The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

The efforts to impart correct instruction and revive the ancient faith by means of the Chaldee expositions, doubtless had effect upon more or less of those who frequented the synagogues and the temple services; but to the great mass, so far as can be judged from history, or from their sentiments and condition, at the period of the advent, they were of no avail. How natural, then, that the successors of this party of Sadducean and Pharasaic infidelity, with the stimulus added by the conversion or, as they regarded it, the apostasy of many to the Christian faith, and the further stimulus of Mohammedan and pseudo-Christian intolerance and persecution, should do their utmost to conceal or extirpate from the Hebrew text all traces of the Christian doctrine!

With reference to the subject now specially in hand, it may suffice to refer to a single instance of concealment and perversion which, though of earlier origin, as appears from the Septuagint and the Vulgate, for aught that is perceived, was fastened upon the Hebrew text by the Masoretic punctuation, and was derived thence by our translators; namely, that of the formula, Melach Jehovah, which, by the examples formerly adduced, the connections in which it occurs, the use of the terms interchangeably, and the testimony of the Evangelists, is shown to be a clear, unequivocal, and emphatic designation of the official Person, Messiah, the Legate of the Father. But the school of Jews above referred to, of whom Kimchi may be taken as a representative, consider the person designated Melach in this formula “as nothing more than one of the many angels to whom he supposes that the governance and guidance of this lower world is committed.” They did not regard the term Melach, when employed in this formula, as a name of office, signifying Messenger, but as a personal designation, signifying Angel, an angel, one of the angels. The points accordingly are so adjusted as to require the rendering to be, an angel of the Lord, or the angel, understood as one of the angels of the Lord. To gloss over the apparent identity, in some passages, of that angel with Jehovah, and the ascription of the same acts to each separately, they represent the angel as personating, and speaking in the name of, Jehovah; and explain his calling himself the God of Beth-El as signifying no more than Jacob’s calling a place El-Beth-El.

Now it is apparent that our translators have in the instance under consideration given us, not the clear and definite import of the original text, but, closely adhering to the points and following the steps of their Rabbinical guides, have given at second-hand a version of their sense, “a translation of their interpretation.” In every instance but one (Malachi iii.) in their translation of the word Melach, (except when applied to men,) they employ the word Angel, a personal designation, not a name of office; and in most cases, if not in all, the English reader must naturally suppose that the reference was merely to one of the many created beings called angels. Accordingly, though they sometimes say, the angel of the Lord, in other instances, where the original is the same, they say, an angel of the Lord, implying that they did not uniformly refer to the same Person, nor in any case to any other than a created angel. The same thing is further illustrated and confirmed by their grammatical construction of the formula in accordance with the points, rendering it uniformly, the angel, or an angel of the Lord, or of God. For instance, in Judges, chap. ii. 1, in the original, Melach Jehovah came up from Gilgal to Bochim, is translated, “an angel of the Lord came up,” &c. So in chap. vi. 11 of the same book, Melach Jehovah is rendered, an angel of the Lord; and in the next verse the same formula is rendered, the angel of the Lord; and three times in the 20th and 21st verses, the angel; and twice in the 22d verse, an angel. In all these cases, and many others like them, it is demonstrable from the context that one and the same person is referred to; that the same acts are ascribed to him and to Jehovah, and that the formula by which he is designated is employed interchangeably with the names Jehovah and Elohim. Yet, looking no farther than the sentences which announce the actor or speaker as an angel, neither collating those sentences with others in the same or other chapters, nor being able, if he did, to explain or reconcile the various and discordant renderings, the reader is left in doubt and perplexity, or else concludes that a created angel is referred to.

Had the translators in this and other cases of the kind taken the unpointed Hebrew text as their guide, compared all its parallel passages, and understood the word Melach according to its original and primary meaning, and its specific and necessary import where joined with the Divine names, as in the formulas above-mentioned, to be a name of office, signifying Messenger, Legate, one delegated, sent; who can doubt but that they would have discerned in the designation an unmistakable reference to the Messiah; that they would have retained the original Hebrew formulas, or translated them intelligibly and uniformly, and left their readers in no perplexity as to their sentiments or the meaning of their version?

The word Melach first occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, Gen. xvi., where it is employed in its primary signification, and occurs four times in the formula Melach Jehovah, clearly designating the official Person, Jehovah, in his delegated character—the Anointed and Sent of the Father, The Messenger Jehovah. In the original there is uniformity, consistency, and perfect freedom from ambiguity and uncertainty in the use of this term as an official designation, here and wherever it occurs throughout the Scriptures. There is no mistaking it if regarded in its grammatical relation with the Divine names, and its connection with the context, independently of the points and of the hereditary Jewish construction; and had the translators so regarded it, and in their version employed the term Messenger instead of Angel, it would have been as clearly understood to designate the official Person as if they had substituted or added the term Messiah.

