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Introduction
One of the many pitfalls of reading through the Bible so fast is that one does not spend ample time exegeting and interpreting the text in which they are reading. One of the common ways this can play out is leaving your Bible with an entirely different view than what the Biblical authors intended to communicate to you. We should read the human authors of the Bible in the best light instead of casting doubt on their theological understanding as the dictation theory of inspiration would have us do [1]. The existential theory of inspiration is just as bad; which reads the authors as being completely lacking by saying that God was not involved at all nor speaking through them but took their sometimes errored-filled writings and “inspired” them afterward. We who are confessing evangelicals confess that the human authors were truly writing the very words of God and so we must also confess that there are no errors contained in their writings, for God is incapable of making any error or lying.
The passages we will be discussing are the angel passages found in Joshua 5:13-15 and in the book of Judges. Many conclude that this angel is actually a manifestation of God Himself, while some go as narrow as to say it is a pre-incarnate Christ (christophany). Another view is that this is actually an angel as the biblical authors tell us.
Is Everything a Theophany
or a Christophany?
[Yahweh] said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”
– Exodus 33:20 (LSB)
One of the fundamental truths that Moses and the other biblical authors know is that God is invisible. He cannot be seen. And if anyone sees His raw, unfiltered glory, they will die. The glory of God can be understood as the holiness of God made visible. As our Lord taught us; “God is spirit” (John 4:24), and therefore cannot be seen. Paul also refers to God as “the invisible God” (Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17). The Apostle John opens his gospel by stating that “no one has seen God at any time” (John 1:18). Jesus also explained how He alone has seen God and that “not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father” (John 6:46).
In other words, we shouldn’t make everything in our Old Testament be a burning-bush moment. God can, and does choose when and how to reveal Himself through various kinds of manifestations, but we must not be so liberal in our approach as to make everything a theophany or a christophany. If everything is a christophany then what is so special about the incarnate Christ? Yet we must also acknowledge that God did appear as an angel in the Old Testament on several occasions (Gen. 16:7-14, 21:17). It can become difficult to then determine who exactly it is we are dealing with. So, let us be charitable and consider all the views as we study this mysterious messenger.
The Mysterious Messenger
Then the angel of Yahweh 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, 2 and as for you, you shall cut no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not listened to My voice; what is this you have done? 3 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 become a snare to you.’” 4 So it happened that when the angel of Yahweh spoke these words to all the sons of Israel, the people lifted up their voices and wept. 5 So they named that place Bochim; and there they sacrificed to Yahweh.
– Judges 2:1-5 (LSB)
The word translated here as “angel” is the Hebrew word mal’āk. It is used 31 times in the book of Judges and is found in 26 verses. Nine of those times, it is translated as “messengers” in chapters 6, 7, 9, and 11 while describing human messengers sent by Gideon, Jephthah, and others. [2]
One option afforded to us is that this is a theophanic figure, meaning, this is a manifestation of God Himself. One of the main supporting arguments is that this figure speaks as if he is indeed YAHWEH. This is truly a valid option afforded to us as we try to understand who this messenger is. On this same note, others prefer to use the term christophany rather than theophany, because they say that this is a pre-incarnate Christ. [3]
But another, less convincing option, is that this is a human figure, such as a prophet, or one that may resemble Melchizedek, King of Salem, Priest of the Most High God, who blessed Abraham and to whom Abraham gave a tithe (Gen. 14:17-20). One can make this argument by the language the author uses in v.1; “Then the angel of Yahweh came up from Gilgal to Bochim.” One may conclude that this cannot be a heavenly messenger because he did not come down from heaven but “came up from Gilgal.” It is interesting that the author notes such a detail and does not seek to elaborate on it. [4]
But it appears that the best interpretation is that this is an angel and that it is a specific angel. There is this Angel of the Covenant foretold of back in Exodus 23.
“Behold, I am going to send an angel before you to keep you along the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Keep watch of yourself before him and listen to his voice; do not be rebellious toward him, for he will not pardon your transgression, since My name is in him. 22 But if you truly listen to his voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. 23 For My angel will go before you and bring you in to the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; and I will annihilate them.
– Exodus 23:20-23 (LSB)
We refer to this angel as the “Angel of the Covenant” because he deals directly with Israel in the land promised to them in God’s covenant of Abraham [5]. Though this is disputed by most, it seems that this angel did in fact show up to the sons of Israel on the border of Jericho as foretold. Most are tempted to say that this mysterious figure Joshua encountered is a pre-incarnate Christ. But it appears to be this angel that God said would come to them and help lead them in the conquest.
Now it happened 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?” 14 He said, “No! Rather I indeed come now as commander of the host of Yahweh.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and bowed down and said to him, “What has my lord to say to his slave?” 15 The commander of the host of Yahweh said to Joshua, “Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.
– Joshua 5:13-15 (LSB)
Many would reference the holy ground language back in Exodus 3:5 with Moses and the burning bush. But the stories are so dissimilar that this language is the only thing they have in common with each other. If this is the same angel that appears to the sons of Israel in Judges 2:1 then we may conclude that this angel is said to have come up from Gilgal because Joshua 4:19 says that Gilgal is located on the eastern border of Jericho, which is where the angel was last seen. It is as if the angel walks through the land and observes how Israel has disobeyed God and then goes to speak to them of their consequences.
