1-18, 24, 28, 32, 48; Exodus 3, 13 (cf. 14:19), 23, 32; Numbers 20, 22;Judges 2:1-3 (cf. Exodus 34:10-14), 6, 13; 2 Samuel 14:15-20, 19:26-28, 24:15-17; 1 Kings19; 2 Kings 1, 19; 1 Chronicles 21; 2 Chronicles 32; Isaiah 9 (LXX), 37, 63; Zechariah 1, 2,3, 12; Hosea 12 (cf. Genesis 32); Malachi 3; and Psalms 34, 35; and is likely the one in viewin Genesis 18-19; Exodus 24; Joshua 5; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1; and in every other theophany inthe Old Testament.

Although the Angel of Yahweh appears less frequently as the Old Testament winds to aclose, He never completely withdraws until the inter-testamental period, the same time periodwhen the Glory (i.e. the Shekinah) and the Spirit of prophecy are said to have departed from

Israel.

“Unspecified” Theophanies

In some cases where a theophany occurs no mention is made of the Angel of the LORD;however, as seen in passages like Joshua 5 which link the ―Captain of the LORD‘s host‖ tothe Angel of Yahweh who appeared to Moses, this does not mean that these theophanies arenot the Angel of Yahweh. Moreover, in a number of these cases we are told elsewhere (orlater by a prophet) that it was the Angel. For example, Genesis 28:10-22 says Yahwehappeared to Jacob in a dream, and later in Genesis 31:11-13 we are told the one who appeared

to him in his dream was ―the Angel of God‖; Genesis 32:24 -30 tells us that God appeared toJacob in the form of a man, and speaking of this event some time later the prophet Hosea, in







chapter 12:4- 5 of his prophecy, tells us it was ―the Angel‖. The same thing is also seen inreverse in 1 Chronicles 21:14-20, which says that David saw the Angel of Yahweh who toldhim to erect an altar, and 2 Chronicles 3:1-2 which tells us that it was Yahweh who appearedto David on that occasion.

This creates a precedent for viewing other theophanies, which only mention that Yahweh orGod appeared, to be in fact appearances of the Angel of Yahweh. This would includepassages like: Genesis 15 where the Word of Yahweh appears to Abraham; Genesis 18-19where Yahweh appears to Abraham with two angels; Exodus 24 where Moses and the eldersof Israel see God; Isaiah 6 where Isaiah sees a vision of Yahweh upon His throne; andEzekiel 1 where the prophet Ezekiel has a vision of the Lord.

Conclusion

At this point we can arrive at the following conclusions about the Angel of Yahweh:

1. The word Malak does not rule out His deity, for the word could just as well refer to adivine messenger as it can to one of the heavenly host (or even to a human messenger).

2. The phrase ―the Angel of Yahweh‖ refers to a distinct and specific being and not to angelsin general. The Angel of Yahweh exists in a class all of His own, i.e. He is unique.

3. The Angel of Yahweh spans the entire Old Testament period as seen in His appearances toHagar, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Balaam, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah, Elijah, David andZechariah.

4. The Angel of Yahweh is the central figure of the Old Testament, not only because He isfrequently mentioned, but because of the role He plays in the lives of the patriarchs and thenation of Israel.

5. The Angel of Yahweh has many exalted titles, such as ―the Angel of His presence‖, ―theAngel of Great Counsel‖, ―the Angel of the Covenant‖, and ―Wonderful‖.

6. The Angel of Yahweh on various occasions, only a modicum of which have been explicitlyreferred to up to this point, refers to Himself or is referred to by others as God.

7. The Angel is likely the one in view every time a theophany occurs.

These observations enable us to rule out that the Angel is either an impersonal emanationfrom/of God or merely a human messenger, and strongly incline away from taking Him to bea creature-angel (particularly if the divine titles already mentioned are given their full due).As a permanent, standing figure that spans the ages, He cannot be an emanation of God, for―no permanent character belongs to such‖ ,17 and for this reason also He cannot be a merehuman being, for He does not appear to be subject to the power of death.

As the central figure of the Old Testament, the one who shepherded and redeemed thepatriarchs as well as the entire Jewish nation at the time of their deliverance from Egypt andtranslation into the promise land and beyond, it would be altogether unexpected if it turnedout that the Malak Yahweh was just a very special creature-angel and not God. On such a







supposition not only would it mean that a creature-angel in the Old Testament occupiescenter stage; it would mean that God is upstaged by a creature-angel.

Continue with Part II .

Footnotes1 Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture citations are from the New King James Version.2 Aside from the fact that the Targums, such as the Targum of Pseudo Johnathan, Onkelos,and Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum , mention the Angel of Yahweh, and even identifyHim as the Word (Hebrew, dabar ; Aramaic, memra; Gr. logos ) of Yahweh, and that theSeptuagint, although to a much lesser degree, provides some interesting evidence of Hisdivinity and distinct identity as well, as in its rendition of passages like Isaiah 9:6 , mentioncan be made here of the testimonies that abound in 1 Enoch. After the coming of Christ,when apostate Israel rejected Jesus as ―the Messenger (Heb. Malak; ) of the Covenant‖(Malachi 3:1), all talk of the Memra or Word of the LORD, the predominant way thetargumim referred to the Angel of Yahweh, and which was the way the apostle John spoke of Jesus in his Gospel, providing thereby a most potent link between Jesus and passages aboutthe Angel of the LORD in the Hebrew text, was expunged from certain rabbinic teachings.For example, the Memra /Word of the Targums is nowhere to be found in the Babylonian andPalestinian Talmud (though the Talmud, in the nature of a hostile witness, does provide somerelevant indirect evidence in its discussions of ―heresies‖ pertaining to Metatron), whichoften reflect, among other things, the polemical interests of post-Christian and anti-MessianicJews. For more on this issue as it pertains to the Talmud (and other early Jewish writings),consult the now standard work by Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic

Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: E. J. Brill., 1977), 313 pp.3 Justin Martyr , Dialogue with Trypho , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 76 , 86 , 116 , 126 , 127 , 128 ; Irenaeus ,

Against Heresies , 3.6.1-5 , Fragments, 53 ; Tertullian , Against Praxeas , 16 , De Carne , 14 , Against Marcion 2.27 , 3.9 ; Novatian , On the Trinity , 18 , 19 , 31 ; Apostolic Constitutions ,5.3.20 ; Clement of Alexandria , The Instructor , 1.7 ; Eusebius , The Proof of the Gospel , 1.5 , 4.10 , 5.10 , Church History , 1.2.7-8 , Preparation for the Gospel , VII. 5, 14-15; Origen ,Contra Celsus , 5.53 , 8.27 ; Methodious , Symposium , 3.4 ; Melito , New Fragments , 15;Ambrose , Exposition of the Christian Faith , 1.13.83 ; Athanasius , Against the Arians ,3.25.12-14 ; Gregory of Nyssa , Against Eunomius , 11.3 . (For an excellent discussion of the

views of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Theophilus and Tertullian, see the following: GüntherJuncker, ―Christ as Angel: the Reclamation of a Primitive Title ‖, which originally appeared in the Trinity Journal 15:2 (Fall 1994), p. 221-250)4 Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Gill, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Adam Clarke,Hengstenberg, Pye Smith, A. H. Strong, John Wesley, Keil, Delitzsch, and F. F. Bruce, areonly a small number of well-known individuals from the Reformation to more modern timeswho taught this view.5 BDB even includes a section on ―the theophanic angel‖ when providing the meaning of theterm. Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic (Peabody, MA:Hendrickson, 1979), p. 5216 James Battenfield, An Exegetical Study of the [Malak Yahweh] In the Old Testament

(Postgraduate Seminar: Old Testament Theology, Grace Theological Seminary, 1971), p. 3

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7 Due to a variant, other sources give 213 occurrences.8 James Borland, Christ in the Old Testament: Old Testament Appearances of Christ in

Human Form (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1999), p. 36-379 According to Karen H. Jobes and Moises Silva: ―… the noun ἄγγελος in Classical Greek meant ―messenger‖ in a fairly general sense. When the LXX translators used it to represent

Hebrew , which often specifically designated a (superhuman) messenger sent by God, anew acceptation or definition was created. The use of this specialized Greek term in the NTdoubtlessly reflects the strong influence of the LXX.‖ Invitation to the Septuagint (GrandRapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2000), p. 19910 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, ed., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament , Vol. 1(Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), entry: ἄγγελος. 11 Günther Juncker, Jesus and the Angel of the LORD: An Old Testament Paradigm for NewTestament Christology (Deerfield, Illionois: A Dissertation, submitted to the faculty in partialfulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theological StudiesNew Testament Concentration at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2001) p. 52-53. In afootnote, Juncker also adds the following: ―These conclusions have been independentlyconfirmed by S. A. Meier who, unlike Irvin, did not restrict himself to narratives: ‗It must beunderstood that the angel of YHWH in these perplexing Biblical narratives does not behavelike any other messenger known in the divine or human realm. Although the term‗messenger‘ is present, the narrative itself omits the indispensable features of messenger activity and presents instead the activities which one associates with Yahweh or the othergods of the ancient near east‘ (S. A. Meier, ―Angel,‖ in DDD, 88 [art. =81 -90]; cf. idem, The

