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The Malak Yahweh:

Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament1 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, properly denominated Yahweh, but nonetheless distinct from another called Yahweh.2 The earliest Christians,3 as well as many other Christian worthies throughout the centuries,4 have also viewed the Malak Yahweh as a distinct divine person within the Godhead, further explicating it as a Christophany, that is, an appearance of the pre-incarnate Logos or Word of God the Lord Jesus Christ. The Scriptural basis for this view, beginning with the Old Testament and concluding 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 and reality of Gods condescending to reveal Himself to His creatures. Although God has surely revealed Himself in other ways, such as through the created order and the internal disposition of man (Psalm 19:1-7; Romans 1:18ff., 2:14-16), as well as in more special ways such as by the 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 persons 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 as by means of an audible voice (e.g. 1 Kings 19:9-18), or through visible means like a smoking firepot (Genesis 15:1-21), a burning bush (Exodus 3:1-14), a pillar of fire and cloud (Exodus 13:21), the Shekinah glory in the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:34-38) and later in the Temple (2 Chronicles 5:11-14), and even human form, the latter of which is sometimes attended by an outward display of glory (Ezekiel 1:22-28) and at other times is very unassuming (Genesis 18), without any outward pomp or comeliness. Divine manifestations and revelatory experiences of the latter sort are commonly called theophanies (i.e., appearances of God). One of the most important forms that theophanies take in the OT is that of the Malak Yahweh, commonly translated as the Angel of the LORD or the Angel of Yahweh. According to the Old Testament Scriptures, this figure is an appearance of Yahweh in human form.

The Meaning of the Word Angel The way the word angel is commonly understood creates no little confusion when it comes to 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 word angel is not actually found in the Hebrew Old Testament and is not even a translation into English of any word found in the Bible. The word angel is simply a transliteration into English of the Greek word angelos (Gr. ), 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 unanimous that 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, Driver and Briggs;5 et al.), as such it refers to the function rather than to the nature of an agent, and could just as well refer to one who is divine or human rather than just to a supernatural being as the word angel is normally understood. In other words, the nature of the agent is something that cant be determined by the word alone and has to be determined by other factors. Accordingly, after discussing the etymology of the word, James Battenfield concludes: "The root idea of [malak], then, is one 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 Old Testament, 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 (malak) is used some 214 times7 in the Old Testament. Nearly 50 percent of these occurrences clearly have reference in their context to human messengers who bore the messages of ordinary men such as Jacob (32:3) and of kings and military leaders (1 Sam. 19:11-21). Sometimes, even Gods prophets are termed His messengers (2 Chron. 36:1516 cf. Jer. 25:3-7; 26:20-23; Hag. 1:13; Mal. 3:1a). The postcaptivity priests are also called Gods messengers in Malachi 2:7. The remaining Old Testament usages of messenger are d ivided between references to the Messenger of Jehovah (approximately 33 percent) and references to finite, created messengers, commonly called angels (about 17 percent). Thus, only the context can clearly reveal whether the term messenger, or angel, refers to the office of the one who is sent (in which 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 word exclusively with created heavenly beings was already well underway, a process that began with (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 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 (the last 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 quite capture the full implications of the word as it is used for the Angel of the LORD, especially as 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 not mean 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 statu s of the one present contextually determined. But second, and more importantly, a variety of recent literary analyses of the OT have tended to confirm the view that the Angel of the LORD is YHWH or a narratologically sophisticated and theologically subtle way of speaking about him. 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 the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, Ugaritic, and Egyptian literature. The main conclusion of this analysis is noteworthy: when the angel in the Genesis narratives acts he performs the functions of the deity in the extra-biblical narratives rather than those of the messenger or agent of the deity; and when the angel in the Genesis narratives speaks he speaks as the deity in the extrabiblical narratives and not as the messenger or agent of the deity. The narratives in the ANE that most closely resemble those in Genesis are the epiphany narratives 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 a messenger, even though he is called a messenger. On the basis of comparable narrative material, it can be said that no delivery of a message takes place. It can be concluded that the messenger of Yahweh or Elohim is not thought of in these Genesis stories as being, in fact, a messenger [I]n the Genesis messenger stories the word messenger is used, but the concept of the being, brought out by what he does, is the concept of a god The word malak as used there is empty of content, other than the concept identical to the role played by the deity in similar extraBiblical stories. Nothing of the belief in the angel as we know it from 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 Scriptures rules 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 surely mistaken. In Hebrew, nouns and their modifiers are in agreement, such that if Yahweh is definite thenMalak is definite as well. Since Yahweh is a proper noun indeed, it is the distinctive 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 as well.13 In response to this, some have argued that the phrase then is determinate merely because this is required by the construction in Hebrew, such that the inspired authors could not have spoken of the Angel as an angel of Yahweh even if they wanted to. But this is also mistaken. In such a case, if the author wanted to render the phrase indefinite, all that he would need to do is include a lamed preposition between Malak and Yahweh. Theologian Gerhardus Vos14 speaks to this error: The objection, that before a proper noun the preceding noun standing in the construct state becomes inevitably determinate, in other words that it would be impossible to make Angel of 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 th at 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 a construction: 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 phrase is never used of angels in the plural; in all of the writings of the Old Testament, the Biblical authors never speak of malakim Yahweh, i.e. angels of Yahweh. It may be replied that they do, however, even if only on certain rare occasions, speak of angels of God (e.g. Genesis 28:12; 32:1; and 2 Chronicles 36:16), but in this case it needs only to be pointed out that once again a distinction is drawn between angels of God in general and the Angel of God in particular. Whereas the phrase Malak Yahweh does not permit using the definite article, for its 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; and 2 Chronicles 36:16), but for all that it never uses the definite article when speaking of angels in the plural. It speaks of theAngel 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 on grammatical grounds alone, and from the above it can be seen that available evidence says that it can, it would still be possible to deduce that God was not dispatching many different angels on the occasions when the Bible uses the phrase Malak Yahweh, and that one specific and special Angel is in view throughout:

After God tested Abrahams faith by commanding him to sacrifice Isaac, which Abraham promptly set out to obey, we are told that the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven (Genesis 22:11) telling him not to harm Isaac, for Abrahams 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 it might just indicate that Abraham heard a second time from an angel and not that it was the same angel, or that it is of minimal significance since this doesnt entail that the same Angel appeared 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 even if this is granted no such ambiguity 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 God who 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, the one before whom His Fathers Abraham and Isaac walked and by whom they were shepherded, was responsible for delivering him from all his afflictions (and also, given that this is a patriarchal benediction, that he confidently expects the Angel to play the same role in the lives of his descendants). Moreover, this was the very thing the Angel of Yahweh promised to Jacob at Bethel in Genesis 28: Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Furthermore, when the Angel of Yahweh appears to Jacob in a dream in Padan-aram, He identifies Himself as the same one who appeared to him at Bethel (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 are separated by time and place, it was the self-same Angel. As well, this passage also leads us to expect future engagements of the Angel as the shepherd and redeemer of Jacobs descendants. The passage is both retrospective and prospective in its deliverances about the Angel. In the book of Exodus we read that the Angel of the LORD appeared to Moses in the burning bush, saying of the name Yahweh, This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations (Exodus 3:1, 15); and in the book of the prophet Hosea we are told by way of a strong implication that the Angel who appeared to Moses is the same one who wrestled with Jacob before his encounter with Esau in Genesis 32, and who later appeared to Jacob 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 contended with God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought His favor. He found 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 all generations, and since Hosea says of the Angel, the one with whom Jacob wrestled and whose favor he sought, Yahweh is His memorial name, then the Angel who appeared to Moses 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 who accompanied 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 into the 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 to bring the children of Israel up out of Egypt, and foreshadows it in the story of Jacob, who is redeemed by the Angel (more on this later).] Since the Angel who appeared to Jacob is the same Angel who appeared to his fathers before him, and since the Angel who appeared to Moses is the same Angel who appeared to Jacob, and since the Angel who appeared to Moses is the same Angel who brought the children of Israel up out of Egypt, and who also accompanied them through the wilderness and led them into the land of Canaan, then the Angel of the patriarchs is the Angel of the Exodus and Conquest. When the book of Judges later speaks of one called the Angel of the LORD, it records him saying: 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 between the Angel of the Exodus 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 to Jacob, 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 same question: 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 the Exodus and Conquest is the Angel who appeared in the time of the Judges, then the same Angel 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 in Scripture that one agent in particular is in view i n the Angel of Yahweh passages and that this one stands uniquely apart from all other angels and is intimately involved with the whole course of Old Testament history. It is with good reason, then, that Jews and Christians as well as most scholars down to the present day, even those who do not otherwise agree on other points that swirl about this discussion, have viewed the various mentions 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 Angel is referred to in other ways as well. He is called: the Angel of God (Judges 13:9); the Angel 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 Lords Host (Joshua 5); and Wonderful (Judges 13:18). 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 6:20 and 21 as well as in 13:9 and 13:13, which shows that the two titles are synonymous; the Angel 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 in the 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); the Angel of the Covenant is obviously the Angel of Yahweh since He is the one who sovereignly 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 observations already made above on Genesis 48 which speak of Him as the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked and as the one who redeemed me from all evil. Finally, given the conspicuous parallels between Moses encounter with the Angel of Yahweh in the burning bush in Exodus 3 and Joshuas encounter in Joshua 5, the Captain of the LORDs host most naturally refers to the Angel of Yahweh. Many of these names are quite significant in themselves, and the divine and messianic overtones 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 Gods Covenant Name, Yahweh, are also among the Angels names (some glimpses of this have already 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 in the Old Testament, particularly in the patriarchal period and in Israels early history: Genesis 16:7 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 Kings 19; 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. Strong reasons also exist for thinking the Angel of the Lord is the one in view in Genesis 18-19; Exodus 24; Joshua 5; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1; and in every other theophany in the Old Testament. Although the Angel of Yahweh appears less frequently as the Old Testament winds to a close, He never completely withdraws until the inter-testamental period, the same time period when 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 LORDs host to the Angel of Yahweh who appeared to Moses, this does not mean that these theophanies are not the Angel of Yahweh. Moreover, in a number of these cases we are told elsewhere (or later by a prophet) that it was the Angel. For example, Genesis 28:10-22 says Yahweh appeared 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 to Jacob 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 in reverse in 1 Chronicles 21:14-20, which says that David saw the Angel of Yahweh who told him to erect an altar, and 2 Chronicles 3:1-2 which tells us that it was Yahweh who appeared to David on that occasion.

This creates a precedent for viewing other theophanies, which only mention that Yahweh or God appeared, to be in fact appearances of the Angel of Yahweh. This would include passages like: Genesis 15 where the Word of Yahweh appears to Abraham; Genesis 18-19 where Yahweh appears to Abraham with two angels; Exodus 24 where Moses and the elders of Israel see God; Isaiah 6 where Isaiah sees a vision of Yahweh upon His throne; and Ezekiel 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 a divine 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 sp ecific being and not to angels in 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 to Hagar, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Balaam, Joshua, Gideon, Manoah, Elijah, David and Zechariah. 4. The Angel of Yahweh is the central figure of the Old Testament, not only because He is frequently mentioned, but because of the role He plays in the lives of the patriarchs and the nation of Israel. 5. The Angel of Yahweh has many exalted titles, such as the Angel of His presence, the Angel 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 explicitly referred 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 emanation from/of God or merely a human messenger, and strongly incline away from taking Him to be a 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 mere human 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 the patriarchs as well as the entire Jewish nation at the time of their deliverance from Egypt and translation into the promise land and beyond, it would be altogether unexpected if it turned out 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 occupies center stage; it would mean that God is upstaged by a creature-angel. Continue with Part II.

