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4

YHWH – THE ONE AND ONLY GOD

In this and the next chapter it will be our task to look at the Old Testament and Judaism to see both the clear statement of the unity of God and the hints at the plurality within God.  Here we shall begin with a general description of the Jewish monotheism which Jesus and his first disciples received from their parents.  This will prepare us to look at the Jewish Scriptures.

Central to the consciousness of Judaism at the time of Jesus was the Shema, the most famous of Jewish prayers and taken from the Torah, "Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God is one YHWH; and you shall love YHWH your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might" (Deut. 6:4).  Although any general definition of first-century Jewish monotheism must begin from this text/prayer, it will not end with it for it will include reference to YHWH and the cosmos, YHWH and history/providence, and YHWH and the election of Israel.

Jewish monotheism was not henotheism – the belief that there are other gods, but the Jews worship only their own God.

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For Jews the gods of the nations and of the heathen pantheons were idols.  YHWH is not merely above them, but he is the one and only God, who is the Creator of the heavens and the earth.  Further, he is active in his world.  Such dynamic monotheism contrasts with pantheism for YHWH is not the impersonal universal deity which permeates and characterizes all that is (i.e., not the pantheism taught by the Stoics).  He has created and upholds all that is, but he is entirely separate from the cosmos.  Likewise Jewish monotheism also is not to be confused with any form of Gnosticism which teaches that the physical world was made by a supernatural being (a "god") distinct from the "supreme God."  In the words of the psalmist: "For great is YHWH, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods.  For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but YHWH made the heavens" (Ps. 96:4-5).

YHWH is supremely alone outside space and time in his transcendence and wonderfully present within space and time in his immanence.

As the Creator of the heavens and the earth, YHWH is the One who works in and through both natural and supernatural events.  He is not remote, far removed from his people in a distant heavenly abode.  Further, the Jewish belief in angels, which apparently intensified in the intertestamental period, points not (as some mistakenly suppose) to an absent or detached God, who sends mediators.  Rather, it points to the actual involvement of YHWH through heavenly messengers both in his creation and with his people.  As the prophet declared: "I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am YHWH, who do all these things" (Isa. 45:7).

YHWH is the God who is wholly involved in history as the God of providence.

Jewish monotheism is not only creational and providential, but also covenantal.  That is, not only is YHWH the Creator and Preserver of the world who will cleanse and restore his creation, but he will do so through his elect people, Israel.  Thus the prayer to YHWH: "Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel and the ground which thou hast given us, as thou didst swear to our fathers" (Deut. 26:15).  And thus the statement: "YHWH has declared. . . that you are a

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people for his own possession, as he has promised you. . . that he will set you high above all nations that he has made, in praise and in fame and in honor, and that you shall be a people holy to YHWH your God, as he has spoken" (Deut. 26:18-19).

This form of monotheism was strengthened in the heathen world by the stories in the Jewish Scriptures of pagans actually coming to acknowledge YHWH as the one, true God (see 2 Kings 5:15-18 [Naaman]; Zech. 8:22-23; Dan. 2:47; 3:28; 4:2-3, 34-37 [Nebuchadnezzar]) and of YHWH doing battle with pagan gods and defeating them (see 1 Sam. 5:1-5; 17:26, 36, 45-46; Isa. 37:23; 1 Macc. 4:30-33).  From the watchtowers of Israel, it was announced, "YHWH has bared his holy arm before the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God" (Isa. 52:10).  The defeat of Babylon is here the cause for rejoicing!

The Jews claimed to be the covenant people of YHWH, the Creator, Sustainer, and Director of the heavens and earth.  They held that their God, precisely because he is the Creator and the covenant Lord, would one day, the day of YHWH, act to put the whole cosmos right and place his elect people in a right relation to himself freed from all oppression and tribulation.

What we need to be aware of, as we reflect on the origin of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, is that it is this very Jewish belief and worldview of monotheism, which caused the majority of Jews to reject not only the claims of Christianity but also the claims of Stoicism, Epicureanism, paganism, and Gnosticism as well in the first century.  Because Jewish monotheism emphasized so intently the unity and oneness of YHWH, it could not entertain the claim that the man, Jesus Christ, actually is the complete self-revelation of God.  So the Jewish rabbis said of Christians that they both know YHWH and at the same time deny him!

