Gwen Frangs / Tipperary Town / Co. Tipperary / 30 July 2024
In the ancient Hebrew Exodus 6:28-29 says:
And it came to pass that on the day (that) spoke Yahweh to Moses in the land of Egypt that spoke Yahweh to Moses saying I (am) Yahweh, speak to Pharoah king of Egypt all that I say to you.
There are two ways of reading these verses. Firstly, one could just dismiss what is said as long-windedness on the part of the author. After all, in those days they had plenty of time to double up on saying things. Therefore, when the author says that Yahweh spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt and then, again says that Yahweh spoke to Moses, it may simply be an antiquated form of repetition.
However, these verses can also be read as saying that on the same day that a first Yahweh spoke to Moses, that a second Yahweh spoke to Moses. This is because there are two Yahwehs in the Old Testament, the Father and the angel of the Lord.
We read about the angel of the Lord in Exodus 23 when Yahweh the Father tells Moses:
20 “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. 22 If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. 23 My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.
In Hosea 12:4-5 the prophet Hosea says:
And, yes, he struggled with the angel and prevailed. He wept and sought favour from Him. He found him in Bethel and there He spoke to us, that is Yahweh God of Hosts. His memorable name is Yahweh.
Hosea 12:4-5 Interlinear
The verse is saying that the angel of the Lord found Jacob in Bethel and spoke to the Israelites. This angel’s memorable name is Yahweh.
In Ezekiel 9:3-4 the Glory of God is also named as Yahweh. In Ezekiel 1 we see that the Glory of God is the angel of the Lord, because he is described by Ezekiel as looking like fire from the waist down:
26 And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire;[a] and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. 27 And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him.[b] 28 Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around…
Hebrews 1:7 says:
7 Of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flame of fire.”
Therefore, the Glory of God must be the angel of the Lord.
The angel of the Lord appeared to the parents of Samson:
2 There was a certain man of Zorah, of the tribe of the Danites, whose name was Manoah. And his wife was barren and had no children. 3 And the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman and said to her, “Behold, you are barren and have not borne children, but you shall conceive and bear a son. 4 Therefore be careful and drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, 5 for behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. No razor shall come upon his head, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb, and he shall begin to save Israel from the hand of the Philistines.” 6 Then the woman came and told her husband, “A man of God came to me, and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God, very awesome. I did not ask him where he was from, and he did not tell me his name, 7 but he said to me, ‘Behold, you shall conceive and bear a son. So then drink no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean, for the child shall be a Nazirite to God from the womb to the day of his death.’”
8 Then Manoah prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, please let the man of God whom you sent come again to us and teach us what we are to do with the child who will be born.” 9 And God listened to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman as she sat in the field. But Manoah her husband was not with her. 10 So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, “Behold, the man who came to me the other day has appeared to me.” 11 And Manoah arose and went after his wife and came to the man and said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to this woman?” And he said, “I am.” 12 And Manoah said, “Now when your words come true, what is to be the child’s manner of life, and what is his mission?” 13 And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “Of all that I said to the woman let her be careful. 14 She may not eat of anything that comes from the vine, neither let her drink wine or strong drink, or eat any unclean thing. All that I commanded her let her observe.”
15 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “Please let us detain you and prepare a young goat for you.” 16 And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, “If you detain me, I will not eat of your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord.” (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) 17 And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, “What is your name, so that, when your words come true, we may honor you?” 18 And the angel of the Lord said to him, “Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful?” 19 So Manoah took the young goat with the grain offering, and offered it on the rock to the Lord, to the one who works[a] wonders, and Manoah and his wife were watching. 20 And when the flame went up toward heaven from the altar, the angel of the Lord went up in the flame of the altar. Now Manoah and his wife were watching, and they fell on their faces to the ground.
21 The angel of the Lord appeared no more to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. 22 And Manoah said to his wife, “We shall surely die, for we have seen God.” 23 But his wife said to him, “If the Lord had meant to kill us, he would not have accepted a burnt offering and a grain offering at our hands, or shown us all these things, or now announced to us such things as these.” 24 And the woman bore a son and called his name Samson. And the young man grew, and the Lord blessed him. 25 And the Spirit of the Lord began to stir him in Mahaneh-dan, between Zorah and Eshtaol.