Footnotes 1 Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture citations are from the New American Standard 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 identify Him as the Word (Hebrew, dabar; Aramaic, memra; Gr. logos) of Yahweh, and that the Septuagint, although to a much lesser degree, provides some interesting evidence of His divinity and distinct identity as well, as in its rendition of passages like Isaiah 9:6, mention can 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 the targumim 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 about the 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 and Palestinian Talmud (though the Talmud, in the nature of a hostile witness, does provide some relevant indirect evidence in its discussions of heresies pertaining to Metatron), which often reflect, among other things, the polemical interests of post-Christian and anti-Messianic Jews. 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), p. 313 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, 1415; 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: Gnther Juncker, Christ as Angel: the Reclamation of a Primitive Title, which originally appeared in the Trinity Journal 15:2 [Fall 1994], p. 221-250; for additional discussion of patristic teaching on this subject, see Joel Ira Hoffstutler's dissertation, He Who Dwelt in the Bush: A Biblical and Historical Theology of the Angel of the Lord [Bob Jones University, 2007], p. 17-44.) 4 Martin Luther, John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, John Gill, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Adam Clarke, E. H. Hengstenberg, Pye Smith, A. H. Strong, John Wesley, Keil, Delitzsch, F. F. Bruce, and Walter Kaiser are only a small number of well-known individuals from the Reformation to more modern times who taught/teach this view. 5 BDB even includes a section on the theophanic angel when providing the meaning of the term. 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. 521 6 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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Due to a variant, other sources give 213 occurrences. James Borland, Christ in the Old Testament: Old Testament Appearances of Christ in Human Form (Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications, 1999), p. 36-37 9 According to Karen H. Jobes and Moises Silva: the noun 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, a new acceptation or definition was created. The use of this specialized Greek term in the NT doubtlessly reflects the strong influence of the LXX. Invitation to the Septuagint (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2000), p. 199 10 Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, ed., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), entry: . 11 Gnther Juncker, Jesus and the Angel of the LORD: An Old Testament Paradigm for New Testament Christology (Deerfield, Illionois: A Dissertation, submitted to the faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theological Studies New Testament Concentration at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2001) p. 52-53. In a footnote, Juncker also adds the following: Th ese conclusions have been independently confirmed by S. A. Meier who, unlike Irvin, did not restrict himself to narratives: It must be understood that the angel of YHWH in these perplexing Biblical narratives does not behave like 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 other gods 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 interesting to observe the words of German Biblical scholar Johann David Michaelis, a justly esteemed teacher of Hebrew and other Semitic languages in his day, who wrote the following over a century before their findings: the inquiry may perhaps arise whether I now believe, as I did 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, I can scarcely conceive how the matter can be explained otherwise, unless by assuming that the 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 Scripture Testimony 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: William Oliphant 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, Conservative Theological Journal 3 (Dec., 1997), p. 272: This construct relationship would substantiate that the only possible literal translation of malak YHWH is the Angel of the Lord while eliminating the indefinite translation, an angel of the Lord. For further discussion of this, see:here. 14 Gerhardus Vos, Ph.D., D.D., was Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. In addition to his other academic accomplishments, Vos held a doctorate in Arabic studies from Strassburg University. His dissertation advisor was the well known Theodor Noldeke. 15 Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1948), p. 86

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It is clear that God is promising to lead Israel and to go with him; the a ngel of Exodus 32:34 is called in 33:14f. Gods 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 Gods 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 Reference Library, 1976). Entry: theophany. 17 Hengstenberg, ibid., vol. 1, p. 125
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The Malak Yahweh:

Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament Part II By Anthony Rogers [Continued from Part I] Introduction The Old Testament puts the divinity of the Malak Yahweh beyond all peradventure of a doubt, not only by supplying premises from which, by good and necessary consequence, such a conclusion can be deduced, but also by providing unequivocal, plainspoken declarations to this 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 Malakh 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 that though distinct from Jehovah this Angel of Jehovah bears the same name, has the same power, effects the same deliverance, dispenses the same blessings, and is the object of the same 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 Charles Hodge: 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 are nevertheless 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 receives divine homage since this is a pervading representation of the Bible since we find that these terms are applied, not first to one and then to another angel indiscriminately, but to one particular 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 that by 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 Yahweh but He is juxtaposed with Yahweh, a fact that throws the truth of the Trinity in the Old Testament into bold relief, at least as touching on two of the Trinitarian persons. Speaking of the evidence

of the Angels distinct divine identity, which, in part, is grounded in the observation that the Angel speaks as God in the first person and also speaks of God in the third person, theologian Gerhardus Vos says: The most important and characteristic form of revelation in the patriarchal period is that through the Angel of Jehovah or the Angel of God. The peculiarity in all these cases is that, on the one hand, the Angel distinguishes himself from Jehovah, speaking of Him in the third person, and that, on the other hand, in the same utterance he speaks of God in the first person The problem is how to do justice to both. There is but one way in which this can be done: we must assume that back of the twofold representation there lies a real manifoldness 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 in both cases there would be reality back of it. Without this much of what we call the Trinity the transaction could not but have been unreal and illusory.3 These two basic issues 1) the divine identity of the Angel; and 2) the Angels distinction from Yahweh will be considered in turn in this and the next several papers in this series. The Malak Yahwehs Divine Identity The Self-Identification of the Angel When it comes to the self-identification of the Angel, some significance attaches to the fact that He never calls Himself the Angel of Yahweh; this is always a title given to Him by others, such as (and almost always) the sacred author or (more rarely) someone else in the narrative. In fact, quite often the Angel does not identify Himself by any title, and sometimes appears almost allusive when directly questioned, such as when Jacob and Manoah, on two separate 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 latter, 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 to say, beyond understanding (Judges 13:18).4 In most cases, then, the Angel simply lets His words and actions speak for themselves, a fact that virtually forces the person to recognize Him solely on this basis, and these are usually of such a nature that they lead the person having 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 divine titles. To Jacob, the Angel says, I am Yahweh, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac (Genesis 28:13) and I am the God of Bethel (Genesis 31:13). He told Jacob later in his life to go up to Bethel and "build an altar there to God, who appeared to you..." (Genesis 35:1). He also said to Jacob: "I am God Almighty" (Genesis 35:11). To Moses, the Angel says: I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exodus 3:6); I Am that I Am (Exodus 3:14); and Yahweh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exod us 3:15). The only other title that He gives Himself is Captain/Prince of the Host of Yahweh (Joshua 5:14). This shows that the individuals who initially encountered the Angel, to the extent that He ever 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 doesnt include the words of the sacred authors who later record