Subsequently, this name of office was applied to created angels and to men employed, and because they were employed, as messengers; and it finally came to be used as a personal appellative. The first instance of this occurs Gen. xix. 1: “There came two angels to Sodom,” that is, two messengers; two who were sent by Jehovah while he was present with Abraham in the visible form of man. And chap. xxxii. 3, 6: “Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau.... And the messengers returned to Jacob;” that is, he sent two of his servants with a message. But in the original, the word translated angels in chap. xix., and messengers in chap. xxxii., is the same, and differs from that in chap. xvi. and all the parallel passages translated angel, only by being in the plural form.

This term Melach, as an official designation of Jehovah, including the instances in which it is coupled with the name Elohim, occurs more than twenty times in the books of Moses, and more than twice that number of times in the later Hebrew Scriptures; and considering that it is often employed interchangeably with the names Jehovah and Elohim; that the same acts, revelations, promises, covenants, and predictions, are in the same or in different passages ascribed indifferently to Jehovah, Elohim, and the Messenger Jehovah; and that in the New Testament, both in references to the Old and in original revelations and announcements, the same acts, promises, &c., are ascribed to the Logos or personal Word under that and other designations; it is manifest that, had our translators rightly apprehended the import and reference of the designation, and represented it in their version by a term as guarded, unequivocal, and distinctive as the original, their readers would be at no loss as to how or in what relations Moses wrote of Christ.

But their misguided and erroneous apprehensions and renderings of this official designation are scarcely more remarkable than the like proceedings on their part in reference to several other peculiar or official Hebrew designations of the Messiah, which occur both in Moses and the prophets; their inadequate and uncertain or erroneous versions of which are no doubt to be ascribed to their concurrence with the Jewish expositions and with the requirements of the vowel points. And without imputing any other than honest intentions, or doing any injustice to the translators, but only allowing for the effect of their theological education, and for the arbitrary and controlling influence of the guides which they thought it safe to follow, and which, from their own convictions and the ascendant notions of the times, they were in effect necessitated to adopt, it may safely be alleged that, with respect to the great Actor and Revealer, the pervading theme of Moses and the prophets, they have in numerous instances wholly failed, and in their version, as a whole, but partially succeeded, in exhibiting the designations and references of the original.

That their version, as a whole, is superior to any of the other modern versions, is generally admitted; that it exhibits the historical narratives and those doctrinal statements which do not immediately relate to the official Person, with a fidelity and an intelligibleness scarcely indeed to be avoided by able and honest men, but which such men at the present day would not be likely to excel, is justly to be acknowledged; but in regard to the personal designations, ascriptions and references alluded to, their guides subjected their intentions to an erroneous theory.

The ill consequences to the English reader, so far as the doctrines essential to his salvation are concerned, are counteracted by the record of the visible appearance of the official Person incarnate, the historical narratives of his acts, his expiatory death, his resurrection and ascension, and the doctrinal revelations and apostolic testimonies of the New Testament; and he is far too easily led to regard the Divine oracles as of little significance or importance, except in so far as they specially teach those essential doctrines. In this partial view of their import and design, the Old Testament is lightly esteemed or disregarded with respect to the far greater part of its contents, by those who most highly esteem the New, and with respect to the whole of its contents, by many. It is not recognized as a continuous record of personal Divine manifestations, visible appearances, supernatural acts, audible enunciations; a record of the creation, of the apostasy and its consequences, of the administration of providence and grace, and of visible interpositions and retributions towards individuals, families, and nations; a progressive disclosure of the attributes, prerogatives, and purposes of the Self-existent, of his acts as Lawgiver and Ruler, and of his supremacy, majesty and glory, whereby He who personally appeared and acted under the ancient dispensations, and at length became incarnate, revealed himself in his delegated relations as truly to the universe of the unfallen as to man, and as truly with reference to results yet future as to those incipient events in which were laid the foundations of his onward, universal, and never-ending system of manifestations and agencies, and in the progress of which all the wonders of mercy and justice, all the retributions of time and awards of eternity, all the paradoxes and mysteries of the past, and their relations to the future, are to be disclosed, vindicated, and rendered luminous to the apprehension of intelligent creatures. The eternal purposes which were purposed in him before the foundation of the world, and the sequel of the covenants, prescriptions, promises, comminations, symbols, and predictions which, in connection with the first of their respective series of events, were announced to the patriarchs and prophets, await the future for their ever-widening range of illustration and accomplishment. The scene is but begun. The first steps only of an endless progress, the first events only of a continuous, inseparable, and endless series, the first disclosures only of a boundless range of development by the same divine Actor and Revealer, have yet transpired. The earth as his footstool is yet to be the scene of the restitution of all things. His early footsteps on it are to be retraced in a renewed paradise, and the visible manifestations of the past to be resumed, when all that is recorded of Him in his offices and his administration, and his intercourse with the first Adam, and with the patriarchs and prophets, will be understood and heeded as of the scheme and fabric of his glory.