Certainly Christianity possessed the same Scriptures as did Judaism and certainly Christianity believed in YHWH, the one God, as did Judaism.  However, Christians read the Scriptiures as those who believed not only that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah of the Jews, but that he is also the full revelation of God in human flesh.  By his resurrection from the dead, he has been vindicated as the Messiah by YHWH, and he has been raised to

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the right hand of the Father in heaven.  In fact, we can state that the Christian claim from the beginning was that YHWH, the Creator of the world, who is the God of Abraham, Moses, and Elijah, has revealed himself uniquely through Jesus in a way which necessarily sets aside both pagan claims concerning the gods and Jewish definitions of the Unity of YHWH.

At this point and before we turn to the Old Testament to look for any indication of YHWH as a Trinity in Unity therein, we need to be aware of the discussion among scholars concerning Jewish teaching about possible intermediaries between God and his covenant people.  One major question in debate has been whether Jewish monotheism was compromised by reason of teaching in the intertestamental period concerning: (a) the personification and/or hypostatization of the Word and Wisdom of God; (b) the development of belief in the hierarchy of angels and archangels; and (c) the attributing to great patriarchs of the past (e.g., Enoch and Moses) a present mediating role before God in heaven.  Another question in debate has been whether or not the confession of the resurrected Jesus as the exalted Lord and Mediator by the first Christians was basically a continuation of the supposed Jewish doctrine of divine agents as intermediaries.

The position adopted in this book (following Larry Hurtado and N.T. Wright) is that, after the exile in Babylon and under the Greek and Roman Empires, there was certainly an increase in Jewish speculation concerning the Word and Wisdom of God as well as concerning intercessory and mediating roles for patriarchs and angels.  However, this absorbing interest does not in any obvious way diminish the transcendence, majesty, and Unity of the One God.  Rather, it highlights and underlines the immanence and omnipresence of this One living God in his creation – present through his Spirit, Word, Wisdom, messengers, and intercessors.  Further, this speculative teaching serves to illustrate the search for the truth of God, who he really is; and, in doing so, it points to the culmination of that search in the Revelation by God himself through Jesus Christ that he, YHWH, is a Plurality in Unity, the Holy Trinity.

In this chapter our subject matter will necessarily include focusing upon "the angel of the Lord."  And my position will be essentially that of George F. Knight who wrote:

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There is no evidence in the OT that the conception of angels is a late one.  Some scholars have maintained that in the post-exilic period the God of the Hebrews grew more and more remote from Israel and finally became transcendent alone.  The conception of intermediaries between God and man, they maintain, had to be introduced.  It is true that a proliferation of angels is a mark of the period of the apocryphal books, and that the hierarchical ranks and even the names of leading angels may have entered Judaism from the east through Persian influence. . . .  But the conception that God could be represented on earth by an angel is as old as some of the oldest extant literature of the OT that we possess.¹

Thus we proceed on the assumption that angels and in particular, the "angel of the Lord," truly appeared to the patriarchs.

In the last decade of the twentieth century, many Christians are not sure how they should read the Old Testament.  Are they to read it on its own terms according to the principles of historical science, or as a kind of preparatory book for the New Testament?  To read it on its own terms seems to harmonize with our modern sense of development and progress in history; and virtually all the academic books devoted to the study of the Old Testament appear to point in this direction.  From this "scientific" perspective, to read the Old Testament as preparation for the New Testament can seem to be unscientific and irrational as well as overly spiritual or pietistic.  However, in the historic churches where an ancient Liturgy is used and the Old Testament is read according to the traditional Lectionary, then the operative principle is that the Old Testament definitely contains a preparation for Jesus Christ, and is rightly understood in this way.

We note then that there are two basic ways of reading those books which Christians call the Old Testament, and we assert that both may be used by those who are willing to make the effort to do so.  The simultaneous use of the two ways is perhaps the surest way for Christians today to be "modem" and "Christian."

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The way which is most common in theological education and modem Old Testament scholarship is to read the books according to the historical-critical method.  Here the attempt is being made to understand their content solely or primarily in terms of their own times and context.  This approach, in one or another of its forms, dominates the reading and study of the Bible in virtually all academic circles in the Western world.

The other is to adopt the approach of the major biblical exegetes of the early church and see the Old Testament as preparation for the New Testament.  One way of putting this is to say: "The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is by the New revealed."  (Or, "Latent in the Old Testament is the New, patent in the New Testament is the Old.")  Here it is understood that the One and the Same living God revealed himself by word and deed through history; thus what he reveals himself to be in the later revelation he actually was/is in the earlier revelation.  Therefore, in the earlier self-disclosure by God one may expect hints of the fuller character and nature of God which are made clear in the later revelation.

