The Messenger of Yahweh as Adoni
Not only is Adoni is applied of Yahweh it is also used of
the Captain of the Lord’s host or heavenly armies:
“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 (sar saba YHWH).’ And Joshua fell on his face to the
earth, and bowed down, and said to him, ‘What has my lord (Adoni) to say to his servant?’ The
captain of the Lord’shost (sar
saba YHWH) 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 Lordsaid
to Joshua, ‘See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors.’” Joshua
5:13-15, 6:1-2
Suffice it to say, this is no ordinary Captain since the
context suggests that he is the LORD or Yahweh who goes on to speak to Joshua
in the very next chapter.
There are other indications that this specific figure is
truly divine, including the fact that the phrase “Captain of the LORD’s host”
is used elsewhere to describe the God of gods in the book of Daniel:
“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 (sar
hassaba); and it removed the regular sacrifice from Him, and the place
of His sanctuary was thrown down… And through his shrewdness He will cause
deceit to succeed by his influence; And he will magnify himself in his heart, And he will destroy many
while they are at ease. He will even oppose the
Prince of princes, But he will be broken without human agency.” Daniel 8:10-11,
25
Here, the little horn who opposes the Captain or Commander
of the host (sar hassaba) and the Prince of princes (sar sarim)
is the same wicked ruler who contends against the God of gods:
“Then the king will do as he pleases, and he will exalt and
magnify himself above every god and will speak monstrous things against the God of gods; and he
will prosper until the indignation is finished, for that which is decreed will
be done. He will show no regard for the gods of his fathers or
for the desire of women, nor will he show regard for anyother god; for he will magnify himself above them all.” Daniel 11:36-37
In light of this, it seems rather obvious that the God of
gods is also the Captain of the host and the Prince of princes, which therefore
proves that the Man who appeared to Joshua was none other than the God of gods
himself since he is the Captain of the LORD’s host! As such, this shows that
the Hebrew Bible does use Adoni for Yahweh God since this is who the Man who
appeared to Joshua happened to be.
There is additional evidence showing that this same Captain
is also the Angel of God/LORD. For instance, both the Captain and the Angel
appear with drawn swords in their hands and receive worship from their
subjects:
“But God was angry because he was going, and the angel of the Lord took
his stand in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his
donkey and his two servants were with him. When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing
in the way with his drawn sword in his hand, the donkey turned off from the
way and went into the field; but Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into
the way… Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing
in the way with his drawn sword in his hand; and he bowed all the way to the
ground. The angel of the Lord said to him, ‘Why have
you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an
adversary, because your way was contrary to me. But the donkey
saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside
from me, I would surely have killed you just now, and let her live.’ Balaam
said to the angel of the Lord, ‘I have sinned, for I did not know that you were
standing in the way against me. Now then, if it is displeasing to you, I will
turn back.’ But the angel of the Lord said to Balaam, ‘Go
with the men, but you shall speak only
the word which I tell you.’ So Balaam went along with the leaders of
Balak.” Numbers 22:22-23, 31-35
Moreover, both of them command individuals to remove their
sandals in their presence, and both are identified as Yahweh God:
“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;
and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not
consumed. So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this
marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.’ When the Lord saw
that he turned aside to look, God
called to him from the midst of the bush and
said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He
said, ‘Do not come near here; remove
your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy
ground.’ He said also, ‘I
am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for
he was afraid to look at God.’ Exodus 3:1-6
It, therefore, seems reasonably certain that the Captain
and the Angel are one and the same entity, which is quite significant since
this particular Angel is not only addressed as Adoni he is also called Adonai!
“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 (Adoni), 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.’ TheLord 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 (Adonai), how shall I deliver Israel?
Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my
father’s 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 theLord 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. To this
day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.” Judges 6:11-24
The context makes it clear that the LORD who was speaking
to Gideon is the same as the Angel of God that had appeared to him. This means
that this specific Angel is called Adoni, Adonai and Yahweh, all in the same
chapter!