Messenger in the Ancient Semitic World [HSM 45; Atlanta‖ Scholars, 1988]).‖ 12 In light of the above conclusions of scholars like Irvin, Meier and Juncker, it is interestingto observe the words of German Biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis, a justly esteemedteacher of Hebrew and other Semitic languages in his day, who wrote the following over acentury before their findings: ―… the inquiry may perhaps arise whether I now believe, as Idid twenty years ago, when I wrote my annotations on the Book of Exodus, that the Angel of the Lord , who calls himself to Moses, Jehovah the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob ,and who brought Israel out of Egypt, was the Second Person in the Godhead. My answer is, Ican scarcely conceive how the matter can be explained otherwise, unless by assuming thatthe phrase Angel of Jehovah is equivalent to a manifestation [or appearance ] of Jehovah; but such an assumption has not yet been established by philological evidence. See my Suppl.ad Lexica Hebr . p. 1255.‖ (As cited in John Pye Smith, D.D., F.R.S., The ScriptureTestimony to the Messiah: An Inquiry With a View to a Satisfactory Determination of the

Doctrine Taught in the Holy Scriptures Concerning the Person of Christ [Edinburgh: WilliamOliphant and Company, 1859], Vol. 1, p. 299, fn222.) (Bold mine)13

John M. Baze, Jr., ―The Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament – Part I‖, ConservativeTheological Journal 3 (Dec., 1997), p. 272: ―This construct relationship would substantiatethat the only possible literal translation of ma’lak YHWH is ‗the Angel of the Lord‘ whileeliminating the indefinite translation, ‗ an angel of the Lord.‘‖ 14 Gerhardus Vos, Ph.D., D.D., was Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology at PrincetonTheological Seminary. In addition to his other academic accomplishments, Vos held adoctorate in Arabic studies from Strassburg University. His dissertation advisor was the wellknown Theodor Noldeke.15 Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B.Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1948), p. 8616 ―It is clear that God is promising to lead Israel and to go with him; the angel of Exodus

32:34 is called in 33:14f. God‘s ‗presence,‘ lit. His face. The two terms are combined in Isaiah 63:9 as ‗the angel of His presence,‘ i.e., the angel who not only stands in God‘s

































presence but in whom God is seen.‖ Merrill C. Tenny, Gen. Ed., Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible , Vol. 5, Q-Z (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Regency ReferenceLibrary, 1976). Entry: theophany.17 Hengstenberg, ibid ., vol. 1, p. 125

The Malak Yahweh:

Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament

Part II

Introduction

The Old Testament puts the divinity of the Malak Yahweh beyond all peradventure of adoubt, not only by supplying premises from which, by good and necessary consequence, sucha conclusion can be deduced, but also by providing unequivocal, plainspoken declarations tothis effect. Theologian Herman Bavinck summarizes some of the most important lines of evidence for this that can be found in the Old Testament:

This much is clear: that in the Mal’akh Yhwh who is preeminently worthy of that name, God(esp. his Word) is present in a very special sense. This is very evident from the fact thatthough distinct from Jehovah this Angel of Jehovah bears the same name, has the samepower, effects the same deliverance, dispenses the same blessings, and is the object of thesame adoration. This exegesis is supported by the entire Old and New Testament[s], … 1

The evidence is also summarized in a similar way by the late Princeton Theologian CharlesHodge:

We … find throughout the Old Testament constant mention made of a person to whom,though distinct from Jehovah as a person, the titles, attributes, and works of Jehovah arenevertheless ascribed. This person is called the angel of God, the angel of Jehovah, Adonai,Jehovah, and Elohim. He claims divine authority, exercises divine prerogatives, and receivesdivine homage … since this is a pervading representation of the Bible – since we find thatthese terms are applied, not first to one and then to another angel indiscriminately, but to oneparticular angel; that the person so designated is also called the Son of God, the Mighty God;

and that the work attributed to Him is elsewhere attributed to God Himself – it is certain thatby the angel of Jehovah in the early books of Scripture we are to understand a divine person…2

At the same time, as the above writers also state, the Angel is not only identified as Yahwehbut He is juxtaposed with Yahweh, a fact that throws the truth of the Trinity in the OldTestament into bold relief, at least as touching on two of the Trinitarian persons. Speaking of the evidence of the Angel‘s distinct divine identity, which, in part, is grounded in theobservation that the Angel speaks as God in the first person and also speaks of God in thethird person, theologian Gerhardus Vos says:

The most important and characteristic form of revelation in the patriarchal period is thatthrough ―the Angel of Jehovah‖ or ―the Angel of God.‖ … The peculiarity in all these cases



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is that, on the one hand, the Angel distinguishes himself from Jehovah, speaking of Him inthe third person, and that, on the other hand, in the same utterance he speaks of God in thefirst person … The problem is how to do justice to both. There is but one way in which thiscan be done: we must assume that back of the twofold representation there lies a realmanifoldness in the inner life of the Deity. If the Angel sent were Himself partaker of the

Godhead, then He could refer to God as his sender, and at the same time speak as God, and inboth cases there would be reality back of it. Without this much of what we call the Trinity thetransaction could not but have been unreal and illusory .3

These two basic issues – 1) the divine identity of the Angel; and 2) the Angel‘s disti nctionfrom Yahweh – will be considered in turn in this and the next couple of papers in this series.

The Malak Yahweh‟s Divine Identity

The Self-Identification of the Angel

When it comes to the self-identification of the Angel, some significance attaches to the factthat He never calls Himself ―the Angel of Yahweh‖; this is always a title given to Him byothers, such as (and almost always) the sacred author or (more rarely) someone else in thenarrative. In fact, quite often the Angel does not identify Himself by any title, and sometimesappears almost allusive when directly questioned, such as when Jacob and Manoah, on twoseparate occasions, ask Him for His name: to the former, He replies, ―Why is it that you ask my name?‖ (Genesis 32:29); and to the l atter, in a reply that is somewhat more informative

but yet still cryptic, He says, ―Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful ,‖ which is tosay, beyond understanding (Judges 13:18) .4 In most cases, then, the Angel simply lets Hiswords and actions speak for themselves, a fact that virtually forces the person to recognizeHim solely on this basis, and these are usually of such a nature that they lead the personhaving the encounter to identify Him as none other than Yahweh or the Lord God.

On those occasions when the Angel does openly identify Himself, He does so by using divinetitles. To Jacob, the Angel says, ―I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the Godof Isaac‖ (Genesis 28:13) and ―I am the God of Bethel‖ (Genesis 31:13). To Moses, theAngel says: ―I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the Godof Jacob‖ (Exodus 3:6); ―I Am that I Am‖ (Exodus 3:14); and ―Yahweh, the God of your fathers, t he God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob‖ (Exodus 3:15). Theonly other title that He gives Himself is ―Captain of the Host of Yahweh‖ (Joshua 5:14).

This shows that the individuals who initially encountered the Angel, to the extent that Heever says His name, or to the extent that they are left to judge by His words and works,which, as we will see, are divine in quality, only know by the facts immediately before them,i.e. by the facts that are present to them, which doesn‘t include the words of the sacredauthors who later record what took place and call Him ―the Angel of Yahweh‖, that theAngel is none other than God Himself. In other words, the fanciful theories that suggestthemselves to people on the basis of the title ―the Angel of Yahweh‖, which we have alreadyseen in part one of this series does not rule out the deity of the Angel anyway, simply werenot available to those who directly encountered Him. For all they knew, the Angel was anappearance of God, just as He always demonstrated and sometimes openly and emphatically

declared.











The Identity of the Malak Yahweh According to People in the Narratives

The evidence that people who encountered the Angel concluded and believed that He wasGod is plentiful.

After the Angel of Yahw eh appeared to Hagar, she gave this name to Him: ―You are a God who sees ‖ (Genesis 16:13). After Jacob awoke from a dream in which the Angel appeared tohim, he said, ―Surely the LORD is in this place , and I did not know it‖ and ―this is none other than the house of God .‖ (Genesis 28:17). On another occasion, Jacob says, ― I have seen God

face to face , yet my life has been preserved‖ (Genesis 32:30). Still later, when reflecting uponthe providence of God in his life as well as that of his fathers, Jacob ref ers to Him as ―TheGod before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been myshepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil …‖ (Genesis48:15-16).

Speaking to the Angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, the Angel who told him todeclare His name to the children of Israel, Moses said: ―Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‗ The God of your fathers has sent me to you ‘‖ (Exodus 3:13).Still later, God says of the Angel, ―My Name is in Him‖ (Exodus 23:21).

When the Angel converses with Gideon, who at first did not recognize who He was, heeventually calls Him ―Lord ‖ (Judges 6:15) and ―LORD God ‖ (6:22). Manoah, who, alongwith his wife, also did not recognize the Angel at first, finally exclaims, ―We will surely die,for we have seen God !‖ (Judges 13:22), to which his wife responds, ―If the LORD haddesired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from ourhands …‖ (Judges 13:23)

For a final testimony, Malachi records the words of God concerning the Angel of thecovenant, where these words are spoken about Him: ―… the Lord , whom you seek, willsuddenly come to H is temple‖ (Malachi 3:1).