There are, of course, clear pointers in the New Testament which lead to the Christian reading of the Old Testament – as we indicated in chapter 1.  For example, the inspiration upon the Old Testament prophets is declared to be from the Holy Trinity by one writer:

The prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired about this salvation; they inquired what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them when predicting the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glory.  It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look (1 Peter 1:10-12).

Christ is viewed as being already alive in the prophets, and the Holy Spirit, who brings the Word from heaven, is nothing less than God.  The presence of the Father is supplied by the context in which this passage occurs.

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So this principle of the New being concealed in the Old obviously applies to the doctrine of God as Holy Trinity – Three Persons, One God.  However, if we read the books of the Old Testament in terms of modern biblical criticism – literary, source, form, and redaction criticism – then we should not expect to find anything which points obviously to the One God as a Plurality in Unity.  The major textbooks on the theology of the Old Testament have little or nothing to say of God as the Holy and Undivided Trinity.  For, as we all know, such a doctrine was only specifically known in the period after the incarnation of the Son of God.  Thus what is seen in the Old Testament by this historical-critical method is the gradual recognition by the Israelites that Yahweh-Elohim, the Lord God, is not only the supreme God among the gods of the nations, but the one and only LORD God (1 Kings 8:60).

On the other hand, if we read the Old Testament after having first read and believed the content of the books of the New Testament and adopted the Christian Creed (Apostles’ and Nicene), then we see in the words of the text more meaning than we would see if we were reading it solely in terms of its original, historical context.  This richer meaning has been associated historically within the church with what is often called the fourfold sense of Scripture.  It is well captured in the medieval distich:

Littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.  ("The letter teaches what took place, the allegory what to believe, the moral what to do, the anagogy what goal to strive for.")

First of all, in the literal sense, the Scriptures tell us what happened and how God has intervened in human history.  Thus the literal and historical sense are interchangeable.  Next, the literal reading suggests and the allegorical supplies what to believe.  (The word allegory reflects the days when Scripture for the early church meant what we now call the Old Testament.  To use allegory then was to go beyond the literal significance of the Old Testament texts to find in them the mysteries revealed in the New Testament.  It was also to affirm the unity of the two testaments.)  This fullness of belief, sometimes called the mystical sense, is the totality of truths concerning Christ and his church,

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prefigured in the Old and present in the New Testament.  Thirdly, arising from the literal and allegorical meanings, is the moral sense – what you must do as a Christian to love, trust, and obey God.  Finally, anagogy points to what goals to strive for as a Christian.  The anagogical meaning is also the eschatological meaning.

The best example of the fourfold sense is the word, "Jerusalem."  It is (a) the historical city; (b) the church, a mystical city; (c) the individual soul; and (d) the heavenly Jerusalem, the church above.

To summarize, the historical-critical method seeks to state what was intended and understood by those to whom the Revelation was originally given; in contrast, the patristic and medieval method seeks to state what is veiled but nevertheless present to the eyes of faith and by the design of God within the historically given Revelation.  In this chapter, we shall use both methods, applying them specifically to the records of God’s self-disclosure to the patriarchs and to Moses.  In terms of the fourfold sense, our interest is primarily with the allegorical since our topic is definitely doctrinal.

Therefore, we shall look at God’s encounter with Moses from two perspectives.  In each case we shall first follow the modern historical-critical method and then, secondly, note the way the same texts were read and understood by the Fathers.

In the Book of Genesis there is a series of accounts of encounters between the God (Elohim), who is later known as YHWH, Yahweh, the Elohim of Israel (Ex. 6:3), and the patriarchs, Abraham and Jacob.  Modern scholarship sees these scriptural accounts as the careful and creative weaving together of previously existing oral and written traditions concerning the patriarchs and their God.  Our limited task here is only to note the content of the final text.  It is not to inquire into the prehistory of the contents of the text.

The call of Abraham (Gen. 12:1-6) contains no visual or visible appearance by God to the patriarch.  Abraham is recorded as

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hearing a word from the invisible Yahweh.  It is, however, a remarkable word, taking us from the local to the universal.  He is commanded to leave his home, clan, and country and go to another land.  There God will richly bless him and make him a blessing to all the families of the earth.