Heavenly Messenger or
Divine Manifestation
It seems that this angel appears again in the book of Judges, to Gideon in chapter 6, and to Samson’s parents Manoah and his wife in chapter 13. Both of these people proclaim to have seen YAHWEH face to face when they encounter this angel. But again, we may gather that in both places they misspoke because God corrects Gideon and Manoah’s wife corrects him.
…Then the angel of Yahweh went away from before his eyes. 22 And Gideon saw that he was the angel of Yahweh, so he said, “Alas, O Lord Yahweh! For now I have seen the angel of Yahweh face to face.” 23 And Yahweh said to him, “Peace to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.”
– Judges 6:21-23 (LSB)
Indeed, it happened when the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, that the angel of Yahweh went up in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife saw this, so they fell on their faces to the ground. 21 Now the angel of Yahweh did not appear to Manoah or his wife again. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of Yahweh. 22 So Manoah said to his wife, “We will surely die, for we have seen God.” 23 But his wife said to him, “If Yahweh had desired to put us to death, He would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering from our hands, nor would He have shown us all these things, nor would He have let us hear things like this at this time.”
– Judges 13:20-23 (LSB)
It is as if both God and Manoah’s wife are saying, “Get a grip! Calm down.” It appears that Gideon and Manoah are not thinking rationally. This is to be expected when you have an encounter with God, but did they really “see God face to face” as they claim; well of course not. Nonetheless, this is as close as one could get to seeing God, though it may be mediated through the presence of an angel, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Gideon and Manoah are lying either. But what we can conclude is that the author of the Book of Judges believes that they saw an angel and heard directly from God. Both are true. For the author to record this means he is simply being a faithful, inspired historian of the events. He records the scene how it actually played out. We still need to remember to not interpret what individuals in the stories say as being what the author necessarily believes.
We also need to remember that this Angel of the Covenant bears the very name of YAHWEH in him (Exod. 23:21), therefore, in our text, as with Gideon and Samson’s parents, he speaks the very words of YAHWEH. This is why he is called a mal’āk, for he is God’s own apostle (the Greek equivalent). The angel represents God truly and speaks the very words of God truly. Just as Paul was an apostle of Christ. Just as Moses was God to Aaron, and Aaron a prophet to Pharaoh (Exod. 4:14-17). This is how we can make sense of the author of the Book of Judges recording as if YAHWEH is speaking to Gideon in 6:14-16. It may even shed more light on when the angel tells Samson’s parents that his name is “wonderful” (פֶלִאי literally: “incomprehensible”) in 13:18.
However, many would like to argue that these encounters Gideon and Samson’s parents had were with a pre-incarnate Jesus. One of the biggest arguments is that the New Testament never mentions the angel of the Lord during the time of Jesus’ ministry; as to imply that He was, in fact, the angel of the Lord. Though not as convincing, it is something to at least consider.
Conclusion
We should rightly assume that when the Old Testament authors were describing these events they did so while knowing the truth that no one can see God and live. They are not writing down anything contrary to sound doctrine, but are being faithful to the accounts they are to record. This includes what the individuals in the stories say. The Angel of the Covenant appears to have been seen in Joshua 5, Judges 2, 6, and 13. If the angel is not present in the book of Joshua, then one is really only left to look in Judges. Then one is forced to make a choice that either all three occurrences in Judges are this angel or none of them. It doesn’t make much sense to make one be the angel and the other times not be. This angel is ordained by God to assist the Israelites with taking the land, which is what we see this figure doing throughout the book. Those who advocate for a Christophany-only view are left with Exodus 23:20-23 having no fulfillment. Of course, one could say that he did appear and perform his duties but it was simply never recorded. Though this is plausible, it is certainly not ideal. Rather than making every angel appearance in the Old Testament a christophany, we can employ hermeneutics that allows for fulfillment and reading the Biblical authors in the best light.
Works Cited
[1] The “dictation theory” is that God dictated word by word through the human authors of the Bible divorced from their knowledge and comprehension as if they were in a state of robotic trance. While this theory intends to maintain justice for the divine authorship of the Scriptures it leaves out any touch of the human. It argues for a dim and unenlightened author who may not truly understand what he is writing. But this is simply not the case. We see Peter acknowledges that Paul’s writings are sometimes hard to understand (2 Pet. 3:15-16), which means that there are human elements in the inspired Scriptures. We also see in Jeremiah 1:1,4 both “the words of Jeremiah” and “the words of Yahweh.”
[2] Daniel I. Block, Judges, Ruth: The New American Commentary Volume 6, (B&H Publishing Group, Brentwood, TN, 1999), 110. and Barry G. Webb, The Book of Judges: TNICOT, (Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 2021), 129-130.
[3] Marten H. Woudstra, The Book of Johsua: TNICOT, (Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 1981), 105
[4] Kaufmann, Judges, p. 92
[5] Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA, 1997), 159. “an angel … came from Gilgal to Bochim—We are inclined to think, from the authoritative tone of his language, that he was the Angel of the Covenant (Ex 23:20; Jos 5:14); the same who appeared in human form and announced himself captain of the Lord’s host. His coming from Gilgal had a peculiar significance, for there the Israelites made a solemn dedication of themselves to God on their entrance into the promised land [Jos 4:1–9]; and the memory of that religious engagement, which the angel’s arrival from Gilgal awakened, gave emphatic force to his rebuke of their apostasy.“