Coupled with all of this is the fact that, at least in the case of the patriarchs, memorials namesare given to commemorate a number of these events, each of which point to the fact that theyexperienced a divine encounter:

Haga r names the place where she encountered the Angel, ―Beer -lahai- roi, which means, ―theWell of the Living One Who sees me‖ (Genesis 16:14); Abraham names the place where the

Angel of Yahweh countermands the divine command to slay Isaac, which itself bespeaks theAngel‘s divinity, Yahweh -Yireh, meaning ―the LORD Will Provide‖ (Genesis 22:14); Jacobnames the location of one divine encounter Bethel, which means ―the house of God‖ (Genesis28:19), and he names another place - Peniel, ―the Face of God‖ (Genesis 32:30); and finally,when Gideon erects an altar in the place where the Angel of Yahweh speaks peace to him, henames it ―Yahweh-Shalom‖, Yahweh is Peace (Judges 6:24).

The Identity of the Malak Yahweh According to the Sacred Authors

In response to this, some have objected that certain Biblical characters mentioned above – such as Hagar, Manoah and Gideon – were mistaken when they concluded that the Angel was

God and LORD. Aside from the fact that the above testimonies provided within the narrativeinclude the testimonies of prophets like Moses, the sacred authors would not be expected to



include such testimonies if they were not in fact true, especially since they did not fence theseremarks in such a way as would prevent readers from making the same ―mistake‖. If it beobjected that the very use of the phrase ―the Angel of Yahweh‖ by the Biblical authors doesthis very thing, i.e. this phrase provides a literary clue that this is really a creature-angel andnot a manifestation of God, at least two considerations dispel this.

In the first place, on one of the rare occasions when someone within the narrative actuallycalls Him ―the Angel of Yahweh‖, namely in Judges 6 where the Angel appears to Gideon, itis quite apparent that Gideon, drawing upon previous revelation where the authors of Scripture speak of these visible manifestations to people under the name ―the Angel of Yahweh‖, understands this phrase to be a circumlocution for God.

Then the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belongedto Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order tosave it from the Midianites. The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, ―theLORD is with you, O valiant warrior.‖ Then Gideon said to him, ―O my lord, if the LORD iswith us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which ourfathers told us about, saying, ‗Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?‘ But now theLORD has abandoned us and given us into the han d of Midian.‖ The LORD looked at himand said, ―Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sentyou?‖ He said to Him, ―O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least inManasseh, and I am the younges t in my father‘s house.‖ But the LORD said to him, ―Surely Iwill be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.‖ So Gideon said to Him, ―If now Ihave found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me. Pleasedo not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it beforeYou.‖ And He said, ―I will remain until you return.‖ Then Gideon went in and prepared ayoung goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and thebroth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him, ―Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and

pour out the broth.‖ And he did so. Then the angel of the LORD put o ut the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread and fire sprang up fromthe rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the LORDvanished from his sight. When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the LORD, he said,―Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face.‖ The LORDsaid to him, ―Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.‖ Then Gideon built an altar there tothe LORD and named it The LORD is Peace. (Judges 6:11-23)

At first, Gideon does not appear to recognize who it is he is speaking to. This is seen in themanner by which he initially addresses the Angel, apparently supposing him to be only a manor prophet, calling Him only ―my lord‖ (Judges 6:13). But after the Angel speaks as God inthe first person, ―Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you ?‖ (Judges 6:14), the form of address changes to ―the Lord‖ (Judges 6:15), whichis usually the form of the word reserved for deity. This again is followed by the Angelspeaking as God in the first person, saying, ― Surely I will be with you , and you shall defeatMidian as one man‖ (Judges 6:16). And once again this prompts Gideon to surmise that it isthe Lord Himself who is speaking to him, as is indicated by his request, ―If now I have foundfavor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me‖. Seekingconfirmation that it really is ―the Lord‖, Gideon asks the Angel to wait until he returns with a

minchah , a present, a word that could either refer to a feast or to a meat-offering for God(Leviticus 2:1). The significance of this is captured by Matthew Henry, who says, ―… that



word [ minchah , present] is used which signifies both because Gideon intended to leave it tothis divine person to determine which it should be when he had it before him: whether a feastor a meat- offering, and accordingly he would be able to judge concerning him … ‖

5 In otherwords, if He accepted it and ate of it as a common meal, then it would prove He was a manand therefore just a prophet; but if He received it as a sacrifice, then it would prove He was a

divine person .6

The Angel‘s action furnished a decisive response, thereby settling Gideon‘s lingering doubtand confirming Him to be the Lord, a fact that caused Gideon to exult: ―Alas, O Lord God!For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face.‖

The reaction of Gideon shows how he understood the title ―the Angel of Yahweh‖. Since theAngel does not here call Himself by that name in this story, it is evident that Gideon isdrawing upon the previous Scriptures when he speaks of what has been determined to be adivi ne theophany as an appearance of the Angel of Yahweh: ―When Gideon saw that he wasthe angel of the LORD, he said, ‗Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of theLORD face to face.‘ The LORD said to him, ‗Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die‘‖(Judges 6:22). The fact that Gideon feared that he would die upon seeing the Angel of Yahweh further proves that he understood the Angel to be God .7

In addition to the above, the fact that the sacred authors were not trying to correct anysupposed error on the part of Biblical figures when they, i.e. the sacred authors, denominateHim by the title ―the Angel of Yahweh‖, is proved further by the fact that the most copiousreferences to the Angel as God and LORD come from the sacred authors themselves.

Repeatedly throughout the Torah Moses tells us who it was who was speaking to people onthese occasions, even if they did not at first recognize Him for who He was. When Hagarcalled the Angel ―God who sees,‖ the sacred author prefaces these remarks with thefollowing: ―She gave this name to the LORD [i.e. Yahweh] who spoke to her …‖ (Genesis16:13). In the dream that Jacob had where the Angel, standing above a latter that reachedfrom heaven to earth, says, ―I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac,‖ the sacred author once again provides prefatory remarks identifying Him as Yahweh:―And behold,the LORD stood above it and said, ‗I am the LORD, the God of your fatherAbraham …‖ (Genesis 28:13). When Moses later writes about the conversation he had withthe Angel who spoke to him from the bush, the very one who declared Himself to be the greatI AM, he says things like: ―When the LORD saw that he [i.e. Moses] turned aside to look,God called to him from the midst of the bush‖ (Exodus 3:4); ―then Moses hid his face, for he

was afraid to look at God ‖ (Exodus 3:6); ―The LORD said …‖ (Exodus 3:7); ―But Mosessaid to God …‖ (Exodus 3:11); ―Then Moses said to God …‖ (Exodus 3:13); ―God said toMoses …‖ (Exodus 3:14); ―God , furthermore, said to Moses, …‖ (Exodus 3:15).

As with the writings of Moses, so it is with the rest of the Old Testament writings; theinspired authors refer to the Angel by one or another divine title. And so, for example, whenthe Angel appears to Joshua, the sacred author precedes His words with: ―The LORD said toJoshua …‖ (Joshua 5:13 -6:2). Before Gideon realizes it is the Angel of Yahweh who isstanding before him and talking with him, the sacred author says, speaking of the Angel:―TheLORD [i.e. Yahweh] looked at him [Gideon] and said, …‖ (Judges 6:14); and just twoverses later the Angel‘s words to Gideon are recorded in this wise: ―But the LORD said to

him,…‖ (Judges 6:16). A nd, finally, the prophet Hosea, emphatically and climactically, says















of the Angel: ―... theLORD [i.e. Yahweh], the God of hosts , the LORD [i.e. Yahweh] is Hisname‖ (Hosea 12:5).

If we include the testimony of other passages that do not use the phrase ―the Angel of Yahweh‖ but which do speak of divine theophanies (e.g. Genesis 15, 17, 18 -19, 26; Exodus

24; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1, etc.), and the previous study has shown something of the evidencethat these should also be viewed as appearances of the Malak Yahweh, then the proof of theAngel‘s divinity could be easily extended. The following will briefly illustrate with twoexamples.