The covenant between Yahweh and Abraham is described in Genesis 15:1-21.  The word of God carne to him "in a vision" but no visual perception is recorded.  Rather it is Yahweh, the invisible but speaking God, who confronts Abraham.  Though the patriarch has no heir, Yahweh promised him that his seed would be as countless as the stars in the heavens.  In response, we read that "Abraham had faith on Yahweh, who imputed it to him for righteousness."  Obviously Abraham took God at his word and truly believed the promise made to him.  At the same time Yahweh placed Abraham in a relation of communion and friendship (justification in Pauline terms) with himself.

In Genesis 18 we find the superb and intriguing account of the visit of the three strangers to Abraham and Sarah by the Oaks of Mamre.  As we read what appears at first to be a simple, moving story we begin to see that it is rich and complex.  First of all, Abraham addressed only one of the visitors, but offered hospitality to all three.  Then all three asked him about Sarah, his wife, but only one of them, who is identified as Yahweh, announced the forthcoming birth of a son to Abraham and Sarah.  Hearing this, Sarah, now past the age of child-bearing, laughed.  Thus Yahweh spoke again (vv. 13-14) assuring Abraham that Sarah would truly bear him a son.

Abraham accompanied the three men as they left, traveling toward Sodom (v. 16).  At this point in the narrative we hear a soliloquy from Yahweh (vv. 17-19) concerning his plans for Abraham, followed by a word (which Abraham was intended to hear?) concerning Sodom and Gomorrah.  Then follows the moving intercession by Abraham, addressed to Yahweh, on behalf of Sodom (vv. 20-31).  Next we hear of the visit of two angels to Sodom where they meet Lot, enter his house, strike unwelcome visitors with blindness, cause Lot to leave and then execute the judgment of the Lord upon Sodom and Gomorrah (19:1ff).

Yet another engaging story is that of the testing of Abraham’s faith in Genesis 22.  The words, "Take your son, your only son

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Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering upon one of the mountains" (v. 2) have made profound impressions on many souls.

In this visitation we have both the direct word of God and the word of God via an angel heard by Abraham.  Further, we have the last-minute provision of a sacrifice in place of Isaac.  Abraham has shown that "he fears God."  Such fear, or supreme devotion, is the very essence of true religion for the Old Testament.  It is trust in, and love for, the God who is both far and near and who, in this particular episode, conceals his own divine nature in what seems to be hostility toward the man of his choice!

As we meditate upon the accounts of Abraham’s encounter with Yahweh, we recognize that Yahweh is a self-concealing God.  In the words of Isaiah: "Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior" (45:15, KJV).  Certainly God speaks and certainly God appears, but at the same time he remains elusive.  He cannot be located at any one place or shrine and his full identity is never revealed.

Yahweh, as the self-concealing God, also revealed himself to Jacob both in the dream of the heavenly stairway (Gen. 28:10-22) and in the wrestling with the stranger by night (Gen. 32:22-32).  From Genesis 28 we learn that communion with God is real and that God’s plan is to bless the whole world through the seed of Abraham (Jacob).  Further, from Genesis 32 we learn that the stranger with whom Jacob fought was, in an elusive and veiled way, the God of Abraham.  Jacob won the fight; however, he remained forever afterward a maimed man, who knew that there is forgiveness with the Lord.  In fact, Jacob only became the new man, Israel, when he recognized in his adversary, the presence of God himself.  "I have seen Elohim face to face" (v. 30).  (The word ’elohim is the standard word for "God."  Although the noun is plural in form it usually takes the singular verb. In contrast, other Semitic languages have retained a singular noun for "God.")

When we read the patristic theological interpretation of the revelation of God to the patriarchs, we realize that we are in a

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different thought world than that of modern commentators on the Pentateuch.  The early fathers, as many commentators after them, came to the text as Trinitarians.  They believed in God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father (and the Son).  They confessed One God in Trinity and a Trinity in Unity.  Nevertheless, as we would expect, they differed as to how far there is a veiled Revelation of the Holy Trinity in the Old Testament.  All believed that the "angel of the Lord" was the Second Person, the eternal Word, who was to be, in the fullness of the times, born of the Virgin Mary.  Some also believed that here and there God actually revealed himself (howbeit in an indirect manner) to be the Three in One and One in Three.

