7 The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” 8 So he got up and ate and drank.
Who was this “angel of the Lord”? Sometimes in the Bible, an “angel of the Lord” appears and speaks to people, but this is not necessarily God himself. For example, in 2 Samuel 24:16, “the angel of the Lord” afflicts the people of Jerusalem, but God stops this angel at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite and commands the angel: “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” And in Isaiah 37:36, “the angel of the Lord” puts to death 185,000 Assyrians in a single night, but there is no reason in the text to insist or even assume that this was God himself in person.
On the other hand, there are many times where the angel of the Lord speaks and makes it clear that the one speaking is in fact God himself. In these moments, we usually take this “angel” to be none other than the second Person of the Trinity before he took on human flesh as Jesus Christ. He first appears this way in Genesis 16 when he meets Hagar running away from Abram and Sarai. We know this angel is Divine because he says, “I will increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count” (Genesis 16:10). No ordinary angel would say that, but God certainly would and did.
The pre-incarnate Christ, called the “angel of the Lord” in Scripture, stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, saying, “You have not withheld from me your son” (Genesis 22:12). He spoke to Moses from the burning bush, saying, “I am the God of your father…” (Exodus 3:6; Mark 12:26). He spoke to Balaam the false prophet, saying: “I have come out as an adversary, because your way was contrary to me” (Numbers 22:32, NASB). He also spoke to the Israelites just before Joshua’s death, saying: “I brought you up out of Egypt…” (Judges 2:1-5). He spoke to Gideon under an oak tree, saying, “I will be with you” (Judges 6:11). He appeared to the parents of Samson, who cried out fearfully, “We have seen God!” (Judges 13:22).
Here at Beersheba, the angel that touched and fed Elijah says nothing that would cause us to insist that he is the pre-incarnate Christ. Sometimes one hears or reads the argument that when we see the definite article “The,” as in “The angel of the Lord,” we can say that it is Christ. But in Hebrew, the angel who prevents Abraham from sacrificing Isaac is merely “an” angel of the Lord in the text, as is the angel in the burning bush (Exodus 3:6) and the angel who spoke to Balaam (Numbers 22:22). When we wonder, is an “angel of the Lord” in a passage the same as the Second Person of the Trinity, we must take the answer to our question from the context, and from what the Word of God actually says. The clues should be sought in what that angel says or what those in the Bible say about that angel, and not in the way a translator capitalizes a word or renders a Hebrew phrase into English.
When we left Elijah, he was sleeping. Now an angel from the Lord has fed him once again.
Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. (NIV)
Elijah didn’t hurry down to Mount Horeb. Deuteronomy 1:2 tells us that it’s just eleven days from Horeb up to Kadesh Barnea. Kadesh Barnea is another name for the Well of Meribah, where the Lord permitted Moses to draw water from a rock. This place is about forty miles south of Beersheba—two or three days’ travel by foot on a good road. So Elijah’s journey of forty days and forty nights was not hurried, and the number strikes a significant chord in our ears.
Forty days and forty nights was the length of time it rained during the flood, as God purged the world of sinful mankind and prepared it to receive his covenant people once again (Genesis 7:12).
Forty days and forty nights was the length of time Moses spent on Mount Sinai (Horeb) as he prepared to receive God’s holy Law, the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:18, 34:28).
Forty days was the length of time spent by the spies who explored Canaan before God’s people were to go in and occupy the land at God’s command (but at which they failed, Numbers 13:25).
Forty days was the length of time that God allowed Goliath of Gath challenged Israel before he sent the shepherd boy David to kill the giant with a single stone, deliver Israel, and prepare the people for a new king (1 Samuel 17:16).
Forty days was the length of time God allowed the city of Nineveh to come to repentance in the days of Jonah (Jonah 3:4).
Forty days and forty nights was the length of time spent by Jesus Christ in the wilderness, tempted by Satan, before he began his public ministry (Matthew 4:2; Luke 4:2).
Forty days was the length of time spent by Jesus Christ after his ministry was at an end before his ascension into heaven (Acts 1:3).
Now Elijah was headed for Mount Horeb, the same Sinai where Moses received the Law from the hand of God. We don’t know whether the cave where Elijah slept was the same one where Moses had stayed, but now a definite article with the word cave (ha-ma’arah, not just ma’arah), calls to mind some cave either previously mentioned or well-known to the reader. Moses had been set in a cave, a “cleft in the rock,” by God himself, so that God could show himself to the prophet (Exodus 33:22-34:7). Should we expect that he would do the same for Elijah?
The Lord had saved Elijah, refreshed Elijah, and prepared Elijah. The Lord has done all of these things for each of us, too, through the work of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit in our hearts. What is our saving Lord expecting from us today?
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. His wife, Kathryn, attended Chapel from 1987-1990 while studying Secondary Education (Theater and Math) at UW-Madison. Kathryn’s father, John Meyer, was also the first man to serve as a Vicar at Chapel.
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