First, in Genesis 18 we are told of what appeared to be three men visiting Abraham (Genesis18:2). Later in the story when two of them depart for Sodom we are told they are angels(Genesis 19:1). The Jerusalem Targum and the Targum of Pseudo Jonathan even use theword angel for all three of them. While it is apparent to the reader all along that at least oneof the three is Yahweh (He is called Yahweh by the sacred author in vss. 1, 13, 17, 20, 22, 26and 33), this is a growing realization on the part of Abraham, as seen by the fact that heinitially addresse s Him only as ―Lord‖, which at that point in the context appears to be littlemore than a term of respectful address and a token of Abraham‘s hospitality. Later in thestory, after it has been made plain that one of the visitors is God, Abraham adjusts hislanguage accordingly, and he even calls Him ―the judge of all the earth‖ (vs. 25). Dr. JohnPye Smith gives the following terse summation:

Three persons in human form appeared to Abraham. Two of them passed on to Sodom, on amission of righteous judgment; and they are called angels. The third had remained withAbraham; and He repeatedly assumes and receives the name JEHOVAH. Though He is notexpressly denominated the Angel, yet the attendant circumstances are such as agree withother manifestations in which that appellation is used. Upon this passage, the JerusalemTargum says; ―the Word [Memra] of Jehovah appeared to him in the valley of vision.‖Other Jewish writings have the following explications: ― The Shekinah was associated withthem, and detained Abraham until the angels departed. – He said not who he was: but, in allthese [appearances], it was the Angel of the covenant . – ‖8 (Upper case original; bold mine)

In fact, it is evident from the rest of the story that this person who appeared to Abraham andwho is identified as Yahweh is yet distinct from another person called Yahweh, just as we seein the case of the Angel of Yahweh, for we read the following taking place after Yahwehdeparts from Abraham and goes to Sodom:

Then the LORD [Yahweh] rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from theLORD [Yahweh] out of heaven. (Genesis 19:24)

The distinction drawn in the passage between one person who rains down the fire fromanother, both of whom are called Yahweh, is quite stark .9

A second example of a theophany that could be included which doesn‘t mention the Angel of Yahweh by name but which is evidently an appearance of the Angel all the same, is found inGenesis 26:

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days

of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines. The LORDappeared to him and said, ‗Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you.











Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants Iwill give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. Iwill multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all theselands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abrahamobeyed Me and kep t My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws.‘ So Isaac

stayed in Gerar. (Genesis 26:1-6)

Once again there can be no question in this passage that God is the one who has appeared toIsaac. The sacred author says, ―The LORD appeared to him‖, and th e LORD speaks as Godin the first person, issuing divine commands and promises that only God could make.

While there are many identifying marks in the passage that enable us to determine that it isthe Angel of Yahweh, it is enough to point out that God in verse 3, says, ―I will establish theoath which I swore to your father Abraham‖, which we know from Genesis 22 was in factmade by the Angel of Yahweh:

Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, ―ByMyself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have notwithheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiplyyour seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seedshall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be

blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.‖ (Genesis 22:15 -18)

The author of Hebrews was surely correct, when He said, ―For when God made the promiseto Abraham , since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, …‖ (Hebrews6:13)

Conclusion

The pointed testimony of Hagar, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Gideon and other Biblicalfigures, along with the inspired say-so of the Biblical authors and the self-testimony of theAngel, are more than sufficient to prove that the Bible teaches the Angel‘s divine identity inno uncertain terms. If they are not sufficient to this end, then one must wonder how it wouldbe possible to communicate such an idea at all. Of course the very fact that everyoneunderstands what the present thesis aims to prove, namely that the Angel of Yahweh is theGod of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is proof positive that people are engaging in cognitive

dissonance if and when they refuse to acknowledge what the Biblical authors mean whenthey say the same thing.

Continue with Part III .

Footnotes1 Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God (Carlisle, PA: the Banner of Truth Trust, 1991reprint), pp. 257-258

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2 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology , Abridged Edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerBook House, 1992), p. 1773 Gerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1948), p. 854 However, as Niehaus says: ―The angel may be saying, ‗My name is beyond understanding‘

(cf. NIV). But his words may also be a divine asseveration: ‘My name is Wonderful.’ ‖ JeffreyJ. Niehaus, God At Sinai: Covenant and Theophany in the Bible and the Ancient Near East (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995), p. 241 (Emphasis mine)5 Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers,1991), Vol. 2, p. 1246 This also appears to be what is going on in the encounter between Manoah and the Angel of Yahweh (Judges 13).7 Lord willing, this passage (along with others) will be considered at greater length later inthe exegetical portion of this series. These first several articles aim to be more systematic andgive the lay of the land and show that Jesus is the divine Messenger spoken of throughout theOld Testament.8 Dr. John Pye Smith, D.D., F.R.S., The Scripture Testimony to the Messiah: An Inquiry Witha View to a Satisfactory Determination of the Doctrine Taught in the Holy ScripturesConcerning the Person of Christ (Edinburgh: William Oliphant and Company, 1859), Vol. 1,p. 297. This quote has the following in a footnote (# 216): Gen. xviii. ―And Jehovah appearedto him,‖ etc. polygl. Walton . vol. iv. Midrash Tehilim . et. Zohar . ap. Schottgen . Hor. Heb .vol. ii. 442.9 For more on Genesis 19:24, see the following articles: 1, 2, 3, 4.

The Malak Yahweh:


Part IIIa

By Anthony Rogers

Introduction

Continuing our look at the evidence for the deity of the Malak Yahweh (i.e. theMessenger/Angel of the LORD) in the Old Testament, several other considerations may beadded to that of the last paper. In addition to the Angel identifying Himself and beingidentified by others as God through the use of divine titles, as we saw in part two, which willalso prove relevant in this article, the fact that the Angel speaks as God in the first person,possesses divine attributes, performs divine works, exercises divine prerogatives, receivesdivine honors, as well as the fact that death is feared upon seeing Him, also evince theAngel‘s true and proper divinity. The first of these additional or supporting reasons will betaken up in this and the following article.

















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First Person Speech

The air about the Angel, the way He speaks in the first person, saying things that only Godcan properly say, and the entire way He conducts each conversation, exude divinity. Indeed,

the Angel speaks with such unprecedented authority, commanding assent in His words,obedience to His commands, and issuing astounding promises, that those who do not initiallyknow who He is are quickly led by His words to surmise His deity.

To Hagar

The first recorded appearance of the Malak Yahweh to someone in the Hebrew text was toHagar, the maidservant of Sarai, sometime subsequent to fleeing from her mistress .1 After theMalak Yahweh orders Hagar to return and submit to the authority of Sarai, and before Hetells her she is with child and that she is to name the boy Ishmael, the Angel said to her: ― I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be to o many to count‖ (Genesis16:10), a statement that is similar to what the Angel said in a later appearance to Hagar sometime after the birth of Ishmael: ―Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him by the hand, for I will make a great nation of him‖ (Genesis 21: 18). In fact, this parallels the first person speech of God to Abraham in Genesis 17:20, ―As for Ishmael, I have heard you; behold, I will blesshim, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become thefather of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation‖; and in Genesis 21:13: ―And of the son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your descendant.‖ In light of thisit is difficult to deny that Hagar and Abraham, both of whom would no doubt have beenapprised of what was experienced by the other, would have concluded that the same beingappeared to each of them on these different occasions making the same promise(s). It is alsoapparent from this that it was the intention of the inspired author to equate the Angel of theLORD with Yahweh. According to the author of Genesis: what the Angel promised to do,Yahweh promised to do.

With a view to the above, it may be further asked, on the assumption of those who deny theidentity of the Angel with God, if the Angel is not divine and is merely a created angel, thenwhat purpose does the Angel serve seeing that Yahweh Himself is said to appear inalternating contexts speaking these very same words? And since the Angel does not use anydistinguishing title in his appearance to Hagar, speaking the same words that God would laterspeak to Abraham, what other conclusion could Hagar be expected to deduce other than thevery one that is ascribed to her: ―You are a God Who Sees Me‖ (Genesis 16:13)? Would

Abraham have been justified in concluding that the one who spoke these words in the firstperson to him was none other than God, as the reader knows to be the case from the context,while Hagar was not justified for inferring the same conclusion when the same promises werespoken in the first person to her? And does not the fact that the Angel‘s manner of addressingHagar, which no doubt was exactly as God had wanted it to be, which led Hagar to concludethat He is God, show that this is exactly the conclusion He intended for her to make? Andsince the Angel did not rebuff this response from Hagar after He had done everything, suchas speak as God in the first person, to give the very impression that formed her conclusion, isthis not a silence that shouts His deity, especially when silence on such an occasion woulditself have been a tacit approval of what could only be considered idolatry on the suppositionthat the Angel is not God? The answer to these questions will be obvious to all but the most

prejudiced reader.

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To Abraham

After God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but before he could perform thedeed, we read that the Angel of Yahweh appeared and said: ―Do not stretch out your handagainst the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not

withheld your son, your only son, from Me ‖ (Genesis 22:12). The very fact that the Angel,who once again does not call Himself by that title, appears and countermands what God toldAbraham to do, and does so on the grounds that Abraha m‘s fear of God has been proven bythe fact that ―you have not withheld your son … from me‖, once again shows the Angelspeaking as God in the first person. No one but God has the authority to relax a divinecommand, and no one but God could have claimed in this context that Abraham was offeringhis son as a sacrifice to him. Not only are sacrifices in general to be made to God accordingto the Old Testament, but the specific command by God to Abraham was to offer Isaac to

Him . Furthermore, as a consequence of Abraham‘s obedience to His voice, the Angel of Yahweh, after swearing by Himself, goes on to say: ―… I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on theseashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice ‖ (Genesis 22:17 -18). Onceagain the Angel speaks in the first person, saying what only God can say, and identifiesHimself as the one to whom Abraham obediently submitted or whose voice He obeyed. Fromthis it is clear that the faith of Abraham consisted in submission to the Malak Yahweh.

