Such are some of the instances in which this term appears to be employed as a personal designation. The meaning and reference of such use of it appear to have been familiar both to the earlier and later Jews. See the chapters relating to the Chaldee Paraphrases.
CHAPTER III.
Reasons for rendering the formula, “Melach Jehovah,” the Messenger (who is) Jehovah; and not the Angel, or an Angel of the Lord.
An examination of the numerous passages in which the denominative Melach is coupled with the name Jehovah, or Elohim, or used interchangeably with those names, renders it conclusively manifest that in each and every instance the reference is to one and the same official Person. This, however, is not entirely obvious from our common version, owing to the circumstance that the translators rendered the formula, Melach Jehovah, the angel, or sometimes an angel of the Lord. The word Jehovah, in the original, never has the article; nor the word Melach, when coupled with Jehovah, though when employed alone to designate the same official Person, the article is sometimes prefixed, as in Gen. xlviii. 16: “The Melach, which redeemed me.” The word Elohim often has the article, and retains it in most of the instances in which the formula Melach Elohim occurs, requiring it to be read, Melach the, or who is the, Elohim. See some twelve instances in the book of Ezra, and more than twenty in Nehemiah, where there was a special occasion to distinguish the true from the false God. In the formula, Melach Jehovah, there is nothing in the original to forbid the two words being considered as in apposition, and the rendering consequently the Messenger Jehovah, or the Messenger who is Jehovah. And that such should be the rendering, instead of the angel or messenger of Jehovah, is apparent from the following considerations:
1st. That the Person identified by this name of office is Jehovah, as is shown by the use, in numerous passages, of the two names interchangeably. The word Melach, it may be observed, is, when coupled with the name Jehovah, and when used separately or interchangeably, with the same personal reference, always in the singular number; and, when coupled with that name, generally precedes it; by which circumstances, and the relations in which it occurs separately, all confusion as to its reference is precluded.
2d. From the consideration that this rendering corresponds with the official character of the Person designated. His office is that of a messenger, sent of the Father—the Mediator, the Christ. The designation in question is in no instance applied to any created angel, and no doubt it was intended to distinguish the delegated Person from the Father who sent him. But to render it, the angel or messenger of Jehovah, especially in sentences in which the Person designated is called Melach Jehovah, and also called Jehovah, Adonai, or Elohim, is not to distinguish but to confuse.
3d. This rendering comports with the official agency of the delegated Person, as the creator, upholder, lawgiver, and ruler of all creatures. The works ascribed to him are, in the same sentences and connections, ascribed to Jehovah.
4th. It comports with the designation by which, when he became incarnate, he was familiarly known, and which is translated Lord, as the equivalent of the name Jehovah in Hebrew. Thus, Luke ii. 11, he is announced as the “Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Campbell renders it, The Lord Messiah. The sense is the same as that of Jehovah who is the Messiah, or the Messenger who is Jehovah, or the Anointed who is Jehovah. Again, when Thomas saw him after his resurrection, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God”—my Jehovah and my Elohe. John xx.
5th. It comports with Hebrew usage in other cases. The instances are common in which particular persons are designated by two words in apposition, indicating different characteristics. Thus, 1 Kings iv. 1: “So king Solomon was king over all Israel;” literally, so was the king, Solomon (or, who is Solomon) king, &c. Ibid. vii. 13, 14: And the king, Solomon, sent and fetched Hiram, son of a woman, a widow—i.e., a woman who was a widow; and xvii. 9, a woman (who is) a widow. Deut. xxii. 23, 28: A damsel, a virgin—i.e., a damsel who is a virgin.
When the article is prefixed to the word Elohim, it often and perhaps always is meant expressly to distinguish the True God from the false; as when the people, seeing the triumph of Elijah over the prophets of Baal, exclaimed, “Jehovah, he is the Elohim:” he, and not the pretended Elohim of idolaters, is the true God. The import of the formula, Jehovah Elohim, is Jehovah the true Elohim, and is not clearly or fully expressed by the translation Lord God, any more than it would be by a repetition of one or the other of those words. The meaning is, Jehovah who is the true God. So Melach Jehovah, the respective terms referring indisputably to the same person, means, the Messenger who is Jehovah.
But our translators render Melach Jehovah, the angel of the Lord, as though the angel was a created agent; or, as though Jehovah in this connection was the Father. McCaul, in his observations on Kimchi’s translation of Zechariah, defends this rendering: First, on the ground, that if the words Melach Jehovah are in apposition, the translation should be, not, the Angel Jehovah, but an angel, or a Messenger Jehovah. But, since the word Jehovah never admits the article, and since in the formula in question the word Melach never admits it, no reason can be assigned why the rendering should not be the Angel, or the Messenger Jehovah; it being admitted that one and the same Person is uniformly designated by this formula. On the contrary, if this objection were well founded, then in rendering the word Jehovah, where it occurs alone, it should read in English, a Lord, instead of the Lord.
Moreover, if his criticisms were well founded, such a passage as 2 Chron. xxxii. 21, where the order of the designations is Jehovah Melach, would require to be rendered, Lord of the angel, instead of Jehovah the Messenger, or the Jehovah Messenger. The statement in the text just quoted from 2 Chronicles is repeated in Isaiah xxxvii. 36, where the order of the words in question is Melach Jehovah. Again, the formula, (the) Elohim Melach, occurs in 1 Chron. xxi. 15, and also in that and the next verse, Melach Jehovah, referring to the same Person.
2d. He urges that if the words Melach Jehovah were to be rendered the Angel Jehovah, then we should expect to find the article before the word Melach; because, he says, the word Adon uniformly has it when employed to designate Jehovah. But this is a misstatement. When so employed, that word, in its different forms, is generally without the article; as Joshua iii. 11 and 13: “The ark of the covenant of Adon,” translated the Lord, “of all the earth.” “The ark of Adon Jehovah, Adon of all the earth,” rendered in our version, “the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth.” Here the translators suppress the word Adon where it first occurs; probably assuming, as in the case of Melach above referred to, that it was not in apposition with the next word, Jehovah; and seeing that if it was not, the version must be, the Lord of the Lord, as they rendered Melach Jehovah, the angel of the Lord. But the reference of the word Adon being in every such connection identical with that of the word Jehovah, and the two words, when conjoined, being, like Melach Jehovah, in apposition, the version should have been, the Lord (who is) Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth.
Again, 1 Kings ii. 26: “The ark of Adon Jehovah,” rendered, the ark of the Lord God; where the two words are taken to be in apposition: and if the translator felt a difficulty, he would seem to have sought to avoid it, as in other like instances, by an unusual version of the word Jehovah. Again, 2 Kings