The late William G.T. Shedd in his editing of the text of Augustine’s classic study, De Trinitate, wrote these words:

The theophanies of the Pentateuch are trinitarian in their implication.  They involve distinctions in God – God sending, and God sent; God speaking of God, and God speaking to God.  The trinitarianism of the Old Testament has been lost sight of to some extent in the modern [i.e., late 19th century] construction of the doctrine.  The patristic, medieval and reformation theologies worked this vein with thoroughness, and the analysis of Augustine in this respect is worthy of careful study.²

We may add that in the modern era (i.e., late twentieth century) the trinitarianism of the Old Testament has been lost sight of to an even greater degree than in 1887 when Shedd wrote these words.  The sole use of the historical-critical method serves to hide the Holy Trinity from view.

Shedd’s observation appears as a footnote in the text of De Trinitate where Augustine of Hippo is discussing first the visit of the Lord God (which is also the visit of the three men) to Abraham and Sarah at the Oaks of Mamre and then, secondly, the appearance to Lot (in Gen. 18–19).  Augustine was obviously deeply intrigued by the three who speak as One and then later the two who speak as One.  Here it was not simply the Second Person accommodating himself to the likeness of man.  His thought was that:

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Since three men appeared, and no one of them is said to be greater than the rest either in form, or age, or power, why should we not here understand, as visibly intimated by the visible creature, the equality of the Trinity, and one and the same substance in Three Persons?³

With respect to the two who visited Lot, Augustine concluded his thoughts with these words:

But which two Persons do we here understand? – of the Father and of the Son, or of the Father and of the Holy Spirit, or of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?  The last, perhaps, is the most suitable; for they said of themselves that they were sent, which is that which we say of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  For we find nowhere in the Scriptures that the Father was sent.⁴

Some may regard Augustine’s approach as too speculative or fanciful.  What is clear, however, to anyone who will carefully read Genesis 18–19, is that the interchange of the singular and plural is most striking and intriguing.

The trinitarian interpretation of this incident is most beautifully presented in pictorial form by the late fourteenth or early fifteenth-century icon by Andrej Rublev, The Holy Trinity, which is in the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.  Rublev was not innovating but drawing on a long iconographic and exegetical tradition, when he undertook to paint the Trinity in terms of three angels at a table on which were the consecrated bread and wine.  The Three are at the one table and their communion (circumincession or perichrsis) is represented by the one bread and one cup.

Hilary of Poitiers, who wrote his book The Trinity between 356 and 360 (some sixty years before Augustine wrote his), did not speak of a Revelation of the Holy Trinity.  He saw one of the three as "the angel of the Lord" and discerned two meanings in this expression – "he himself who is, and he of whom he is."  Thus "he who is God from God is also the angel of God."  Or, "Although Abraham saw him as a man, he adored him as the Lord; that is, he recognized the mystery of the future Incarnation."⁵

In the sixteenth century, John Calvin made it clear how he

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read and thought others should read the references to the "angel of Yahweh" in the "Books of Moses" and in Judges (see e.g., Jud. 6:11-22).  In his classic exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote this of the "angel of the eternal God."

The orthodox doctors of the Church have rightly and prudently interpreted the chief angel to be God’s Word, who already at that time, as a sort of foretaste, began to fulfil the office of Mediator.  For even though he was not yet clothed with flesh, he came down, so to speak, as an intermediary, in order to approach believers more intimately.  Therefore this closer intercourse gave him the name of angel.  Meanwhile what was his he retained, that as God he might be of ineffable glory.  The same thing is meant by Hosea, who, after recounting Jacob’s struggle with the angel, says, "Jehovah, the God of Hosts, Jehovah, his name is a remembrance" (Hos. 12:5, Vulgate). . . .  Hence, also, that saying of Paul’s that Christ was the leader of the people in the wilderness (1 Cor. 10:4), because even though the time of humbling had not yet arrived, that eternal Word nevertheless set forth a figure of the office to which he had been destined.⁶

Those who know Calvin’s commentaries will be aware that this principle of the "angel" as the "Word," together with his use of typology (i.e., that the ceremonies enjoined in the Law were "foreshadowings" of the full and clear revelation of the Gospel, in which the ceremonies cease), were very important to him as an exegete of the sacred text.