This isn’t the only time that this particular Messenger is
referred to as Adoni:
“On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is
the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to
Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, as follows: I
saw at night, and behold, a
man was riding on a red horse, and he was standing among the myrtle trees which were in the ravine, with red,
sorrel and white horses behind him. Then I said, ‘My lord
(adoni), what are these?’And the angel who was speaking with me said
to me, ‘I will show you what these are.’ And the man who was standing among the
myrtle trees answered and
said, ‘These are those whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.’ So they answered the angel of the Lord who
was standing among the myrtle trees and
said, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth is peaceful and
quiet.’” Zechariah 1:7-11
There are additional reasons for viewing this Messenger as
God, such as the fact that the Angel creates, saves, forgives sins, brings
judgment upon God’s enemies, is worshiped as God, calls himself God, and bears
the very name and essence of God (cf. Genesis 16:7-14; 31:10-13; 48:15-16;
Exodus 3:1-6; 23:20-21; Judges 2:1-5; 13:3-24; 2 Samuel 14:17, 20; 2 Kings
19:32-37; Psalm 34:6-7; Isaiah 63:9; Zechariah 3:1-4).
As Professor Elliot R. Wolfson explains in respect to this
Angel bearing God's name within himself and the impact that this has on Jewish
theology and exegesis:
“The textual proofs for the incarnation of the divine in
the angelic figure are found in passages where
there is a deliberate confusion between the angel of God and divinity itself (Gen. 16:9-13, 18:2, 21:7, 22:11,
31:11, 33:11-13; Ex. 3:2ff., 14:19, 23:21, 32:34; Jos. 5:13-15; Jud. 2:1, 4,
5:23, 6:11ff., 13:3ff.; Is. 63:9; Ps. 34:8). In such instances, the shift in
the narrative from God to the angel points
to the fact THAT GOD APPEARS IN THE GUISE OF AN ANGEL. One scriptural verse
that is extremely significant for understanding this ancient Israelite
conception is God's statement that the Israelites should give heed to the angel
whom he has sent before them and not rebel against him, for his name is in him
(Ex. 23:21). The line
separating the angel and God IS SUBSTANTIALLY BLURRED, for by bearing the name,
WHICH SIGNIFIES THE POWER OF THE DIVINE NATURE, the angel IS THE EMBODIMENT OF
GOD’S PERSONALITY. To possess the name is not merely to be invested with divine
authority; it means that ONTOLOGICALLY the angel is the incarnational presence
of the divine manifest in the providential care of Israel ... This notion, attested in older
Jewish mystical texts as well, is consistent with what one finds in the
biblical texts themselves; that
is, the ancient Israelite belief was THAT GOD COULD APPEAR AS AN ANGELIC
PRESENCE TO HUMAN BEINGS, and the shape this presence took WAS THAT OF AN
ANTHROPOS. The angelic form, therefore, is the garment (as later kabbalists
expressed the matter) in which
the divine is clad when it is manifest in the world in the shape of an
anthropos. Clearly, this phenomenon, which
is notably similar to the Christological identification of Jesus as THE
GLORIOUS ANGEL, should be classified as an example of incarnation as
distinct from anthropomorphization.
“… I would argue that the possibility of God assuming the
form of an angel is one of the ground myths that informs the liturgical
imagination in rabbinic praxis. The implication of the biblical conception is
made explicit in several midrashic sources. Thus, in one context, the matter is
related exegetically to the expression ‘captain of the Lord's host’ (Jos.
5:14): ‘I am the captain from above, and
in every place that I am seen the Holy One, blessed be he, is seen.’ The
particular angelic being who serves as the chief of the celestial host is not
identified in this text, but the implication of the passage is clear: from a
theophanic perspective, the
highest angel and God ARE PHENOMENALLY INTERCHANGEABLE, for in every place that
the former appears THE LATTER APPEARS. It is not only that the two belong
together, BUT THAT THEY RESEMBLE ONE ANOTHER TO THE POINT THAT THE ONTOLOGICAL
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO IS OBSCURED…” (Christianity in Jewish Terms,
ed. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, David Novak, Peter Ochs, David Fox Sandmel, Michael A.
Signer [Westview Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2000], pp.