what took place and call Him the Angel of Yahweh, that the Angel is none other than God Himself. In other words, the fanciful theories that suggest themselves to people on the basis of the title the Angel of Yahweh, which we have already seen in part one of this se ries does not rule out the deity of the Angel anyway, simply were not available to those who directly encountered Him. For all they knew, the Angel was an appearance 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 was God is plentiful. After the Angel of Yahweh appeared to Hagar, she gave this name to Him: You are a Godwho sees (Genesis 16:13). After Jacob awoke from a dream in which the Angel appeared to him, 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 Godface to face, yet my life has been preserved (Genesis 32:30). Still later, when reflecting upon the providence of God in his life as well as that of his fathers, Jacob refers to Him as The Godbefore whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil (Genesis 48:15-16). Speaking to the Angel who appeared to him in the burning bush, the Angel who told him to declare 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, he eventually calls Him Lord (Judges 6:15) and LORD God (6:22). Manoah, who, along with 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 had desired to kill us, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and grain offering from our hands (Judges 13:23) For a final testimony, Malachi records the words of God concerning the Angel of the covenant, where these words are spoken about Him: the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple (Malachi 3:1). Coupled with all of this is the fact that, at least in the case of the patriarchs, memorials names are given to commemorate a number of these events, each of which point to the fact that they experienced a divine encounter: Hagar names the place where she encountered the Angel, Beer -lahai-roi, which means, the Well 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 the Angels divinity, Yahweh-Yireh, meaning the LORD Will Provide (Genesis 22:14); Jacob names the location of one divine encounter Bethel, which mea ns the house of God (Genesis 28:19), 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, he names 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 narrative include 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 these remarks in such a way as would prevent readers from making the same mistake. If it be objected that the very use of the phrase the Angel of Yahweh by the Biblical authors does this very thing, i.e. this phrase provides a literary clue that this is really a creature-angel and not 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 actually calls Him the Angel of Yahweh, namely in Judges 6 where the Angel appears to Gideon, it is 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 belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save it from the Midianites. The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, the LORD is with you, O valiant warrior. Then Gideon said to him, O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian. The LORD looked at him and said, Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you? He said to Him, O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my fathers house. But the LORD said to him, Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man. So Gideon said to Him, If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me. Please do not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You. And He said, I will remain until you return. Then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and the broth 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 out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the LORD vanished 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 LORD said to him, Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die. Then Gideon built an altar there to the 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 the manner by which he initially addresses the Angel, apparently supposing him to be only a man or prophet, calling Him only my lord [Heb. adon] (Judges 6:13). But after the Angel speaks as God in the 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 [Heb. adonai] (Judges 6:15), which is usually the form of the word reserved for deity. This again is followed by the Angel speaking as God in the first person, saying, Surely I will be with

you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man (Judges 6:16). And once again this prompts Gideon to surmise that it is the Lord Himself who is speaking to him, as is indicated by his request, If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me. Seeking confirmation that it really is the Lord, Gideon asks the Angel to wait until he returns with aminchah, 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 to this divine person to determine which it should be when he had it before him: whether a feast or a meat-offering, and accordingly he would be able to judge concerning him 5 In other words, if He accepted it and ate of it as a common meal, then it would prove He was a man and therefore just a prophet; but if He received it as a sacrifice, then it would prove He was a divine person.6 The Angels action furnished a decisive response, thereby settling Gideons lingering doubt and 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 the Angel does not here call Himself by that name in this story, it is evident that Gideon is drawing upon the previous Scriptures when he speaks of what has been determined to be a divine theophany as an appearance of the Angel of Yahweh: Wh en 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 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 any supposed error on the part of Biblical figures when they, i.e. the sacred authors, denominate Him by the title the Angel of Yahweh, is proved further by the fact that the most copious references 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 on these occasions, even if they did not at first recognize Him for who He was. When Hagar called the Angel God who sees, the sacred author prefaces these remarks with the following: She gave this name to the LORD [i.e. Yahweh] who spoke to her (Genesis 16:13). In the dream that Jacob had where the Angel, standing above a latter that reached from 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 father Abraham (Genesis 28:13). Of the Angel who appeared to Jacob in Bethel, the sacred author explained that Jacob on that earlier occasion renamed the place Bethel (i.e. house of God) and built an altar there "because it was there that God revealed himself to him when he was fleeing from his brother" (Genesis 35:7; see also, 14-15). When Moses later writes about the conversation he had with the Angel who spoke to him from the bush, the very one who declared Himself to be the great I 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 Moses said to God (Exodus 3:11); Then Moses said to God (Exodus 3:13); God said to Moses (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; the inspired authors refer to the Angel by one or another divine title. And so, for example, when the Angel appears to Joshua, the sacred author precedes His words with: The LORD said to Joshua (Joshua 5:13-6:2). Before Gideon realizes it is the Angel of Yahweh who is standing before him and talking with him, the sacred author says, speaking of the Angel: The LORD [i.e. Yahweh] looked at him [Gideon] and said, (Judges 6:14); and just two verses later the Angels words to Gideon are recorded in this wise: But the LORD said to him, (Judges 6:16). And, finally, the prophet Hosea, emphatically and climactically, says of the Angel: ... the LORD [i.e. Yahweh], the God of hosts, the LORD [i.e. Yahweh] is His name (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 evidence that these should also be viewed as appearances of the Malak Yahweh, then the proof of the Angels divinity could be easily extended. The following will briefly illustrate with two examples. First, in Genesis 18 we are told of what appeared to be three men visiting Abraham (Genesis 18:2). 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 the word angel for all three of them. While it is apparent to the reader all along that at least one of the three is Yahweh (He is called Yahweh by the sacred author in vss. 1, 13, 17, 20, 22, 26 and 33), this is a growing realization on the part of Abraham, as seen by the fact that he initially addresses Him only as Lord [adon], which at that point in the context appears to be little more than a term of respectful address and a token of Abrahams hospitality. Later in the story, after it has been made plain that one of the visitors is God, Abraham adjusts his language accordingly, and he even calls Him the judge of all the earth (vs. 25). Dr. John Pye Smith gives the following terse summation: Three persons in human form appeared to Abraham. Two of them passed on to Sodom, on a mission of righteous judgment; and they are called angels. The third had remained with Abraham; and He repeatedly assumes and receives the name JEHOVAH. Though He is not expressly denominated the Angel, yet the attendant circumstances are such as agree with other manifestations in which that appellation is used. Upon this passage, the Jerusalem Targum 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 with them, and detained Abraham until the angels departed. He said not who he was: but, in all these [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 and who is identified as Yahweh is yet distinct from another person called Yahweh, just as we see in the case of the Angel of Yahweh, for we read the following taking place after Yahweh departs from Abraham and goes to Sodom: Then the LORD [Yahweh] rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD [Yahweh] out of heaven. (Genesis 19:24) The distinction drawn in the passage between one person who rains down the fire from another, both of whom are called Yahweh, is quite stark.9

