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Updated: May 12, 2025
The identification of the Mal'akh Yahweh with the Logos, or Second Person of the Trinity, is not indicated by the references in the Old Testament; but the idea of a Being partly identified with God, and yet in some sense distinct from Him, illustrates the tendency of religious thought to distinguish persons within the unity of the Godhead, and foreshadows the doctrine of the Trinity, at any rate in some slight degree.
Ezekiel gives elaborate descriptions of cherubim; and in one of his visions he sees seven angels execute the judgment of God upon Jerusalem. As in Genesis they are styled "men," mal'akh for "angel" does not occur in Ezekiel.
Somewhat later, in the visions of Zechariah, angels play a great part; they are sometimes spoken of as "men," sometimes as mal'akh, and the Mal'akh Yahweh seems to hold a certain primacy among them. Similarly in Job the bne Elohim, sons of God, appear as attendants of God, and amongst them Satan, still in his rôle of public prosecutor, the defendant being Job.
There are, however, a few passages which speak of subordinate superhuman beings other than the Mal'akh Yahweh or Elohim. There are the cherubim who guard Eden. In Gen. xviii., xix. At Bethel, Jacob sees the angels of God on the ladder, and later on they appear to him at Mahanaim. In all these cases the angels, like the Mal'akh Yahweh, are connected with or represent a theophany.
So, too, the angels are styled "holy ones," and "watchers," and are spoken of as the "host of heaven" or of "Yahweh." Those who see the Mal'akh Yahweh say they have seen God.
The phrase Mal'akh Yahweh may have been originally a courtly circumlocution for the Divine King; but it readily became a means of avoiding crude anthropomorphism, and later on, when the angels were classified, the Mal'akh Yahweh came to mean an angel of distinguished rank.
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