To Isaac

The oath that the Angel of Yahweh made to Abraham in Genesis 22 for obeying His voice isrepeated by God in Genesis 26 at a future appearance to Isaac:

Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the daysof Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines. The LORDappeare d to him and said, ―Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell

you . Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to yourdescendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to yourfather Abraham. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give yourdescendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall beblessed; because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutesand My laws.‖ (Genesis 26:1 -5)

A comparison of Genesis 22, where Abraham obeys the voice of the Angel, and where theAngel promises on oath to bless him and his descendants, with Genesis 26, where Goddeclares that it was his charge that Abraham kept, and that He was the one who swore toAbraham that He would bless him and his descendants, yields the obvious conclusion that thesame one who appeared speaking in the first person to Abraham is the same one whoappeared speaking in the first person to Isaac. But even if a distinction is assumed, the factthat the Angel of Yahweh spoke (to Abraham) in the same way that God is later said to havespoken (to Isaac), shows at least a functional if not an ontological equivalence between theMalak Yahweh and Yahweh.

More than that, since there can be little doubt that Isaac would have known about the incident

recorded in Genesis 22 when the Malak Yahweh spoke to Abraham from heaven, not onlybecause his father would have told him, particularly since Isaac was to be the heir of the



promises, and above all because Isaac himself was there on the occasion in question, we canbe sure that Isaac would have concluded not merely a functional but an ontologicalequivalence of the Angel with Yahweh. It was by the Malak Yahweh‘s voice that Isaac wassaved in Genesis 22, and so when God appeared later to Isaac speaking the same words asthose of the Malak Yahweh who spoke from heaven, and did so without saying anything to

draw a distinction between Himself and the Malak Yahweh, the obvious conclusion thatwould have been drawn was that the same one who told his father, Abraham, to spare him, isthe same one who has now appeared to him. In other words, not only does the simplestexplanation of the passage lead to the conclusion that God here is the Angel of Yahweh whoappeared previously, but this is the very conclusion that Isaac naturally would have made.And with this being the case, this means the above words in the first person were spoken bythe Malak Yahweh on this occasion: ―… Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws‖ (Genesis 26:5). In any event, there is nothingadded here in Genesis 26 to what we know about how the Angel of Yahweh speaks that haseither not been shown to be the case already (i.e. Genesis 22) or that will not be shown to bethe case from later appearances of the Malak Yahweh (e.g. Exodus 23:20).

To Jacob

When the Lord appears later to Jacob, in a place Jacob would rename Bethel because of thisevent, he identifies Himself as Yahweh, the God of his father Abraham and the God of Isaac,and he repeats to Jacob the same promises he made to them aforetime:

… ―I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on whichyou lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like thedust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and tothe south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to thisland; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.‖ (Genesis 28:13 -15)

Since we know from a subsequent passage that it was specifically the Malak Yahweh whoappeared to Jacob in Bethel, and who identified Himself as God – ―Then the Angel of Godsaid to me [Jacob] in a dream…. ‗I am the God of Bethel…‘‖ (Genesis 31:11, 13) – then theabove first person discourse must once again be attributed to Him. It was, then, the Malak Yahweh who said to Jacob, even as He said to Abraham and Isaac: ―I will‖ give you and your descendants this land, ―I will‖ keep you wherever you go, ―I will‖ bring you back to this land,

and ―I will‖ not leave you.

From Jacob‘s own mouth, in words of invocation to God and blessing upon his son, Joseph,and his son‘s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, Jacob confirms his understanding that it was theAngel who made these promises in the first person and who also kept them, and that it wouldbe this very Angel who would be faithful to his descendants after him, upon whose heads thepromises made to Jacob would devolve:

He [i.e. Jacob] blessed Joseph, and said, ―The God before whom my fathers Abraham andIsaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who hasredeemed me from all evil, [may He] bless the lads; and may my name live on in them, and

the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and may they grow into a multitude in the midstof the earth.‖ (Genesis 48:15 -16)



There can be no question that Jacob here reveals his understanding that the Angel is God, forthe three parallel references here to ―the God of my father Abraham‖, ―the God of my father Isaac‖, and ―the Angel who redeemed me from all evil‖, are all joined together by the verb,unusually forestalled to the end of the sentence, which is singular in Hebrew: ―may He bless the lads‖, a fact that shows, among other things, that Jacob concluded from the first person

promises made to him by this Angel, and no doubt from other things that will be pointed outlater, that the Angel was none other than God, his shepherd and redeemer. Upon this point,even liberal critics, who are otherwise disinclined to believe the truth, are constrained toagree, as may be seen in the following comment upon this passage by a prominent twentieth-century advocate of the tradition-historical approach to the Bible, Gerhard Von Rad:

―The little hymn reaches the climax of its attempt to identify Jahweh in des criptive terms inthe third title. Any idea that the ―angel‖ means a being subordinate to Jahweh is of courseruled out. This [malak] too is Jahweh – but in contradistinction to the Jaweh of generalprovidence, he is the Jahweh of the specific saving actio n …‖2

To Moses

In what constituted His first appearance to Moses in the burning bush, the Angel of Yahweh(Exodus 3:2) once again speaks as God in the first person, saying what only God can say, andeven identifies Himself by the Name that would forever after be associated by Jews andChristians with the true God and no one else.

Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the Priest of Midian; and heled the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Theangel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush.... " I havesurely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their crybecause of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down todeliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a goodand spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite andthe Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold,the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me ; furthermore, I have seen the oppression withwhich the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you toPharaoh, so that you may bring My people , the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.‖ But Moses saidto God, ―Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel outof Egypt?‖ And He said, ―Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship

God at this mountain.‖ Then Moses said to God, ―Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel,and I will say to them, ‗The God of your fathers has sent me to you.‘ Now they may say tome, ‗What is His name?‘ What shall I say to them?‖ God said to Moses, ― I AM WHO I AM ‖;and He said, ―Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‗ I AM has sent me to yo u.‘‖ God,furthermore, said to Moses, ―Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‗The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me toyou.‘ This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations. Go andgather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‗The LORD, the God of your fathers, theGod of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me,‘ saying, ‗ I am indeed concernedabout you and what has been done to you in Egypt. So I said , I will bring you up out of theaffliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the

Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey.‘‖ (Exodus3:1-2, 7-17)







Given the incommunicable nature of the divine name, and given that this name is not onlyapplied to, or, as is actually the case in this passage, arrogated by, the Malak Yahweh, whichis done by Him alone in contradistinction to any and all other angels or representatives so-called, it is impossible to say that the Malak Yahweh would speak of Himself in this waywere He not in fact Yahweh.

----- Excurus on the Divine Name and the Angel -----

According to the Bible (and classical Christianit y3), no one can lay claim to the nameYahweh but Yahweh alone, for this is His distinctive name, His covenant name, Hismemorial name for all generations. In addition to Exodus 3 above, the following passagesmay also be cited as relevant:

―I am the LORD [Yahweh], that is My name; I will not give My glory to another , nor My praise to graven images ...‖ (Isaiah 42:8)

―For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; for how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another .‖ (Isaiah 48:11)

―Let them be ashamed and dismayed forever, and let them be humiliated and perish, that theymay know that You alone , whose name is the LORD [YHWH] , are the Most High over all theearth.‖ (Psalm 83:18)

―the LORD [YHWH] , the God of hosts, the LORD [YHWH] is his memorial name .‖ (Hosea12:5)

That the Jews have always considered from the Old Testament evidence that Yahweh,YHWH, is God‘s distinctive nam e, i.e. Shem Hamephorash , is also clear-cut. In hisdistillation of what the Talmud teaches on many important subjects, Abraham Cohen says thefollowing about the divine Name:

To the Oriental, a name is not merely a label as with us. It was thought of as indicating thenature of the person or object by whom it was borne. For that reason special reverenceattached to ‗the distinctive Name‘ ( Shem Hamephorash ) of the Deity which He had revealedto the people of Israel, viz., the tetragrammaton, JHVH .4 (Italics original)

Although he does not provide the relevant references on this point, Cohen‘s remarks areborne out by numerous statements from the Talmud, among which can be found thefollowing:

Another [Baraitha] taught: 'On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel' — with the useof the Shem Hameforash . You say that it means with the Tetragrammaton; but perhaps thatis not so and a substituted name was used! There is a text to say: So shall they put My name

— My name which is unique to Me . It is possible to think that [the Shem Hameforash wasalso used] in places outside the Temple; but it is stated here, 'So shall they put My name' andelsewhere it is stated: To put His name there — as in this latter passage it denotes in theTemple so also in the former passage it denotes in the Temple. R. Joshiah says: [This

deduction] is unnecessary; behold it states: In every place where I cause My name to beremembered I will come unto thee. Can it enter your mind that every place is intended? But











the text must be transposed thus: In every place where I will come unto thee and bless theewill I cause My name to be remembered; and where will I come unto thee and bless thee? Inthe Temple; there, in the Temple, will I cause My name to be remembered .5 (Emphasis mine)

For this reason it is all the more disagreeable and blameworthy that Rabbinic Jews would, on

the one hand, when explicating this great truth from pertinent passages of Scripture,acknowledge and teach that Yahweh is the distinctive name of God, only to turn around andtake this back with the other hand when trying to account for why the Malak Yahweh callsHimself by this name or is called this name by others, pretending that this is resolved by theprinciple that one who is sent can be called by the name of the one who sent him.