A second example of a theophany that could be included which doesnt mention the Angel of Yahweh by name but which is evidently an appearance of the Angel all the same, is found in Genesis 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 LORD appeared 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 I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes and My laws. So Isaac stayed in G erar. (Genesis 26:1-6) Once again there can be no question in this passage that God is the one who has appeared to Isaac. The sacred author says, The LORD appeared to him, and the LORD speaks as God in 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 is the Angel of Yahweh, it is enough to point out that God in verse 3, says, I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham, which we know from Genesis 22 was in fact made by the Angel of Yahweh: Then the Angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed 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 the seashore; 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 22:15-18) The author of Hebrews was surely correct, when He said, For when God made the promise to Abraham, since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, (Hebrews 6:13) Conclusion The pointed testimony of Hagar, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Gideon and other Biblical figures, along with the inspired say-so of the Biblical authors and the self-testimony of the Angel, are more than sufficient to prove that the Bib le teaches the Angels divine identity in no uncertain terms. If they are not sufficient to this end, then one must wonder how it would be possible to communicate such an idea at all. Of course the very fact that everyone understands what the present thesis aims to prove, namely that the Angel of Yahweh is the God 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 when they say the same thing.

Continue with Part III.

Footnotes 1 Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God (Carlisle, PA: the Banner of Truth Trust, 1991 reprint), pp. 257-258 2 Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Abridged Edition (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1992), p. 177 3 Gerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology Old and New Testaments (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1948), p. 85 4 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. Jeffrey J. 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 Henrys Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991), Vol. 2, p. 124 6 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 in the exegetical portion of this series. These first several articles aim to be more systematic and give the lay of the land and show that Jesus is the divine Messenger spoken of throughout the Old Testament. 8 Dr. John Pye Smith, D.D., F.R.S., The Scripture Testimony 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: William Oliphant and Company, 1859), Vol. 1, p. 297. This quote has the following in a footnote (#216): Gen. xviii. And Jehovah appeared to 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.
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The Malak Yahweh:

Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament Part IIIa By Anthony Rogers [Continued from Part II] Introduction Continuing our look at the evidence for the deity of the Malak Yahweh (i.e. the Messenger/Angel of the LORD) in the Old Testament, several other considerations may be added to that of the last paper. In addition to the Angel identifying Himself and being identified by others as God through the use of divine titles, as we saw in part two, which will also 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, receives divine honors, as well as the fact that death is feared upon seeing Him, also evince the Angels true and proper

divinity. The first of these additional or supporting reasons will be taken up in this and the following article. First Person Speech The air about the Angel, the way He speaks in the first person, saying things that only God can 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 initially know 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 to Hagar, the maidservant of Sarai, sometime subsequent to fleeing from her mistress.1 After the Malak Yahweh orders Hagar to return and submit to the authority of Sarai, and before He tells her she is with child and that she is to name the boy Ishmael, the Angel said to her: I willgreatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count (Genesis 16:10), a statement that is similar to what the Angel said in a later appearance to Hagar some time 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 bless him, and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall become the father of twelve princes, and I willmake 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 this it is difficult to deny that Hagar and Abraham, both of whom would no doubt have been apprised of what was experienced by the other, would have concluded that the same being appeared to each of them on these different occasions making the same promise(s). It is also apparent from this that it was the intention of the inspired author to equate the Angel of the LORD 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 the identity of the Angel with God, if the Angel is not divine and is merely a created angel, then what purpose does the Angel serve seeing that Yahweh Himself is said to appear in alternating contexts speaking these very same words? And since the Angel does not use any distinguishing title in his appearance to Hagar, speaking the same words that God would later speak to Abraham, what other conclusion could Hagar be expected to deduce other than the very 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 first person 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 were spoken in the first person to her? And does not the fact that the Angels manner of addressing Hagar, which no doubt was exactly as God had wanted it to be, which led Hagar to conclude that He is God, show that this is exactly the conclusion He intended for her to make? And since the Angel did not rebuff this response from Hagar after He had done everything, such as speak as God in the first person, to give the very impression that formed her conclusion, is this not a silence that shouts His deity, especially when silence on such an occasion would itself have been a tacit approval of what could only be considered idolatry on the supposition that the Angel is not God? The answer to these questions will be obvious to all but the most prejudiced reader.

To Abraham After God commanded Abraham to offer Isaac as a sacrifice, but before he could perform the deed, we read that the Angel of Yahweh appeared and said: Do not stretch out your hand against 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 told Abraham to do, and does so on the grounds that Abrahams fear of God has been proven by the fact that you have not withheld your son from me, once again shows the Angel speaking as God in the first person. No one but God has the authority to relax a divine command, and no one but God could have claimed in this context that Abraham was offering his son as a sacrifice to him. Not only are sacrifices in general to be made to God according to the Old Testament, but the specific command by God to Abraham was to offer Isaac to Him. Furthermore, as a consequence of Abrahams 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 the seashore; 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). Once again the Angel speaks in the first person, saying what only God can say, and identifies Himself as the one to whom Abraham obediently submitted or whose voice He obeyed. From this 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 is repeated 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 days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines. The LORD appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which Ishall tell you. Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I sworeto your father Abraham. I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven, and will give your descendants all these lands; and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed Me and kept My charge, My commandments,My statutes and My laws. (Genesis 26:1-5) A comparison of Genesis 22, where Abraham obeys the voice of the Angel, and where the Angel promises on oath to bless him and his descendants, with Genesis 26, where God declares that it was his charge that Abraham kept, and that He was the one who swore to Abraham that He would bless him and his descendants, yields the obvious conclusion that the same one who appeared speaking in the first person to Abraham is the same one who appeared speaking in the first person to Isaac. But even if a distinction is assumed, the fact that the Angel of Yahweh spoke (to Abraham) in the same way that God is later said to have spoken (to Isaac), shows at least a functional if not an ontological equivalence between the Malak 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 only because 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 can be sure that Isaac would have concluded not merely a functional but an ontological equivalence of