We know that this is the angel of the Lord, because in verse 18 the angel tells Manoah that His name is wonderful. Presumably, the reason why the angel tells Manoah that His name is wonderful is because the name of the angel of the Lord is Yahweh and Yahweh is a wonderful name, because it is the name of God the Father.
In light of the fact that there are two Yahwehs in the Old Testament, the Father and the angel of the Lord, I believe that it is most likely that Exodus 6:28-29 should be interpreted as saying that on the same day that Yahweh the Father spoke to Moses, that Yahweh the angel of the Lord spoke to Moses. Therefore, I believe that when it comes to God communicating with Moses in Exodus 6, that Exodus 6 needs to be read as follows:
Exodus 6:1 The angel of the Lord speaks to Moses
Exodus 6:2-8 The Father speaks to Moses
Exodus 6: 10 – 11 The Father speaks to Moses
Exodus 6: 13 The Father speaks to Moses
Exodus 6:29 The angel of the Lord speaks to Moses
In Exodus 6:1 the angel of the Lord speaks to Moses. He is the one who has been speaking to Moses since Exodus 3 when He appears to Moses in the burning bush:
3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
It says that God called to Moses from the burning bush. The Hebrew word for God ‘elohim’ is used. The word ‘elohim’ is used to describe the Father in the Old Testament; however, the ‘angel of the Lord’ is also called ‘elohim’. In Zechariah 12:8 it says:
8 On that day the Lord will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord going before them.
The Hebrew word that is translated as ‘God’ in Zechariah 12:8 is ‘elohim’.
This means that in Genesis 3:4 when it says that ‘God’ called to Moses out of the bush, it is most probably the angel of the Lord Who calls Moses and not the Father, because this is the simplest reading of the story. It is the angel Who is in the bush, and the angel is also called ‘God’, so it makes the most sense that it would be the angel Who speaks from the bush, rather than that the Father is suddenly introduced into the story.
After speaking to Moses from the burning bush the angel of the Lord again speaks to Moses in Exodus 4:19 and in Exodus 4:21-23. In Exodus 4:24 the angel of the Lord tries to kill Moses because Moses’ son was uncircumcised. In Exodus 4:27 the angel of the Lord speaks to Aaron telling Aaron to go and meet Moses.
After Moses and Aaron speak to Pharoah and Pharoah makes the Israelites work more difficult by commanding that they must find the straw to make their bricks, Moses speaks to the angel of the Lord at the end of Exodus chapter 5 asking Him why He has allowed this to happen and the angel of the Lord responds in Exodus 6:1:
6 But the Lord (Yahweh) said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for with a strong hand he will send them out, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.”
So, who exactly is this mysterious ‘angel of the Lord’ Who is being called God? It can’t be God the Father, because God the Father isn’t an angel. We can know this because Jesus said that God is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth:
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Jesus didn’t say God is a spirit. Angels are spirits, so, if the Father was an angel Jesus would have said that God is a spirit, but He didn’t so the angel is not the Father.
This mysterious angel of the Lord also cannot be Jesus, because Jesus had not yet been begotten by the Father. We can know this because Jesus is the Son of God and in Psalm 2 where it speaks about the Son of God being begotten by the Father it only occurs when there are already kingdoms on the earth:
7 I will tell of the decree:
The Lord said to me, “You are my Son;
today I have begotten you.
8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.
There were no nations present at the creation, because they had not been created yet, therefore the Son of God could not have been begotten before the creation.
In Zechariah 3, the second last book of the Old Testament, the Father is speaking through the Holy Spirit about the Branch. In verse 8 Yahweh says: ‘I Am bringing forth My Servant the Branch….’ Zechariah 3:8. He is describing a future event. He is not describing something that had happened in the past prior to creation. The Son was begotten only at the beginning of the New Testament when Mary became pregnant with Him, as a result of the Holy Spirit overshadowing her. When the Holy Spirit took up residence in the body that the Father had prepared for Him, the Son was begotten. Therefore, it cannot be the Son of God, Jesus, speaking to Moses from the bush because He had not yet been begotten.
This means that there is only one remaining person in the Trinity who the angel of the Lord can be and that is the Holy Spirit.
Isaiah 63 bears this out. In Isaiah 63:9-10 the Holy Spirit is called the angel of his presence:
9 In all their affliction he was afflicted,[a]
and the angel of his presence saved them;
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.10 But they rebelled
and grieved his Holy Spirit;
therefore he turned to be their enemy,
and himself fought against them.
