Rest of reply to Scrawly @13 above:
As to Isa. 44.6: it is true that it calls God *go’el*, “redeemer” - the word used for the “angel” in Gen.48.16. However, it need not follow that because God is the Redeemer in Isa.44.6, the “redeemer” in Gen.48.16 is God.
As to Isa. 44.6: it is true that it calls God *go’el*, “redeemer” - the word used for the “angel” in Gen.48.16. However, it need not follow that because God is the Redeemer in Isa.44.6, the “redeemer” in Gen.48.16 is God.
- For starters, they are different books, so ISTM that one should be very cautious about using the ideas in one to explain the ideas in the other.
- Second point: God can redeem through a created being, angel or man, as well as without them. Either way, the redemption is totally and always God’s doing. That it is sometimes worked through an intermediary changes this not at all. So the fact that an angel is mentioned as effecting it, is not a reason for thinking the angel to be God.
- I think the Angel of the Lord is a species of messenger. In the ANE and the Classical world, the messenger was basically an “extension” of the sender. To insult the messenger was to insult the sender. The Angel of the Lord is, if seen this way, a “mechanism” for carrying out God’s Will, but is not God. St Luke 10.16 is influenced by the same idea: the Apostles are mere men, but the authority behind their preaching is that of God, so to reject them is really to reject God and Christ Who sent them.
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