the Angel with Yahweh. It was by the Malak Yahwehs voice that Isaac was saved in Genesis 22, and so when God appeared later to Isaac speaking the same words as those 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 that would have been drawn was that the same one who told his father, Abraham, to spare him, is the same one who has now appeared to him. In other words, not only does the simplest explanation of the passage lead to the conclusion that God here is the Angel of Yahweh who appeared 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 by the 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 nothing added here in Genesis 26 to what we know about how the Angel of Yahweh speaks that has either not been shown to be the case already (i.e. Genesis 22) or that will not be shown to be the 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 this event, 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 his fathers aforetime: I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the 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 this land; 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 who appeared to Jacob in Bethel, and who identified Himself as God Then the Angel of God said to me [Jacob] in a dream. I am the God of Bethel (Genesis 31:11, 13) then the above 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 Jacobs own mouth, in words of invocation to God and blessing upon his son, Joseph, and Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, Jacob confirms his understanding that it was the Angel who made these promises in the first person and who also kept them, and that it would be this very Angel who would be faithful to his descendants after him, upon whose heads the promises made to Jacob would devolve: He [i.e. Jacob] blessed Joseph, and said, The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed 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 midst of the earth. (Genesis 48:15-16) There can be no question that Jacob here reveals his understanding that the Angel is God, for the 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 out later, that the Angel was none other than God, his shepherd and redeemer. Even liberal critics who are otherwise disinclined to believe the truth are constrained to agree that this passage teaches the deity of the Angel, 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: Jacobs invocation consists of three titles given to God, each one loftier than the preceding: (1) God, before whom my fathers walked; (2) God, who has been my shepherd to this day; (3) The angel who has redeemed me from all evil. The little hymn reaches the climax of its attempt to identify Jahweh in descriptive terms in the third title. Any idea that the angel means a being subordinate to Jahweh is of course ruled out. This [malak] too is Jahweh but in contradistinction to the Jaweh of general providence, he is the Jahweh of the specific saving action 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, and even identifies Himself by the Name that would forever after be associated by Jews and Christians 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 he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush.... I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the 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 with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of 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 to me, 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 you. 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 to you. This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations. Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac an d Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt. So I said, I will bring you up out of the affliction 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. (Exodus 3:1-2, 7-17) Given the incommunicable nature of the divine name, and given that this name is not only applied to, or, as is actually the case in this passage, arrogated by, the Malak Yahweh, which is 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 way were He not in fact Yahweh. ----- Excurus on the Divine Name and the Angel ----According to the Bible (and classical Christianity3), no one can lay claim to the name Yahweh but Yahweh alone, for this is His distinctive name, His covenant name, His memorial name for all generations. In addition to Exodus 3 above, the following passages may 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 they may know that You alone, whose name is the LORD [YHWH] , are the Most High over all the earth. (Psalm 83:18) the LORD [YHWH] , the God of hosts, the LORD [YHWH] is his memorial name. (Hosea 12:5) (See also: Genesis 4:26, 21:33; Exodus 15:3, 33:19; Leviticus 24:16; Psalm 7:17, 68:4, 102:1, 21, 135:1, 148:13; Isaiah 24:15, 42:8, 47:4, 54:5; Ezekiel 39:7; Jeremiah 33:2) That the Jews have always considered from the Old Testament evidence that Yahweh, YHWH, is Gods distinctive name, i.e. Shem Hamephorash, is also clear-cut. In his distillation of what the Talmud teaches on many important subjects, Abraham Cohen says the following about the divine Name: To the Oriental, a name is not merely a label as with us. It was thought of as indicating the nature of the person or object by whom it was borne. For that reason special reverence attached to the distinctive Name (Shem Hamephorash) of the Deity which He had revealed to the people of Israel, viz., the tetragrammaton, JHVH.4 (Italics original) Although he does not provide the relevant references on this point, Cohens remarks are borne out by numerous statements from the Talmud, among which can be found the following: Another [Baraitha] taught: 'On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel' with the use of the Shem Hameforash. You say that it means with the Tetragrammaton; but perhaps that is 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 was also used]

in places outside the Temple; but it is stated here, 'So shall they put My name' and elsewhere it is stated: To put His name there as in this latter passage it denotes in the Temple 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 be remembered 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 thee will I cause My name to be remembered; and where will I come unto thee and bless thee? In the 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 and take this back with the other hand when trying to account for why the Malak Yahweh calls Himself by this name or is called this name by others, pretending that this is resolved by the principle 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 sends him, 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 or supernatural, are in fact never referred to with the ineffable Name of Yahweh. This glory belongs to the Malak Yahweh alone in contradistinction to others, and is, therefore, a conclusive, irrefutable proof of His deity. The remarks of Rev. A. MCaul are worthy of being quoted at length on this. After noting several 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 after relating 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, is here called Jehovah. Rashi, Aben Ezra, Solomon ben Melech, and Nachmanides, all pass this over in silence. Individual Jews to whom I have proposed the passage, have almost always replied, 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 as our 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 says that this is an exceedingly difficult passage, particularly Because the peculiar name of God is employed, She called the name of the LORD who spake with her; and how can it possibly be, that the First Cause, blessed be He, should speak with Hagar; when the law itself testifies and 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 answer here is, that all 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 sometimes called 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 called Jehovah, 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 verse 14, we suddenly find this person called Jehovah the LORD. And the LORD, [YHWH], looked

