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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



THE SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE OF ANGELS. 1 



By Professor "W. EOBEETSON SMITH, of the University of Aberdeen. 



ANGEL is a transcription of the Greek 

 &yye\os, a messenger, but in signification 

 corresponds to the special theological sense which 

 the latter word assumed among the Hellenistic 

 Jews (and hence in the New Testament and in 

 Christian writings), by being adopted as the 

 translation of the Hebrew MaVakh. Thus both 

 name and notion of angel go back to the Old 

 Testament. 



The Old Testament belief in angels has two 

 sides, being, on the one hand, a particular de- 

 velopment of the belief in special manifestations 

 of God to man ; and on the other hand, a belief 

 in the existence of superhuman beings standing 

 in a peculiar relation of nearness to God. These 

 two sides of the doctrine are historically asso- 

 ciated, and cooperate in the later developments 

 of Biblical angelology, but are not in all parts of 

 the Old Testament fused into perfect unity of 

 thought. 



The first side of the belief in angels is expressed 

 in the word MaVakh, a messenger or embassador ; 

 more fully, messenger of Jehovah [English ver- 

 sion, angel of the Lord], messenger of God. 

 The whole Old Testament revelation moves in 

 the paradox that God is invisible and inacces- 

 sible to man, and yet approaches man in unmis- 

 takable self-manifestation. This manifestation 

 ' takes place in various ways, in the priestly ora- 

 cle, in prophecy, in the glory of God within the 

 sanctuary [shekhhia]. But, in particular, the 

 early history represents God as manifesting him- 

 self by his messenger. In special crises " the 

 messenger of Jehovah " calls from heaven to 

 Hagar, or to Abraham (Genesis xxi., xxii.). Or, 

 if God seeks to commune more fully with a man, 

 his messenger appears and speaks to him. The 

 narratives of such angelophanies vary in detail. 

 Generally there is but one angel, but Abraham is 

 visited by three (Genesis xviii.). Sometimes the 

 dignity of the heavenly visitor is detected while 

 he is present ; at other times he is mistaken for a 

 prophet, and recognized only by something su- 

 pernatural in his disappearance (Judges vi. 21, sq., 

 xiii. 20). Jacob wrestles all night with a " man " 



1 This article, contributed to the li Encyclopedia Bri- 

 tannica" by Prof. Smith, was included with the article 

 on the Bible in the indictment for heresy by the Free 

 Church of Scotland. 



who at length with a touch dislocates his thigh 

 (Genesis xxxii. 24, sqq.). At other times no hu- 

 man form is seen. It is the angel of Jehovah 

 who speaks to Moses in the burning bush, and 

 leads the Israelites in the pillar of cloud and 

 smoke (Exodus iii. 2, xiv. 19). 



In all this there is perfect indifference to 

 the personality of the angel, who displays no 

 individuality of character, refuses to give a name 

 (Genesis xxxii. ; Judges xiii.), acts simply as the 

 mouth-piece of God. This is carried so far that 

 in his mouth the pronoun / indicates Jehovah 

 himself ; while the narrative passes, without 

 change of sense, from the statement, " the angel 

 of Jehovah appeared, spoke," etc., to "Jehovah 

 appeared, spoke." (Compare, for example, Exo- 

 dus iii. verse 2 with verse 4 ; xiii. 21 with xiv. 19.) 

 Those who see the angel say they have seen God 

 (Judges xiii. 22 ; Genesis xxxii. 30). The angel- 

 ophany is a theophany, as direct as is possible 

 to man. The idea of a full representation of 

 God to man, in all his revealed character, by 

 means of an aDgel, comes out most clearly for 

 the angel that leads Israel in the very old passage, 

 Exodus xxiii. 20, sqq. This angel is sent before 

 the people to keep them in the way, and bring 

 them to Canaan. He speaks with divine au- 

 thority, and enforces his commands by divine 

 sanctions, " for my name [i. e., the compass of 

 my revealed qualities] is in him." The question 

 naturally arises, how the angel who possesses 

 these high predicates stands related to angels 

 who elsewhere appear, not representing the whole 

 self-manifestation of God to his people, but dis- 

 charging isolated commissions. The Biblical 

 data for the solution of this question are very 

 scanty. An essential distinction between the 

 "angel of the Lord," who speaks in all things 

 with full divine authority, and subordinate angels, 

 is sought mainly in Genesis xviii. and in Exodus 

 xxxii. 30, sqq., xxxiii., compared with Isaiah lxiii. 

 9. In the former case, though two of the three 

 angels leave Abraham, Jehovah goes his way 

 only on the departure of the third. Yet the two 

 angels, when they come to Lot, are apparently as 

 direct a manifestation of God to him as the third 

 was to Abraham (xix. 18, sqq.). And in the other 

 passage it has not been clearly made out that 

 there is really a distinction drawn between an 