244-245; bold and capital emphasis ours)
Professor Wolfson is not alone in this regard since this is
what a liberal professor states concerning the Angel/Messenger of the Lord and
the blessed Apostle Paul’s belief in the Deity of Christ:
“As we saw in the previous chapter, Paul says that it was
Christ, and not the human Jesus, who existed from the beginning of creation in
the ‘form of God’ but then subsequently emptied himself, being born in the
likeness of a mortal human being (Philippians 2:6-7).Paul makes the rather
startling assertion that this cosmic Christ, ages before he was born as a human
being, HAD MANIFESTED HIMSELF AS YAHWEH, THE GOD OF ISRAEL. He refers
particularly to the time of Moses, when the Israelites ‘saw’ Yahweh as a
mysterious cloud-fire: ‘And Yahweh went before them by day in a pillar of
cloud, to lead them the way, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them
light, that they might go by day and by night’ (Exodus 13:21).
“Paul says that the God who led the Israelites through
the Red Sea and in their desert wanderings for forty years, the one they called
the Rock, WAS CHRIST (1 Corinthians 10:4; Deuteronomy 32:4,
18). He does not explain the particulars of his view,but the idea that there
was AN ‘UPPER’ YAHWEH, who remains unseen, sometimes called ‘God called Most
High,’ as well as A ‘LOWER’ MANIFESTATION OF THAT SAME GOD, CALLED THE
‘MESSENGER YAHWEH,’ who appears from time to time in human history in a visible
manner on earth, WAS COMMON IN VARIOUS FORMS OF JUDAISM OF PAUL’S TIME.
This lower Yahweh is not flesh and blood, even though in some of the stories he
seems to ‘materialize,’ but when he appears he is then ‘taken up’ or in one
case disappears in a flame of fire.
“This is very much akin to the Greek notion of the
ineffable God manifest in the lower world as the ‘Word’ or Logos, which was an integral
part of Platonic and Stoic cosmology. The
Logos idea was appropriated by the Jewish philosopher Philo, a contemporary of
Paul, to deal with passages in the Hebrew Bible THAT SEEM TO REFER TO TWO
YAHWEHS, AN UPPER AND A LOWER. In the New Testament the Gospel of John
adopts the Logos idea wholesale, but
makes the shocking assertion that ‘the Logos became flesh,’ referring to the birth
of Jesus (John 1:1, 14). This is akin to Paul’s view of the preexistent Christ.
In the form of God, who emptied himself and was born of a woman.
“Paul says little more about the preexistent Christ as a
manifestation of Yahweh other
than that he was present in the days of Moses. Paul is focused entirely on
the other end of history, the termination of what he calls ‘this present evil
age’ (Galatians 1:14 [sic]). What Jesus represents to Paul is one thing
and one thing only–the cosmic, preexistent Christ, being ‘born of a woman,’
as a flesh-and-blood mortal human being now transformed to a life-giving Spirit.
This is what drove Paul and excited him most. For him it explained the Genesis
creation itself and accounted for all the subsequent ‘blood, sweat, and tears’
of the human story. Humans were created to become Gods! ‘This slight, momentary
affliction’ was preparing them for an ‘eternal weight of glory beyond all
comparison’ (2 Corinthians 4:17).
“In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh, the One God of Israel, had
declared: ‘Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God and
there is no other … To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear’
(Isaiah 45:22-23). Paul quotes this precise phrase from Isaiah but now
significantly adds: ‘At the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and
on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father’ (Philippians 2:10-11). Christ as the newly exalted Lord of
the cosmos IS THE FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT OF YAHWEH.” (James D. Tabor, Paul and Jesus: How the Apostle
Transformed Christianity [Simon
& Schuster, New York, NY 2012], Six. A Mystical Union, pp. 133-135; bold
and capital emphasis ours)
And:
7. The literal term in Hebrew, “messenger Yahweh,” is
usually translated as “the angel of Yahweh” but this is not the best choice for
English since “angel” in English has its own set of connotations quite
different from Hebrew. In Hebrew the phrase used, malak Yahweh,MEANS A
MANIFESTATION OF YAHWEH and this figure speaks and acts asYahweh in the first person,
appearing and departing, sometimes in a flame of fire(see Genesis 16:10;
18:33; 22:11; Exodus 3:2; Judges 13:20). There
are a few passages where these “two Yahwehs” are mentioned in a single verse:
“Then Yahweh (below) rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from
Yahweh (above) from heaven” (Genesis 19:24). (Ibid, p. 257; bold and
capital emphasis ours)
Hence, not only does Tabor readily acknowledge that Paul
believed that Christ is Yahweh God who appeared during the OT period to his
saints such as Moses, he even admits that certain strands of Judaism could see
that the Hebrew Bible posits two distinct entities as Yahweh God, one visible
and the other invisible!