upon him, and said, Go in this thy might. And again, verse 16, And the LORD, [YHWH], said unto him, Surely I will be with thee. We refer to this passage, because the fact 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 the case 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, and he is called by the name of the LORD who sent him. And we find a similar instance in the angel who appeared to Gideon, of whom it is written, And the Lord said unto him, surely I will be with thee. Our rabbies of blessed memory have said, My name is in him. R. Simeon ben Lakish says, This te aches us, that the Holy One, blessed be He, associates his name to each of the angels. We have here the same admission made, and the same solution proposed, as in the former case by Abarbanel. We now take a similar instance from the prophets. In the third chapter of Zechariah, Joshua the 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 person called in the first verse the angel of the Lord, is in the second verse called the LORD, as Kimchi himself acknowledges; this is said of the angel, who is called by the name of his master, and so in the history of Gideon, and other places. From these three passages, selected from the law, the historical books, and the Prophets, it appears, 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 this inference is not peculiar to Christians, nor forced from the text in order to suit their doctrinal views, but that those rabbies who made it their peculiar care to overthrow every interpretation favourable 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 in ignorance, they evidently foresaw the use that would be made of it, and, therefore, endeavor to guard against it by saying, that the messenger is called by the name of him that sends him. But this explanation, taken as a general assertion, is, in the first place, contrary to the fact. In the eighth and ninth chapters of Daniel, an angel is sent to Daniel, but he is not called by the name of him that sent him, but is called Gabriel. In the prophecies of Zechariah we read of many angels of whom it is said, These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro 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 the name of his master, but one of the Seraphim. In the second place, if taken with special reference to the particular case of the angel of the Lord, this explanation is no explanation at all, but a mere identical proposition in somewhat different words. When I say the angel of the Lord is called Jehovah, what else is intended but this, That the messenger is called by the name of Him that sends him? This last sentence is, therefore, no explanation of the first, and still 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 angel were 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 the angels 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 force from what we have proved above, that there is but one Being who is called the Angel of the Lord, 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 the Scripture that the name Jehovah is ascribed to only one angel, but

that it can be proved also that this was the opinion of the ancient Jews. The Talmud has the following passage, The same 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. The rabbi 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 the source whence Kimchi and Abarbanel borrowed the above explanation, but here the explanation 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 is ascribed 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, remains in 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, MCaul concludes thusly: when we combine the admissions of opponents with the plain words of Scripture, there can 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 substance and 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 which makes the communication of the name suitable; or, in other words, because the Angel of the Lord is very God. And this conclusion is confirmed.6 ----- Excursus Ended -----

Continue with Part IIIb.

Footnotes 1 While this is the first recorded mention of the Malak Yahweh in the Hebrew text, the Jewish Targums, which, generally speaking, were interpretive translations or paraphrases of the Hebrew text into Aramaic, in reflecting a belief among ancient Jews that the Malak Yahweh spoken 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 the Malak Yahweh. For example, because the Hebrew text of Genesis 4 can be translated as saying, 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 the Lord: And Adam knew Hava [i.e. Eve] his wife, who had desired the Angel; and she conceived, and bare Kain; and she said , I have acquired a man, the Angel of the Lord (The Targum 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, in fact, the promised deliverer; rather, he was of the evil one, spiritually and morally speaking, for he killed his brother.

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 the full 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: 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. Gods proper name par excellence is Jehovah This name is, therefore, not used of any other than Israels 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 Truth 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 Ground Christian Books), p. 154; Jehovah has ever been esteemed by the Church the most distinctive 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 Gods nature is revealed in the highest sense of the word, and by which He is distinguished forever even from the deities of the heathen, Herman Hoeksema, Reformed Dogmatics (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Reformed Free Publishing Association, 1966), p. 66; It [Jehovah] has always been regarded as the most sacred and the most distinctive name of God, the incommunicable name. It stresses the covenant faithfulness of God, is His pr oper name par excellence and is therefore used of no one but Israels God, Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., [1939], 1991), p. 49 4 Abraham Cohen, Everymans Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages (New York: Shocken Books, [1949], 1995) p. 24 5 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 MCaul, Rabbi David Kimchis Commentary on the 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).
http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/rogers/malak_yahweh3b.html

The Malak Yahweh:

Jesus, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament Part IIIb By Anthony Rogers [Continued from Part IIIa] To Joshua