Even if it were true in other cases that a person is called by the name of the one who sendshim, it would be precluded in this case on the above principle, that is, that the Name of Yahweh is incommunicable. Furthermore, mere agents or created angels, whether human orsupernatural, are in fact never referred to with the ineffable Name of Yahweh. This glorybelongs to the Malak Yahweh alone in contradistinction to others, and is, therefore, aconclusive, irrefutable proof of His deity.

The remarks of Rev. A. M‘Caul are worthy of being quoted at length on this. After notingseveral other places where the Malak Yahweh is called Yahweh, he comes to Genesis 16,where he makes the following comments:

We read in the Law, that He appeared to Hagar, when she fled from her mistress; and afterrelating the vision, the sacred history adds, ―And she called the name of the LORD,[YHWH], who spake with her,‖ so that He who was before called the angel of the Lord , ishere called Jehovah. Rashi, Aben Ezra, Solomon ben Melech, and Nachmanides, all pass thisover in silence. Individual Jews to whom I have proposed the passage, have almost alwaysreplied, that Hagar was mistaken, and from ignorance applied the name Jehovah to the angel.But this is not the fact, Hagar did not call the angel Jehovah, she called Him , or asour translation has it, ―Thou God seest me.‖ It is the historian, in the course of his narrative,who applies to the angel the name Jehovah, and this is acknowledged by Abarbanel, who saysthat this is an exceedingly difficult passage, particularly ―Because the peculiar name of Godis employed, ‗She called the name of the LORD who spake with her;‘ and how can it possiblybe, that the First Cause, blessed be He, should speak with Hagar; when the law itself testifiesand says, that it was the angel of the Lord who appeared unto her, and not the Lord Himself?‖A little lower down he gives his solution of this difficulty thus; ―The right ans wer here is, thatall prophetic vision, whether mediate or immediate, is always attributed to God, blessed be

He, for it is from Him and by His will, and on this account also the Messenger is sometimescalled by the name of Him that sends him. In this point of view it is that the Scripture says,‗And she called the name of the LORD that spake to her.‘‖. … His solution we shall consider presently, but now only remark that he admits that the angel of the Lord is here calledJehovah, and proceed to take a similar instance from the historical books.

In the book of Judges, vi. 11, we read that the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon. At verse14, we suddenly find this person called Jehovah the LORD. ―And the LORD, [YHWH],looked upon him, and said, Go in this t hy might.‖ And again, verse 16, ―And the LORD,[YHWH], said unto him, Surely I will be with thee.‖ We refer to this passage, because thefact is admitted by the Rabbies. Kimchi says, in his commentary on the last quoted verse, ―In

the words, ‗The Lord said unto him,‘ the angel is called by the name of the Lord, as is thecase also with the angel who appeared to Joshua, of whom it is written, ‗And the Lord,







[YHWH], said unto Joshua.‘‖ (Josh. vi. 2) And in this passage of Joshua to which he refers,he says, ‗And the Lord said unto Joshua, that is, through the angel who appeared to him, andhe is called by the name of the LORD who sent him. And we find a similar instance in theangel who appeared to Gideon, of whom it is written, ‗And the Lord said unto him, su rely Iwill be with thee.‘ Our rabbies of blessed memory have said, ‗My name is in him.‘ R. Simeon

ben Lakish says, ‗This teaches us, that the Holy One, blessed be He, associates his name toeach of the angels.‘‖ We have here the same admission made, and t he same solutionproposed, as in the former case by Abarbanel.

We now take a similar instance from the prophets. In the third chapter of Zechariah, Joshuathe high-priest, is represented as standing before the angel of the LORD, and then it is added,―And the LORD, [YHWH], said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan.‖ The personcalled in the first verse the angel of the Lord, is in the second verse called the LORD, asKimchi himself acknowledges; ―this is said of the angel, who is called by the name of hismaster, and so in the history of Gideon, and other places.

From these three passages, selected from the law, the historical books, and the Prophets, itappears, the Being designated by the title ―The angel of the Lord,‖ is also called [YHWH],Jehovah, the proper name of God; and from the rabbinical commentaries it appears, that thisinference is not peculiar to Christians, nor forced from the text in order to suit their doctrinalviews, but that those rabbies who made it their peculiar care to overthrow every interpretationfavourable to Christianity, were nevertheless constrained by the plainness and frequency of such passages, to come to the same conclusion. They did not make this admission inignorance, they evidently foresaw the use that would be made of it, and, therefore, endeavorto guard against it by saying, ―that the messenger is called by the name of him that sendshim.‖ But this explanation, taken as a general assertion, is, in the first place, contrary to thefact. In the eighth and ninth chapters of Daniel, an angel is sent to Daniel, but he is not calledby the name of him that sent him, but is called Gabriel. In the prophecies of Zechariah weread of many angels of whom it is said, ―These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk toand fr o through the earth,‖ but they are not called by the name of their Lord. In like manner Isaiah saw an angel sent to him to remove his iniquity, but this angel is not called by thename of his master, but ―one of the Seraphim.‖ In the second place, if taken with specialreference to the particular case of the angel of the Lord, this explanation is no explanation atall, but a mere identical proposition in somewhat different words. When I say the angel of theLord is called Jehovah, what else is intended but this, ―That the messenger is called by thename of Him that sends him?‖ This last sentence is, therefore, no explanation of the first, andstill less a removal of the difficulty. The difficulty is, why, for what reasons is the Messenger

called by the name of Him who sends him? If this were the universal practice, if every angelwere called Jehovah, we might say, it is the style of Scripture to ascribe the peculiar name of God to all his messengers, but this cannot be pretended. There are many instances where theangels have no names, and others, where a peculiar name is ascribed; the question then is,Why is the angel of the Lord called by His name? And this question acquires double forcefrom what we have proved above, that there is but one Being who is called the Angel of theLord, or The Angel of God. Why, then, is this one individual called by that august name,Jehovah, and the others not? And, observe, that it has not only been proved from theScripture that the name Jehovah is ascribed to only one angel, but that it can be proved alsothat this was the opinion of the ancient Jews. The Talmud has the following passage, ―Thesame heretic said to Rav Idith, It is written, ‗And he [i.e. God] said unto Moses, Come up

unto the LORD,‘ (Exod. xxiv. l), but it ought to have been written, ‗Come up unto me.‘ Therabbi answered, The speaker here is Metatron, whose name is the same as that of his master,



for it is written, ‗For my name is in him.‘ (Exod. xxiii. 21.) This passage is obviously thesource whence Kimchi and Abarbanel borrowed the above explanation, but here theexplanation is not general, applying to all angels, but only to one whose name is Metatron.And the occasion of this reply plainly shows that the other opinion, that the name Jehovah isascribed indiscriminately to all angels was then unknown, for, if it had been, it would have

been a more plausible answer to the heretics objection. The real difficulty, therefore, remainsin all its force, why is the peculiar and proper name of God applied to the angel of the Lord?

After citing the Talmud and numerous rabbinic authorities on the fact that Yahweh is the proper name of God, and that the name applies to Him alone, M‘Caul concludes thusly:

… when we combine the admissions of opponents with the plain words of Scripture, therecan be no doubt of these two things, first, that the name Jehovah is the peculiar name of God;and, secondly, that God has claimed it for himself, because it has reference to that substanceand essence peculiar to himself. Why, then, is it communicated to the angel of the Lord?There can be but one answer: because He partakes of that substance and essence whichmakes the communication of the name suitable; or, in other words, because the Angel of theLord is very God. And this conclusion is confirmed .6

----- Excursus Ended -----

Continue with Part IIIb .

Footnotes1 While this is the first recorded mention of the Malak Yahweh in the Hebrew text, the JewishTargums, which, generally speaking, were interpretive translations or paraphrases of theHebrew text into Aramaic, in reflecting a belief among ancient Jews that the Malak Yahwehspoken of throughout the older Testament was a divine theophany or appearance of God,actually took earlier statements of the Hebrew Scriptures to be allusions or references to theMalak Yahweh. For example, because the Hebrew text of Genesis 4 can be translated assaying, ―I have begotten a man, the Lord ,‖ the Targumim took this as evidence that Eve,probably in light of the primeval promise from God in Genesis 3:15 to give her a child who

would defeat and deliver mankind from Satan, expected to give birth to the Angel of theLord: ―And Adam knew Hava [i.e. Eve] his wife, who had desired the Angel ; and sheconceived, and bare Kain; and she said , I have acquired a man, the Angel of the Lord ‖ (TheTargum of Palestine, Commonly Entitled the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, Genesis 4:1 ).While Eve, according to the above reading, may have believed that her first born son, Cain,was the fulfillment of the promise, at least initially, we subsequently learn that he was not, infact, the promised deliverer; rather, he was of the evil one, spiritually and morally speaking.2 Gerhard Von Rad, Old Testament Theology , Vol. I (New York: Harper and Row Publishers,1962), p. 287. Lord willing, the way Von Rad and other critical scholars try to get around thefull implications of this will be dealt with in a future installment in this series.3 The following are some representative examples: ―But we say that this name is so peculiar

to God as to be altogether incommunicable to creatures‖, Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Volume One: First Through Tenth Topics (Philipsburg, New Jersey:




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Presbyterian and Reformed, [1696], 1992), p. 184; ―In the name ‗Jehovah‘ the O.T.revelation of God reaches its culmination: no new names are added. God‘s ‗pr oper name parexcellence‘ is Jehovah … This name is, therefore, not used of any other than Israel‘s God,and never occurs in the construct state, in the plural or with suffixes,‖ Herman Bavinck, The

Doctrine of God (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Tr uth Trust, 1991), p. 107; ―Hence,

from the nature of the case this name cannot be analogically transferred to any creature,however eminent or exalted‖, J. H. Thornwell, The Collected Writings of James H.Thornwell: Lectures on the Doctrine of God and Divine Government , Vol. 1 (Solid GroundChristian Books), p. 154; ―Jehovah … has ever been esteemed by the Church the mostdistinctive and sacred, because [it is] the incommunicable name of God,‖ R. L. Dabney,Systematic Theology (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust [1871], 1985), p.145; ―[Jehovah], the Name of God, the Name par excellence, in which God‘s nature isrevealed in the highest sense of the word, and by which He is distinguished forever even fromthe deities of the heathen‖, Herman Hoe ksema, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids,Michigan: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1966), p. 66; ―It [Jehovah] has alwaysbeen regarded as the most sacred and the most distinctive name of God, the incommunicablename. … It stresses the covenant faithfulness of God, is His proper name par excellence …and is therefore used of no one but Israel‘s God‖, Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (GrandRapids, Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., [1939], 1991), p. 494 Abraham Cohen, Everyman’s Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages (NewYork: Shocken Books, [1949], 1995) p. 245 Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sotah, 38a . A footnote to this, #15, explains the meaning of Shem Hamephorash: ―[Lit.. 'the Distinguished Name', synonymous with Shem Hameyuhad,'the Unique Name' and generally held identical with the Tetragrammaton, uttered as written,v. Sanh. (Sonc. ed.) p. 408, n. 1.]‖ 6 The Rev. A M‘Caul, Rabbi David Kimchi’s Commentary on t he Prophecies of Zechariah ,translated from the Hebrew, with Notes, and Observations on the Passages Relating to the

Messiah (London: J. Duncan, 1837), p. 13-17, 19 (available online: here ).

The Malak Yahweh:


Part IIIb

To Joshua

When ―the Captain of Yahweh‘s host‖, whom we have already discovered to be the Malak Yahweh ,1 appears to Joshua prior to the battle of Jericho, He says: ―See, I have given Jerichointo your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all themen of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days‖ (Joshua 6:2-3). While itmight be said that a high ranking created angel could have been sent by God to aid Israel, afact that would be true in any case, for wherever the Captain of the heavenly host can befound, archangels and other high and low ranking angels would be part of His train and inattendance upon Him, ready to do His bidding, and that the words above are not inconsistentif spoken in the first person by an angel who came with such a charge and a guarantee of success from God, the most natural readi ng is to take them as God‘s words, thus identifying





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the Captain as truly divine. In fact, the whole passage read in context rules out seeing it anyother way:

Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, andbehold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went

to him and said to him, ―Are you for us or for our adversaries?‖ He said, ―No; rather I indeedcome now as captain of the host of the LORD ‖ [Heb. sar tsaba YHWH ]. And Joshua fell onhis face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, ―What has my lord to say to hisservant?‖ The captain of the LORD’S host said to Joshua, ―Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.‖ And Joshua did so. Now Jericho wastightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in. The LORD said to Joshua, ―See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiantwarriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shalldo so for six days.‖ (Joshua 5:13 -6:1-3)

And so while the first person speech in Joshua 6:2-3, abstracted from the context, might seemto be amenable to either interpretation, i.e. it could just as well be Yahweh or a created angelwho is speaking, the context makes it plain that the former is correct, for it plainly calls HimYahweh or LORD. This means that the Captain of Yahweh‘s host/the Malak Yahweh/Yahweh directly claims to have given Jericho into the hands of Joshua and not that acreated angel had appeared to Joshua and was saying that he was commissioned for such atask.

Any attempt to drive a wedge between the appearance of the Captain of Yahweh‘s host andYahweh who spoke to Joshua, as some have tried to do, would result in profoundincoherence, ―because, in that case, the appearance of the Captain [Joshua 5:13ff], who onlynow gives command to Joshua [6:2], would have been without an object. In chap. v. thedirections would be wanting; in chap. vi. we should have no report of the appearance. ‖2 Inother words, unless the Commander of heaven‘s host who appears at the end of chapter fiveis also the one who spoke to Joshua at the beginning of chapter six, it would mean theCommander appeared to Joshua but did not inform him of anything, and that Yahweh spokewithout any indication that He first appeared or came to Joshua.

The fact that He is specifically called the Captain or Prince of the Host of Yahweh in chapterfive is no obstacle to this contextually settled conclusion, for not only do the Dead SeaScrolls provide evidence that the word ―prince‖ was used for God, i.e. ―Prince of Gods andKing of the glorious ones, Lord of eve ry spirit, Owner of every creature, ‖3 not to mention that

the ―Mighty God‖ of Isaiah 9:6 is also called the ―Prince of Peace‖, but the full title found inJoshua 5 is used for God elsewhere in Scripture:

Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn which grew exceedingly great. … It grewup to the host of heaven and caused some of the host and some of the stars to fall to the earth,and it trampled them down. It even magnified itself to be equal with the Commander of the

host [Heb. sar ha-tsaba ]; and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him , and the place of Hissanctuary was thrown down. (Daniel 8:9-11; cf. 8:25 and 11:36-37)

By the small horn, Daniel is clearly talking about an eschatological figure who would oppose―the Commander of the host‖, and that part of the opposition of this ―small horn‖ would

involve the removal of the sacrifices ―from Him ‖, i.e. the Commander of the Host, and thatthe very place of sacrifice, the sanctuary, i.e. the temple in Jerusalem, which is here called











― His sanctuary‖, meaning the sanctuary of the Commander, would be thrown down. Since thesacrifices offered in the temple are made to God, and si nce the temple is God‘s temple, theCommander of the Host here can only be God.

This latter observation is confirmed again in the book of Malachi, where the Messenger (Heb.

Mal’ak , i.e. Angel) of the covenant is identified as ―the Lord‖ who will come to ―His temple‖(Malachi 3:1ff). Here again we see the Messenger brought together with ―the covenant‖, ―thetemple‖, and identified as ―the Lord‖, the very thing said by Daniel about the Prince of theHost. And so by multiple lines of confirmation, not only is the ―Prince of the Host of Yahweh‖ known to be the Malak Yahweh, He is shown to be the Lord, thus positivelyestablishing the significance of the first person speech of the Prince to Joshua .4

To Israel

In a later appearance of the Angel of Yahweh ―to all the sons of Israel‖, He once again spokein the first person, and said things that only God can say:

Now the angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And h e said, ― I brought you upout of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‗ I willnever break My covenant with you, and as for you, you shall make no covenant with theinhabitants of this land; you shall tear down the ir altars.‘ But you have not obeyed Me ; whatis this you have done? Therefore I also said, ‗ I will not drive them out before you; but theywill become as thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you.‘‖ When the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices andwept. So they named that place Bochim; and there they sacrificed to the LORD. (Judges 2:1-5)

The things the Angel says in the first person are striking, and clearly identify Him not only asthe Malak Yahweh who appeared to the patriarchs, to the generation of Israelites who weredelivered from Egypt, and to the generation that was brought into the land of Canaan, but asvery God.

To begin with, the Malak Yahweh identifies Himself as the one who swore on oath to ―your fathers‖ (v. 1), i.e. the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that He would give the land tothem and to their descendants. It is evident throughout the patriarchal narrative that it wasGod who swore this very thing to them: ―By Myself I have sworn, declares Yahweh, …‖(Genesis 22:16); and ―Yahweh appeared to him [i.e. Isaac] and said: … ‗I will establish the

oath which I swore to your father Abraham …‘‖ (Genesis 26: 2, 3).

Secondly, He directly identifies Himself as the one that ―brought you up out of Egypt‖ infulfillment of the oath (v. 1), another statement that could only be said in this sense by GodHimself: ―I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the la nd of Egypt, out of thehouse of slavery‖ (Exodus 20:2). In fact, the same thing is reiterated just a few chapters later in Judges 6:8.