In his Commentary upon Genesis, however, Calvin does not follow either the Western or Eastern Christian traditions in seeing a Revelation of the Trinity at the Oaks of Mamre and in Sodom (Gen. 18–19).  In fact, he referred to this interpretation as "frivolous."  What Calvin saw was the Word (the Second Person), not yet made flesh, appearing with two angels to Abraham and Sarah, and then just the two angels appearing to Lot in Sodom and there executing the judgment of the Lord upon the city.  Obviously, Calvin respected traditional exegesis and interpretations, but he also felt free to depart from them when necessary.

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Near to the mountain (called both Horeb and Sinai) Moses was grazing his flock.  At first he heard no voice, rather he beheld a wondrous sight.  He saw a messenger of Yahweh in a fiery flame in the middle of a bush.  Turning to look more closely, Moses was directly addressed by Yahweh who told him that he stood on holy ground and that he who spoke to him was none other than the God of the patriarchs.  Appropriately, "Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God" (Ex. 3:6, KJV).

Yahweh addressed Moses giving him a mission and promising to be with him in that mission.  He who had escaped from Egypt was to go to Pharaoh to lead God’s people out of Egypt to a good and large land flowing with milk and honey.  Yet he would not go alone for Yahweh’s commitment of communion with him was clear: "I will be with thee" (Ex. 3:12, KJV).

The promise of the presence of God encouraged Moses to continue the dialogue and to be bold to ask this God what is his name.  This request was made because he had been given a commission and because he wanted to succeed in it. Leading slaves out of Egypt was no simple task.

The answer given to Moses by the God of Abraham and Jacob at the foot of the mountain has been recorded in these words (3:14-15):

And Elohim said to Moses, "’Eheyeh ’asher ’eheyeh."  And he said, "Say to the people of Israel, ’Eleyeh has sent me to you."  Elohim also said to Moses, "Say this to the people of Israel, ’Yahweh, the Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob has sent me to you’: this is my name for ever, and thus am I to be remembered throughout all generations."

The divine name is YHWH (Yahweh), which is placed in parallel to ’Eleyeh and which in turn is related to the longer ’Eleyeh ’asher ’eleyeh.  The usual translation of the latter three Hebrew words is "I am that I am."  So we are to hold in parallel

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three statements concerning the name of the God (Elohim) of the patriarchs: "I am that I am," and "I am" and "Yahweh."  Therefore, the meaning of the name, Yahweh, the God of Abraham and Israel, is related to the verb "to be."  Whether ’Eheyeh is read as present tense, "I am who I am," or future tense, "I shall be who I shall be," or even as the causative-factitive, "I cause to be whatever I cause to be" (or even as all three tenses) is a matter of scholarly debate.  The majority view is that we have the Hebrew verb in the imperfect tense which translates into the present or future tenses in English.  Further, Semitic verbs are inflected for the gender of the subject as well as for person and number; here, as elsewhere, the form of the verb which is God’s name, is masculine!  Likewise, in the Hebrew Bible every adjective, every pronoun, and every participle which refers to YHWH is also unmistakably masculine.

The God, Elohim, who is always "I AM" is obviously the God who does not change and who will therefore always be there as the God of Israel.  Thus "memorial" is placed in parallel to "name" in order to emphasize hope, that the intentions of Yahweh for Moses and the people of Israel shall surely come to pass.

We know from the contents of Exodus 4 through 18 that the intentions of Yahweh did come to pass.  Thus in chapter 19 we find the tribes of Israel camped before the mountain of God.  The people of Israel not only witness the solitary figure of Moses going to meet with God, but they also see nature in apparent tumult.  They come to see that the Exodus and crossing of the Red Sea, though manifestations of the presence and power of Yahweh, which they had experienced, were only a prelude for the theophany on the mountain.

Yahweh, descending upon the mountain, called to Moses and gave him a message for "the house of Jacob," addressing the people in the second person plural.  "If you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you will be for me, out of all peoples, a peculiar treasure, for the whole earth is mine" (Ex. 19:5).  Israel is loved in order to become the priestly kingdom of Yahweh in human history.  Israel as a whole is before God a holy nation and a royal priesthood.

Yet Israel needs to know the power and the glory of Yahweh.

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Thus we have the description of the theophany in Exodus 19:16ff.  As Yahweh descended there was thunder, lightning, thick cloud, and the sound of a very loud trumpet.  The mountain was set on fire and there was much smoke.  From within this wondrous tumult of nature, Yahweh spoke to Moses and gave him the content of the covenant.

