Angel (Holy Trinity)

Under "Angel (Holy Trinity)" are grouped the passages where an "angel of Yahweh," "angel of God," or "angel of his presence" speaks and acts as Yahweh himself rather than as a created spirit. The figure appears at fountains, mountains, sanctuaries, roads, threshing-floors, military camps, and courtroom visions, and where he speaks his words are credited directly to Yahweh.

Called the Angel of Yahweh

The earliest appearance is to Hagar at the wilderness spring: "the angel of Yahweh found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur" (Gen 16:7), where he then commands her, "Return to your mistress, and submit yourself under her hands" (Gen 16:9). At Moriah he stops the knife: "the angel of Yahweh called to him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham" (Gen 22:11), and a second heaven-call follows the ram-substitution: "the angel of Yahweh called to Abraham a second time out of heaven" (Gen 22:15).

At Horeb the angel is the figure inside the unconsumed fire: "the angel of Yahweh appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush" (Ex 3:2). On the road to Moab he stands as adversary against Balaam: "the donkey saw the angel of Yahweh standing in the way, with his sword drawn in his hand" (Nu 22:23); the donkey sees him a second and third time and is struck (Nu 22:25, Nu 22:27); and finally he speaks in his own person: "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Look, I have come forth for an adversary, because your way is precipitous before me" (Nu 22:32), and dispatches Balaam onward: "Go with the men; but only the word that I will speak to you, that you will speak" (Nu 22:35).

At Bochim the angel speaks the Exodus and the land-oath in the first person, as Yahweh: "the angel of Yahweh came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, I made you⁺ to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you⁺ to the land which I swore to your⁺ fathers" (Jud 2:1). At Ophrah he calls Gideon under the oak: "the angel of Yahweh appeared to him, and said to him, [the Speech of] Yahweh is with you, you mighty man of valor" (Jud 6:12); fire comes out of the rock at the touch of his staff and he vanishes: "there went up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and the angel of Yahweh departed out of his sight" (Jud 6:21); Gideon then says, "Alas, O Sovereign Yahweh! Since I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face" (Jud 6:22).

To Manoah's wife the same figure announces Samson's birth: "the angel of Yahweh appeared to the woman, and said to her, Look now, you are barren, and have not given birth; but you will become pregnant, and give birth to a son" (Jud 13:3). He returns to her in the field (Jud 13:9) and gives Manoah the dietary charge for the child: "Of all that I said to the woman let her beware" (Jud 13:13); he refuses Manoah's bread, redirects the offering to Yahweh, withholds his name as wonderful, and ascends in the altar-flame: "when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of Yahweh ascended in the flame of the altar: and Manoah and his wife looked on; and they fell on their faces to the ground" (Jud 13:13-21).

At David's threshing-floor census he is the staying figure: "the angel of Yahweh was by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite" (2Sa 24:16; cf. 1Ch 21:15); and he commissions Gad: "the angel of Yahweh commanded Gad to say to David, that David should go up, and rear an altar to Yahweh in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite" (1Ch 21:18). Under the juniper he twice rouses Elijah: "the angel of Yahweh came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you" (1Ki 19:7); and in Ahaziah's reign he commissions Elijah against Baal-zebub of Ekron (2Ki 1:3), then tells him, "Go down with him: don't be afraid of him" (2Ki 1:15). Outside Jerusalem he strikes the Assyrian camp: "the angel of Yahweh went forth, and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians" (2Ki 19:35).

The Psalter generalizes the same figure into a standing pledge — "The angel of Yahweh encamps round about those who fear him, And delivers them" (Ps 34:7) — and into imprecation: "Let them be as chaff before the wind, And the angel of Yahweh driving [them] on" (Ps 35:5); "Let their way be dark and slippery, And the angel of Yahweh pursuing them" (Ps 35:6).

In Zechariah's night visions the angel of Yahweh receives the patrol-report among the myrtle-trees (Zec 1:11) and intercedes for the city: "O Yahweh of hosts, how long will you not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which you have had indignation these seventy years?" (Zec 1:12). He stands by while Joshua the high priest is reclothed (Zec 3:5), and in the day-of-Yahweh oracle the house of David is graded against him: "the house of David will be as God, as the angel of Yahweh before them" (Zec 12:8).

Called the Angel of God

In the Exodus rear-guard the same figure is called "the angel of God": "the angel of God, who went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud removed from before them, and stood behind them" (Ex 14:19). Manoah's wife reports that the visitor's "countenance was like the countenance of the angel of God, very awesome" (Jud 13:6).

The phrase also passes into idiom on the lips of human speakers, as a measure of insight, justice, or honor. Achish tells David, "I know that you are good in my sight, as an angel of God" (1Sa 29:9). The Tekoa woman tells David, "as an angel of God, so is my lord the king to discern good and bad" (2Sa 14:17), and again, "my lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth" (2Sa 14:20). Mephibosheth uses the same figure: "my lord the king is as an angel of God: do therefore what is good in your eyes" (2Sa 19:27). Paul tells the Galatians that they "received me as an angel of God, [even] as Christ Jesus" (Ga 4:14).

Called the Angel of His Presence

A single prophetic clause names the figure by his presence-bearing relation to Yahweh: "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bore them, and carried them all the days of old" (Isa 63:9). Saving, redeeming, bearing, and carrying through the days of old are all attributed to "the angel of his presence."