We see that the angel of His (the Father’s) presence is called the Holy Spirit in verse 10. The angel of His presence is the angel Yahweh, Who the Father sent with the Israelites in Exodus 23:20-23. Therefore, the angel Yahweh is the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, it is the Holy Spirit Who has been communicating with Moses up until Exodus 6:2; however, in the face of the crisis where the Israelites workload has been increased by Pharoah, Yahweh the Father speaks to Moses in Exodus 6:2-8. We can know that this is the Father speaking to Moses, because in verse 3 the Father tells Moses that He appeared to the Patriarchs in El Shaddai:
2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the Lord.’ 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob in El-Shaddai but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.
Exodus 6:2-3
El Shaddai is another name for the Holy Spirit. We can know this because in Genesis 48:3 Jacob tells Joseph that El Shaddai appeared to Him in Luz. He then goes on to describe El Shaddai as God and the Angel:
15 Then he blessed Joseph and said,
“May the God before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully,
the God who has been my shepherd
all my life to this day,
16 the Angel who has delivered me from all harm
—may he bless these boys.
May they be called by my name
and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,
and may they increase greatly
on the earth.”
In Hosea 12:4-5 the prophet Hosea says:
And, yes, he struggled with the angel and prevailed. He wept and sought favour from Him. He found him in Bethel and there He spoke to us, that is Yahweh God of Hosts. His memorable name is Yahweh.
Hosea 12:4-5 Interlinear
In the Old Testament Bethel is another name for Luz (https://bibleatlas.org/luz.htm).
Therefore, the angel El Shaddai is the angel Yahweh, the Holy Spirit and Jacob wrestled with the Holy Spirit externally at Luz / Bethel in the same way that Christians today wrestle with the Holy Spirit internally.
Therefore, in Exodus 6:3 when Yahweh the Father tells Moses that He appeared to the Patriarchs in El Shaddai, He is referring to the angel of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, Who has been guiding Moses since He appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
We can know that the Father says that He appeared to the Patriarchs in El Shaddai, rather than as El Shaddai, because Jesus told His disciples that the Father was in Him:
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me…
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
In John 8: 56-58 Jesus identifies Himself as the angel of the Lord, Who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, when He says:
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” 57 So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[a] 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”
In Exodus 3 the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush and told Moses that He was called ‘I am’:
3 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed…
13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am.”[a] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The Lord,[b] 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 thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.
The apostle Paul confirmed that Jesus is the incarnation of the angel of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, in 2 Corinthians when he wrote:
7 Now the Lord[a] is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,[b] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.[c] For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
In Exodus 6 verses 4-8 the Father tells Moses the same information that the Holy Spirit told Moses in Exodus 3 when He appeared to Moses in the burning bush, namely that He is going to rescue His people from the oppression of the Egyptians and bring them to their own land.
In verses 10 and 11, the Father tells Moses to go and tell Pharoah to let the Israelites go and in verse 12 Moses questions the Father:
12 But Moses said to the Lord, “If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips[a]?”
The Father does not answer Moses. Rather, in verse 29 the Holy Spirit speaks to Moses and instructs him to go and speak to Pharoah and in verse 30, Moses questions the Holy Spirit asking the Holy Spirit exactly the same question that he asked the Father in verse 12:
30 But Moses said to the Lord, “Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?”
If it were not the case that there are two Yahwehs in Exodus 6, it would actually be very strange that Moses asks a single Yahweh exactly the same question twice.
The Holy Spirit continues to give guidance to Moses in Exodus chapter 7.
Therefore, in light of the fact that Exodus 6:29, in the original Hebrew, indicates that two Yahwehs spoke to Moses on the same day and, in light of the fact that the second Yahweh speaks about appearing to the Patriarchs in the Holy Spirit in Exodus 6:3, meaning that it is the Father and not the Holy Spirit speaking in Exodus 6:2-8, it would seem that when it comes to God communicating with Moses in Exodus 6, we can read Exodus 6 as:
Exodus 6:1 The Holy Spirit speaks to Moses
Exodus 6:2-8 The Father speaks to Moses
Exodus 6: 10 – 11 The Father speaks to Moses
Exodus 6: 13 The Father speaks to Moses
Exodus 6:29 The Holy Spirit speaks to Moses