As the climax of this theophany (Ex. 24:1-11), Moses with the priests, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, together with seventy elders of Israel, "saw the God of Israel" (stated twice, vv. 10 and 11).  Under his feet, it seemed, was a pavement of sapphire stone, like heaven in purity.  God is not hidden in darkness but by dazzling light!  The onlookers are blinded by the power of pure light.

In Exodus 33 we read of Moses in conversation with God before he leaves the area of Horeb-Sinai.  Moses made three requests of Yahweh – to know his way in order to know him, to be assured of his continuing presence as they leave Sinai, and to see his glory (the innermost secret of the Godhead).  The last request was denied; but, as a divine concession, Moses was allowed to see the goodness and "the back" of Yahweh rather than his "face" (33:23).  Here "the back" of God is a way of speaking of the self-revelation of God in the proclamation of his name, Yahweh, and the unfolding of his ways with respect to Israel, in ongoing historical experience.

How God is toward Israel is proclaimed in these words: "Yahweh passed before him, and proclaimed, ‘Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (Ex. 34:6-7).  Here God’s relation with Israel and his ways with men is declared.

Common to all the theophanies preserved in the Book of Exodus is the proclamation by God, Elohim, of his name of Yahweh.  Not surprisingly the third of the Ten Words (Ten Commandments) is: "Thou shalt not invoke the name of Yahweh thy Elohim in vain."  Yahweh is the sovereign Lord of the universe.  He is the Lord of history and thus transcends nature, mankind, and sexuality.

While it is correct exegetically to see in the name of YHWH the embodiment of God’s promise to be actively with and for his

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covenant people, it is also permissible for us to understand the Name in ontological terms as well.  In saying, "I am who I am," Yahweh is also affirming that he is the Absolutely Existent One to whose Being there is no limit and no restriction.  In the Septuagint the rendering is, "I am he who is," suggesting that the Hebrew mind has been touched by the Greek mind to see the metaphysical significance of the Name.

Returning to the content of Exodus 3, it may be claimed that theologically we are given a threefold revelation – of God’s immanence in history ("I shall be there"); of God’s transcendence to history ("I shall be there as who I am"); and of God’s transparence through history ("As who I am shall I be there").  Yahweh is the God-with-his-people; Yahweh is present in sovereign freedom; Yahweh does not reveal the inner secret of his Being to his people, but they are privileged to know him, as through his mighty works and words he becomes known to them.  However, in the end, only God knows who God is. The Name of Yahweh is ineffable.

Calvin had no doubt but that "the angel of the Lord," who spoke from the burning bush, was the "eternal Word of God, of one Godhead with the Father."  The Word, said Calvin, assumed the name of "the Angel" on the ground of his future mission.  Augustine also favored the identification of the angel with the eternal Son who is called by the Prophet Isaiah, "the Angel of the Great Counsel" (Isa. 9:6).

However, when the question is asked of Augustine, "Which Person descended upon Mount Sinai in cloud and with fire?" we find that he provides – after some discussion – the following answer:

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Again, Augustine may be judged to be speculative, even though what he says does make good sense.

Normally, the early fathers, and especially the Greek fathers, thought of the Father as being the Lord God, the Kyrios-Theos of the Septuagint.  However, in thinking of the Father, they did not think of the Father as being alone, for he is always the Father of the eternally begotten Son and the Father from whom the eternal Spirit is spirated.  So for them Yahweh/Kyrios meant the Father, or the Three Persons acting as One, or one of the other Persons.  Normally, however, Yahweh/Kyrios of the Old Testament is the Father.

What must be made clear is that both the Latin and the Greek fathers denied that in any of these visitations, revelations, and theophanies of the Old Testament was the essential nature or the very substance of God actually seen by the patriarchs or Moses.  What was seen by these holy men of God was One of the Persons of the Holy Trinity accommodating himself to the understanding and senses of man through the creative use of both nature and of man himself, God’s creature.  The Creator was making use of his creation for his own ends.

Whether or not we, as moderns, are moved by the results of the patristic reading of the Old Testament, we are the inheritors of this approach, even if we are Protestants and not Roman Catholics or Greek Orthodox.  Further, we are also the inheritors in Western Christianity of the patristic interpretation of the full identity of the Word, the Wisdom, and the Spirit of God in the old covenant.  And it is to there and to related themes, including the revealed name and nature of God, that we turn in the next chapter.

Since the identification of "the angel of the Lord" with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity is basic to Patristic, Medieval, and Reformation exegesis, those theophanies which include the angel of the Lord are here listed.  Virtually all are from the early period of the history of Israel.

