The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

In chapter xv. we read that “The Word of (rather who is) Jehovah came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Adonai Jehovah, what wilt thou give me, &c. And behold, the Word (who is) Jehovah came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; ... and He brought him forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in Jehovah, and He counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto Him, Adonai Jehovah, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” In this narrative the Personal Word appears to be designated by a term equivalent to Logos, as applied in the first chapter of John, namely, Dabar, importing the same as the Chaldee term Memra, frequently inserted with the same personal reference by the Chaldee paraphrasts. The Dabar (who is) Jehovah came unto Abram, saying, ... He brought him forth abroad, and said, &c. These are personal acts, not to be affirmed of an audible voice. They imply the local presence of the speaker, whom Abram addresses as Adonai Jehovah. Throughout the chapter he is the speaker. Abram’s faith in him as Jehovah is unto righteousness. In this, as in some instances hereafter to be noticed, the sense and construction of the passage seem to require that the term translated Word should be considered a personal designation, having the same relation to the term Jehovah as Adon, Adonai, and Melach.

On the occasion of changing the patriarch’s name to Abraham, and that of his wife to Sarah, chap. xvii., “Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am El-Shadai; walk before me, and be thou perfect.... And Abram fell on his face, and Elohim talked with him.” vs. 1, 3; and vs. 19, 22: “Elohim said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed.... And Elohim went up from Abraham.” Here the phraseology in each of the clauses quoted implies a local personal presence of Jehovah. That it was a visible appearance is further implied in the next chapter, where, in the narrative of his appearance in the likeness of man, he refers to this promise of a son as having been made by him, vs. 10; and to remove the doubts of both Abraham and Sarah, he adds: “Is any thing too hard for Jehovah? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”

Of the appearance last referred to, chap. xviii., when, in the form of a wayfaring man, he partook of the repast prepared by Abraham, spoke concerning Sarah, walked towards Sodom, disclosed his purpose of destroying that place, and heard Abraham’s request on behalf of the righteous, there can be no question of its having been local and visible. It is noticeable that the narrative of this manifestation is introduced by the same formula as others which include no express indications of his visibility. Thus, vs. 1: “And Jehovah appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre.” In the progress of the narrative, the Divine visitant is called a man, Jehovah, and Adonai, and at its close it is said that “Jehovah went his way”—literally, “walked away”—as “soon as he had left communing with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.” In the next chapter, which relates the destruction of Sodom, the same Person is called Jehovah and Elohim. “Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before Jehovah”—that is, before the visible Person in the likeness of man, to whom he addressed his prayers for the righteous. “And it came to pass when Elohim destroyed the cities of the plain, that Elohim remembered Abraham.”

When the time had arrived for Jacob to withdraw from Laban, “Jehovah said unto him, Return unto the land of thy fathers.” Gen. xxxi. 3. Referring to this, vs. 7, he says: “The Elohe of my father hath been with me.” After relating to his family something of the treatment he had received from Laban, and of the special favor of Elohim to him, he recurs to the command above quoted, vs. 11-13: “And Melach (the) Elohim spake unto me in a dream and said, I am the El of Beth-El, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me. Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.... And Rachel and Leah answered, ... Now, whatsoever Elohim hath said unto thee, do.” The statements in the two clauses first above cited evidently refer to the same occasion as those which follow; and therefore the Elohe of his father, who had been with him, was Melach, the Messenger Elohim who spoke to him, vs. 11, and who doubtless appeared to him to be present, in a form with which he was familiar. This is further implied in the words at the close of his remonstrance with Laban, vs. 42: “Except the Elohe of my father, the Elohe of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. Elohim hath seen my affliction, and the labor of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.”

The familiarity of Jacob with the visible presence of Jehovah is indicated by his expression when, to his surprise and joy, Esau met him with a kindness and cordiality which showed that he no longer harbored any ill-will towards him. Jacob urged him to receive his present, and said: “I have seen thy face, as though it had been the face of Elohim, and thou wast pleased with me,” chap. xxxiii. 10; implying that this personal interview and manifestation of favor produced an effect upon his feelings resembling that of visible Divine manifestations, to which he was accustomed; a signal instance of which had just occurred, chap. xxxii., when “he saw Elohim face to face.”

Doubtless there was a degree of mysteriousness inseparable from those appearances of the Divine Person, arising, however, not from their infrequency, for they seldom seem to have occasioned surprise, but rather from the different forms of manifestation, the different degrees of visibility; a consciousness that He who was sometimes visibly present was, when unseen, not absent; not less cognizant of their thoughts and actions, nor less their preserver and defender. They knew that he could, at pleasure, render himself visible in the simple form of man, in a vision, in a dense or a luminous cloud, in the colors of the precious gems and minerals, and in the insupportable splendors of the solar and electric fires. They knew that he was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity with any allowance, and were conscious of their defilement and ill-desert. Their faith reposed on him, unseen as well as manifest; and when he was locally present to their senses, it was necessary to exclude or modify their accustomed discrimination between spiritual and physical, invisible and visible conditions and modes of being.

There must have been, besides a familiarity with the fact of his visible appearances, a well-established association of authorized and intelligent convictions in their minds respecting his official person and character, the nature of his Agency, his mediatorial relations, which assumed a covenant or stipulated relationship of man with the Deity in his Person, and harmonized the Divine in his manifestations with the human in his visible form, all which necessarily involved more or less of the mysterious and unknown. Yet they well understood the tokens which identified him, and, if not exhibited in the first moments of his appearance, recognized them as soon as given, and promptly rendered him the homage, addressed him by the titles, and ascribed to him the prerogatives and works of the Creator, Proprietor, Ruler and Redeemer of the world.

But he was not at all times visible. The patriarchs lived by faith as well for the most part of their days and years, perhaps, with respect to him personally, as with respect to the future issues of his interpositions and administration. They could not see him at their pleasure, even when his words or acts indicated that he was locally near them. “Lo, he goeth by me,” saith Job, “and I see him not: he passeth on, also, but I perceive him not. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him; but he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

It would seem to have been by an effect wrought in them, both when awake and when asleep, that he, and also that created spiritual beings, when locally present, became visible or manifest to their consciousness. In several instances the eyes of the beholders are said to be opened, not to behold objects ordinarily visible, but objects which, though present, it was not, without that operation, their privilege to see. Thus, in the narrative of Balaam, “the Messenger Jehovah stood in the way as an adversary against him,” and repeatedly checked his progress, while to him invisible. At length, “Jehovah opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the Messenger Jehovah standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand,” &c. So in the case of the servant of Elisha: “Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire, round about Elisha.” And of the disciples on the way to Emmaus in company with the risen Saviour, it is said, “their eyes were holden that they should not know him;” and at length “their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight.”

Considering that in all ages and countries the minds of men have been startled and thrown off their balance by the supposed apparition of spirits, real or imaginary, angelic or human, from the invisible world, whether in material or in impalpable forms, and have regarded them as inscrutably mysterious and appalling, the fact that such impressions of surprise and dread were not commonly occasioned, or are so slightly indicated, when the Messenger Jehovah was unexpectedly and visibly recognized, strongly implies that the beholders were familiar not only with the reality and the modes of his appearance, but with his official Person, character and relations.