When the Captain of Yahwehs 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 Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days (Joshua 6:2 -3). While it might be said that a high ranking created angel could have been sent by God to aid Israel, a fact that would be true in any case, for wherever the Captain of the heavenly host can be found, archangels and other high and low ranking angels would be part of His train and in attendance upon Him, ready to do His bidding, and that the words above are not inconsistent if spoken in the first person by an angel who came with such a charge and a guarantee of success from God, the most natural reading is to take them as Gods words, thus identifying the Captain as truly divine. In fact, the whole passage read in context rules out seeing it any other way: Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, 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 indeed come now as captain of the host of the LORD [Heb. sar tsaba YHWH]. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, What has my lord to say to his servant? The captain of the LORDS 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 was tightly 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 valiant warriors. You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do 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 seem to be amenable to either interpretation, i.e. it could just as well be Yahweh or a created angel who is speaking, the context makes it plain that the former is correct, for it plainly calls Him Yahweh or LORD. This means that the Captain of Yahwehs host/the Malak Yahweh/Yahweh directly claims to have given Jericho into the hands of Joshua and not that a created angel had appeared to Joshua and was saying that he was commissioned for such a task. Any attempt to drive a wedge between the appearance of the Captain of Yahwehs host and Yahweh who spoke to Joshua, as some have tried to do, would result in profound incoherence, because, in that case, the appearance of the Captain [Joshua 5:13ff], who only now give s command to Joshua [6:2], would have been without an object. In chap. v. the directions would be wanting; in chap. vi. we should have no report of the appearance. 2 In other words, unless the Commander of heavens host who appears at the end of chapter five is also the one who spoke to Joshua at the beginning of chapter six, it would mean the Commander appeared to Joshua but did not inform him of anything, and that Yahweh spoke without 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 chapter five is no obstacle to this contextually settled conclusion, for not only do the Dead Sea Scrolls provide evidence that the word prince was used for God, i.e. Prince of Gods and King of the glorious ones, Lord of every 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 in Joshua 5 is used for God elsewhere in Scripture: Out of one of them came forth a rather small horn which grew exceedingly great. It grew up 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 His sanctuary 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 that the 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 the sacrifices offered in the temple are made to God, and since the temple is Gods temple, the Commander of the Host here can only be God. This latter observation is confirmed again in the book of Malachi, where the Messenger (Heb.Malak, 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, the temple, and identified as the Lord, the very thing said by Daniel about the Prince of the Host. 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 positively establishing 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 spoke in the first person, and said things that only God can say: Now the angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have 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. When the angel of the LORD spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 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 as the Malak Yahweh who appeared to the patriarchs, to the generation of Israelites who were delivered from Egypt, and to the generation that was brought into the land of Canaan, but as very 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 to them and to their descendants. It is evident throughout the patriarchal narrative that it was God 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 in fulfillment of the oath (v. 1), another statement that could only be said in this sense by God Himself: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house 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 its character, 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 God talked with him, saying, As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father 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 you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come forth from you. I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. God said further to Abraham, Now as for you, you shall keepMy covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. This isMy covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. And every male among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised throughout your generations, a servant who is born in the house or who is bought with money from any foreigner, who is not of your descendants. A servant who is born in your house or who is bought with your money shall surely be circumcised; thus shall My covenant be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. But an uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the 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 name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and indeed I will give you a son by her Then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Will a child be born to a man one hundred years old? And will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, Oh that Ishmael might live before You! But God said, No, but Sarah your wife will bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establishMy 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 him exceedingly 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 next year. When He finished talking with him, God w ent up from Abraham. Then Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all the servants who were born in his house and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abrahams household, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the very same day, as God had said to him. Now Abraham was ninety-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 very same day Abraham was circumcised, and Ishmael his son. All the men of his household, who were 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 He brought them out of Egypt: I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have 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 words were spoken, they are plainly attributed to God: After speaking of the fact that He would punish the people of Israel if they rebelled against Him, 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 covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. For the land will be abandoned by them, and will make up for its sabbaths while it is made desolate without them They, meanwhile, will be making amends for their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes. Yet in spite of this, when they are in 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 remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight 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 their altars was also spoken directly by God: Then God said, Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform 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 fearful thing that I am going to perform with you. Be sure to observe what I am commanding you this 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 covenant with 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 cut down their Asherim for you shall not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God-- otherwise you might make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land and they would play the harlot with their gods and sacrifice to their gods, and someone might invite you to eat of his sacrifice, and you might take some of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters might play the harlot with their gods and cause your sons also to play the 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 a rhetorical question, which is obviously intended to engender confidence in Gideon that he will 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 as reason 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 defeat Midian as one man (Judges 6:16). Because the Malak Yahweh has sent him, and because the Malak Yahweh will be with him, Gideons success is guaranteed. Objections Considered In response to the above, two main objections have often been put forward by an assortment of 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 situation s one 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, it is 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, it is also true that when the text only says that Yahweh is speaking, i.e. it does not explicitly identify Him with the title Malak Yahweh, as in Genesis 18 and 26, it often times presents Yahweh speaking of God in the third person. A third person reference in first person speech naturally indicates a grammatical distinction of persons and normally indicates an actual or ontological distinction of persons as well. But a third person reference need not indicate such a distinction. On the assumption that the Angel of the LORD is a created being distinct from YHWH, third person references to YHWH in the first person speech of this angel are to be expected. This phenomenon is ubiquitous in the speech of Gods agents and it would be tedious to adduce examples. Contrary to expectation, however, a third person reference to YHWH in the first person speech of this angel is equally consistent with the opposite assumption: namely, that the Angel 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 YHWHcan be found in the Old Testament. These references not surprisingly predominate in the Pentateuch and in the prophetic books where YHWHs first person speech is most commonly reported. But they may also be found in the historical books and in the Psalmsin fact, wherever first person speech by YHWH is reported.6 Second, even if a distinction is intended on such occasions, as it will be shown in some passages (especially later ones) that it certainly is, in light of the Angel calling Himself God as well as being called God by others (both those within the narrative and the prophetic authors of those narratives), and speaking in the first person as well as the third person, then what 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 very thing some people assume in advance cannot be found in the Old Testament. From the Christian perspective, neither aspect of the way the Angel speaks presents any difficulty. No theological artifice, construct or string of conjectures is necessary to make it harmonize with what 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 also fails to present any serious challenge to the true deity of the Angel. We have already seen many 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 to Himself, 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, Jacob and the nation of Israel, speaks in the first person with such regularity that it is difficult to conceive of this as a normal way for a mere creature or representative to speak. Conclusion There are many more reasons why the Angels declared divinity and first person speech cannot be written off on the basis of a principle of agency, as some call it, including, as we will see in the next installment, the fact that He is ascribed divine attributes, performs divine works, exercises divine prerogatives, as well as commands, is given, and receives divine worship, none of which can be said of a mere representative. To be continued ...

Footnotes 1 This was pointed out in Part I, but to expand upon the reasons given before, the Captain/Prince [Heb. sar]: 1) tells Joshua to take off his shoes for he is standing on holy ground (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 since it is exclusively used of the Malak Yahweh elsewhere (Numbers 22:23, 31; 1 Chronicles 21:16); 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 next recorded appearance of the Malak Yahweh, we are told, He came up from Gilgal to Bochim (Judges 2:1), and Gilgal is where Joshua was at the time the Captain/Prince appeared to him (Joshua 5:1-12). 2 Hengstenberg, The Christology of the Old Testament: and a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, Vol. 1, p. 129. (Online source) 3 1QH 18:8 4 For another article commenting on these issues, see: Jesus Christ The God of Gods and Prince of Princes. 5 See also the following passages which speak of God in the second and third person as the owner 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: 1 Kings 8:21; and 4) the covenant of God: Psalm 78:10. 6 Gnther Juncker, Jesus and the Angel of the LORD: An Old Testament Paradigm for New Testament Christology (Deerfield, Illionois: A Dissertation, submitted to the faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theological Studies New Testament Concentration at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 2001), p. 39