(a) Genesis 16:7-14.  The angel finds Hagar and addresses her.  She recognizes that it is Yahweh who speaks to her.

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(b) Genesis 18:1-22.  The three visitors are addressed as "My Lord."

(c) Genesis 19.  The two messengers in Sodom, who are addressed as "My Lord."

(d) Genesis 21:17-19.  The angel, who is identified with God, visits Hagar.

(e) Genesis 22:11-18.  The angel summons Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and speaks as God.

(f) Genesis 31:11-13.  The angel declares to Jacob that he is God.

(g) Genesis 32:24-30.  Jacob wrestles with the angel (God).

(h) Genesis 48:15-16.  Jacob blesses his sons and declares that it was an angel who had redeemed him from all evil.  Much later Isaiah declared that "Yahweh became their Savior... the angel of his presence saved them" (Isa. 63:8-9).

(i) Exodus 3:2-6.  The call of Moses by the angel (Yahweh).

(j) Exodus 14:19-22.  The angel of the Lord, who is here distinguished from Yahweh, goes before the camp of Israel.  However, in the previous chapter (13:21) it is Yahweh himself who goes before the camp in a pillar of a cloud and a pillar of a fire.  Further, in 14:24, Yahweh himself is clearly identified with the cloud and fire (cf., Num. 20:16).

(k) Joshua 5:13-16.  Joshua meets a man who is "the captain of the host of Yahweh."  The "man" conveys the presence of Yahweh for he tells Joshua that he stands on holy ground.

(l) Judges 2:1-5.  The angel of Yahweh speaks as the One who has brought the Israelite tribes out of Egypt and as the One who will not annul his covenant with them.

(m) Judges 6:11-14.  Here Gideon’s heavenly visitor is first of all separate from Yahweh and then becomes Yahweh (cf. vv. 12, 14, and see v. 22).

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(n) Judges 13:2-23.  Here Manoah’s heavenly visitor, who brings good tidings of the birth of a son, is never as such identified with Yahweh.  However, after the visits of the angel, Manoah confesses: "We are doomed to die, because we have seen God (’elohim)."

And from the postexilic period:

(o) Ezekiel 40:1-47:12.  While it is the angel who guides Ezekiel on a tour of the new temple, from time to time it is Yahweh himself (as the angel) who speaks to him (e.g., 44:4ff).

(p) Zechariah 1:1-6:8.  While it is the angel who speaks often to Zechariah and also addresses Yahweh (1:12-13), it is the same angel who speaks as the mouthpiece of Yahweh (3:6-10).

(Note: The angel as representing or actually being Yahweh may be seen as an example of an "Extension" of Yahweh’s Personality.  For discussion of this concept see Aubrey R. Johnson, The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God (1961), pp. 28-32.  We shall return to the subject of Angelology and Christology in chapter 6.  The chapter entitled, "The Trinity and Angelology" (pp. 117-46), in Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity, is a valuable study of angelomorphic language in early Christian texts.  Further, the chapter entitled, "Principal Angels" (pp. 71-92), in One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism, by Larry W. Hurtado is a fine survey of the place of angels in postexilic Judaism.)

Augustine. On the Holy Trinity. Vol. 3 of A Select Library of Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Book of Genesis. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981.

Calvin, John. Commentaries on the Four Last Books of Moses. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981.

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Daniélou, Jean. The Theology of Jewish Christianity. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964.

Eichrodt, Walther. Theology of the Old Testament, 2 vols. London: SCM, 1967.

Fossum, J.E. The Name of God and the Angel of the Lord: The Origins of Intermediation in Gnosticism. Tubingen, Germany: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1985.

Hurtado, Larry W. One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Hilary of Poitiers. The Trinity. Vol. 25 of The Fathers of the Church. New York: Fathers of the Church, 1954.

Johnson, Aubrey R. The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God. Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, 1961.

Knight, George A.F. A Christian Theology of the Old Testament. Richmond, Va.: John Knox, 1964.

Mettinger, Tryggve N.D. In Search of God: The Meaning and Message of the Everlasting Names. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988.

Terrien, Samuel. The Elusive Presence: Towards a New Biblical Theology. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1978.

Vriezen, Theodorus. An Outline of Old Testament Theology, rev. ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1970.

Wright, N.T. The New Testament and the People of God. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992.

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