Thirdly, He says: ―I will never break my covenant with you‖ (v. 1); thus identifying Himself as the owner and guarantor of the covenant, that is, as the one who sovereignly determined itscharacter, established it with Israel, and secures its fulfillment. Throughout Scripture the

covenant made with Israel is said to belong to God alone. For example, at its commencement,God refers to the covenant He made with Abraham as ―My covenant‖ nine times:







Now when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him,―I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless. I will establish My covenant

between Me and you, and I will multiply you exceedingly.‖ Abram fell on his face, and Godtalked with him, saying, ―As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be thefather of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name

shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make youexceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. Iwill establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughouttheir generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants afteryou. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all theland of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.‖ God said further toAbraham, ―Now as for you, you shall keep My covenant , you and your descendants after youthroughout their generations. This is My covenant , which you shall keep, between Me andyou and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. And youshall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenantbetween Me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcisedthroughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with moneyfrom any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. A servant who is born in your house orwho is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be inyour flesh for an everlasting covenant. But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised inthe flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My

covenant .‖ Then God said to Abraham, ―As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her nameSarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by herThen I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come fromher.‖ Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, ―Will a child be bornto a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?‖ AndAbraham said to God, ―Oh that Ishmael might live before You!‖ But God said, ―No, butSarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My

covenant with him for an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him. As for Ishmael,I have heard you; behold, I will bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply himexceedingly He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this season nextyear.‖ When He f inished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the servants who were born in his house and all who were boughtwith his money, every male among the men of Abraham‘s household, and circumcised theflesh of their foreskin in the very same day, as God had said to him. Now Abraham wasninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his

son was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. In the verysame day Abraham was circumcised, and Ishmael his son. All the men of his household, whowere born in the house or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.(Genesis 17:1-27; cf. Exodus 6:4-5, 19:5, Leviticus 26:9, 15, 42-44, Deuteronomy 31:16, 20,Joshua 7:11, Isaiah 56:6, Ezekiel 17:19 )5

Fourthly, the Angel of Yahweh alludes to words that He spoke earlier to Israel after Hebrought them out of Egypt: ―I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which Ihave sworn to your fathers; and I said , ‗ I will never break My covenant with you, and as for

you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars. ‘ But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done? Therefore I also said , ‗ I

will not drive them out before you; but they will become as thorns in your sides and their







gods will be a snare to you ‘‖ (vv. 1 -3). When we look back to the occasion when these wordswere spoken, they are plainly attributed to God:

After speaking of the fact that He would punish the people of Israel if they rebelled againstHim, nevertheless Yahweh told them that He would not break His covenant with them:

… then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenantwith Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. For theland will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolatewithout them They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, because theyrejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes. Yet in spite of this, when they arein the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy

them, breaking My covenant with them ; for I am the LORD their God. But I will rememberfor them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in thesight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 26:42-45)

And the command not to make a covenant with idolaters in the land but to break down theiraltars was also spoken directly by God:

Then God said , ―Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I willperform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth nor among any of the nations;and all the people among whom you live will see the working of the LORD, for it is a fearfulthing that I am going to perform with you. Be sure to observe what I am commanding youthis day: behold, I am going to drive out the Amorite before you, and the Canaanite, the

Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite. Watch yourself that you make no covenantwith the inhabitants of the land into which you are going , or it will become a snare in your midst. But rather, you are to tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars and cutdown their Asherim – for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name isJealous, is a jealous God-- otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of theland and they would play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someonemight invite you to eat of his sacrifice, and you might take some of his daughters for yoursons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to playthe harlot with their gods.‖ (Exodus 34:10 -16; cf. Exodus 23:31-32, and Leviticus 26:42-44)

No mere creature could say what the Malak Yahweh says in Judges 2.

To Gideon

Similar to the words spoken to Joshua by the Prince of the Host of Yahweh, the Angel of Yahweh appears to Gideon and utters the command to go up against Midian, followed by arhetorical question, which is obviously intended to engender confidence in Gideon that hewill be successful: ―Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have

I not sent you‖ (Judges 6:14). After Gideon protests his own inability and insignificance asreason to doubt that he will be able to deliver Israel from the hand of Midian, the Malak Yahweh quells his fear with the declaration, ―Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeatMidian as one man‖ (Judges 6:16). Because the Malak Yahweh has sent him, and because theMalak Yahweh will be with him, Gideon‘s success is guara nteed.



Objections Considered

In response to the above, two main objections have often been put forward by an assortmentof unitarians: 1) the Malak Yahweh sometimes speaks of God in the third person and

therefore cannot be God; and 2) according to the ―principle of agency‖, in certain situationsone person can speak in the name or authority of another, i.e. a person who is sent can speak as if he is the one who sent him.

1) Regarding the objection that the Malak Yahweh also speaks of God in the third person, itis of no consequence for at least two significant reasons:

First, while it is true that the Malak Yahweh sometimes speaks of God in the third person, itis also true that when the text only says that Yahweh is speaking, i.e. it does not explicitlyidentify Him with the title Malak Yahweh, as in Genesis 18 and 26, it often times presentsYahweh speaking of God in the third person.

A third person reference in first person speech naturally indicates a grammatical distinctionof persons and normally indicates an actual or ontological distinction of persons as well. Buta third person reference need not indicate such a distinction. On the assumption that theAngel of the LORD is a created being distinct from YHWH, third person references toYHWH in the first person speech of this angel are to be expected. This phenomenon isubiquitous in the speech of God‘s agents and it would be tedious to adduce examples.Contrary to expectation, however, a third person reference to YHWH in the first personspeech of this angel is equally consistent with the opposite assumption: namely, that theAngel of the LORD is himself YHWH and not a created being distinct from YHWH. In fact,hundreds of third person references to YHWH in the first person speech of YHWH can befound in the Old Testament. These references not surprisingly predominate in the Pentateuchand in the prophetic books where YHWH‘s first person speech is most commonly reported.But they may also be found in the historical books and in the Psalms — in fact, wherever firstperson speech by YHWH is reported .6

Second, even if a distinction is intended on such occasions, as it will be shown in somepassages (especially later ones) that it certainly is, in light of the Angel calling Himself Godas well as being called God by others (both those within the narrative and the propheticauthors of those narratives), and speaking in the first person as well as the third person, thanwhat we have here is evidence both for identifying the Angel as God and distinguishing Him

from God, which is just to say, evidence for personal distinction within the Godhead, the verything some people assume in advance cannot be found in the Old Testament. From theChristian perspective, neither aspect of the way the Angel speaks presents any difficulty. Notheological artifice, construct or string of conjectures is necessary to make it harmonize withwhat the rest of the Bible teaches or Christians believe.

2) As for the second objection, i.e. representatives can also speak in the first person, it alsofails to present any serious challenge to the true deity of the Angel. We have already seenmany significant reasons why the Angel of Yahweh cannot be reduced to the status of a non-divine representative of God, such as the fact that no mere representative would call Himself Yahweh or be called such by others, a fact that is true of the Malak Yahweh who does not

shrink from making such claims and never eschews such positive attributions of deity toHimself, and He never identifies Himself to anyone as a mere representative. Furthermore,







the Angel who declares Himself to be God, even Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacoband the nation of Israel, speaks in the first person with such regularity that it is difficult toconceive of this as a normal way for a mere creature or representative to speak.

Conclusion

There are many more reasons why the Angel‘s declared divinity and first person speechcannot be written off on the basis of a ―principle of agency‖, as some call it, including, as wewill see in the next installment, the fact that He is ascribed divine attributes, performs divineworks, exercises divine prerogatives, as well as commands, is given, and receives divineworship, none of which can be said of a mere representative.

To be continued ...

Footnotes1 This was pointed out in Part I , but to expand upon the reasons given before, theCaptain/Prince [Heb. sar ]: 1) tells Joshua to take off his shoes for he is standing on holyground (Joshua 5:15), the same thing the Malak Yahweh told Moses from the burning bush(Exodus 3:1ff); 2) He appears with ―a drawn sword‖ (Joshua 5:13), an identifying mark sinceit is exclusively used of the Malak Yahweh elsewhere (Numbers 22:23, 31; 1 Chronicles21:16); 3) He is now poised, like a mighty warrior, to bring Israel into the land of promise,the very thing God said the Malak Yahweh would do (Exodus 23:20); and 4) in the nextrecorded appearance of the Malak Yahweh, we are told, ―He came up from Gilgal toBochim‖ (Judges 2 :1), and Gilgal is where Joshua was at the time the Captain/Princeappeared to him (Joshua 5:1-12).2 Hengstenberg, The Christology of the Old Testament: and a Commentary on the MessianicPredictions , Vol. 1, p. 129. (Online source ) 3 1QH 18:84 For another article commenting on these issues, see: Jesus Christ – The God of Gods andPrince of Princes . 5 See also the following passages which speak of God in the second and third person as theowner of the covenant: 1) ― His covenant‖: Exodus 2:24, Deuteronomy 4:13, 7:9, 12, 8:18,

17:12, 2 Kings 13:23, 17:15, 18:12, 1 Chronicles 16:15, Psalm 25:10, 14, 55:20, 78:37,103:18, 105:8, 106 :45, 111:5, 9, Ezekiel 17:14, Daniel 9:4, [Luke 1:72 ―His holy covenant‖];2) ―Your covenant‖: Deuteronomy 33:9, 1 Kings 19:10, 14; 3) ―the covenant of the LORD ‖: 1Kings 8:21; and 4) ―the covenant of God ‖: Psalm 78:10. 6 Günther Juncker, Jesus and the Angel of the LORD: An Old Testament Paradigm for NewTestament Christology (Deerfield, Illionois: A Dissertation, submitted to the faculty in partialfulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theological StudiesNew Testament Concentration at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2001), p. 39

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the malak yahweh-jesus, the divine messenger of the old testament - by anthony rogers

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