Another liberal NT scholar James D. G. Dunn goes as far as
to say that the Angel is not a distinct Divine Messenger sent by Yahweh, but is
the same Person as Yahweh!
“More important is ‘the angel of Yahweh’, especially in
view of [2nd century
Christian apologist] Justin’s identification of the angel of Yahweh with the
pre-existent Christ (above p. 132). Yet to understand the angel of Yahweh as a
being somehow independent of Yahweh is basically to misunderstand what the ancient
writers intended. For it is
clear enough even from a cursory study of the passages in question that ‘the angel of Yahweh’ is
simply a way of speaking about Yahweh himself. Thus, after the angel of the Lord has
appeared and spoken to Hagar the narrative continues: ‘So she called the name
of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God
of seeing”; for she said, “Have I really seen God and remained alive after
seeing him?”’ (Gen. 16.13). Similarly in the other version of the same tale the
angel of God speaks in the first person as God (21.17f.). In Jacob’s dream the
angel of God says, ‘I am the God of Bethel’ (31.11-13). In the theophany in the
burning bush he who appears to Moses is described both as ‘the angel of the
Lord’ and ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ (Ex. 3.2-6). Finally we might
note Judg. 2.1, where ‘the angel of the Lord’ says ‘I brought you up from the
land of Egypt… I will never break my covenant with you…’. Clearly in all of these cases it is
impossible to distinguish between the angel of Yahweh and Yahweh himself; they
are obviously one and the same person. And the same is most probable true
of the other passages where it is a ‘man’ who appears to Abraham (Gen. 18 –
‘the Lord’), to Jacob (Gen. 32.24-30 – ‘I have seen God face to face’) and to
Joshua (Josh. 5.13-15). Somewhat more ambiguous is the status of the angel who
led Israel through the exodus and wilderness wanderings (Ex. 14.19; 23.20, 23;
32.34; 33.2f.; Num. 20.16), but in fact the same equation seems to hold, since
the divine presence in the pillar of fire and of cloud is thought of both as
‘the angel of God’ and as ‘the Lord’ in Ex. 14:19f., 24. In
other words, in these instances too the ‘angel’ is a way of describing the
presence and saving power of Yahweh.
“In short, this angel talk seems to have been an early,
still unsophisticated attempt to speak of God’s immanent activity among people
and within events on earth without either resorting to straightforward
anthropomorphism or abandoning belief in his holy otherness…” (James D. G.
Dunn, Christology in the
Making – A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the
Incarnation [William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co. Grand Rapids, MI; Second edition 1989], V. Spirit or
Angel?, 20. The angel of the Lord, p. 150; bold emphasis and comments within
brackets ours)
Although we reject the notion that the Angel isn’t a
distinct Person from Yahweh – since it is clear from the OT that he is – we do
agree with Dunn, however, that this particular Messenger is identified as
Yahweh himself.
What this means is that we have clear evidence that the
Hebrew Bible doesn’t teach unitarianism. The OT data concerning the Angel of
Yahweh proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the inspired OT writers knew
that God’s eternal Being was so infinitely complex so as to be shared by more
than one Divine Person.
Once again, since this Messenger of God is called Adoni
then this provides further evidence that the word Adoni is used for God, since this
Angel is not a creature but God Almighty himself appearing as an emissary of
God.
This brings us to the conclusion of this part of our
rebuttal. Please proceed to part
3.
IHS
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