[ [1]] The words in ver. 9, "And they said to him," are to be understood only thus:—that one spoke at the same time in the name of the others; in the question thus put, it is, in the first instance, only the general relation of the guests to the hostess that comes into consideration. That such is the case, appears from ver. 10, where the use of the plural could not be continued, because a work was on hand which was peculiar to the one among them, and in which the others were not equally concerned. If the words in ver. 9 were spoken by all the three, then the one in ver. 10 ought to have been singled out thus: "And one from among them thus spoke." On account of the suffix in אחריו, "And the door was behind him," the ויאמר in ver. 10 can be referred only to the one, and not to the Jehovah concealed behind all the three. This shows how the preceding, "And they said," is to be understood.
[ [2]] Delitzsch says: "As the two are really sent to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, it is evident that Jehovah, in ver. 24, who causes brimstone and fire to rain from Jehovah out of heaven, is viewed as being present in the two on earth, but in such a manner that, nevertheless, His real judicial throne is in heaven."
Of no less importance and significance is the passage [Gen. xxxi. 11 seq.] According to ver. 11, the Angel of God, מלאך האלהים, appears to Jacob in a dream. In ver. 13, the same person calls himself the God of Bethel, with reference to the event recorded in chap. xxviii. 11-22. It cannot be supposed that in chap xxviii. the mediation of a common angel took place, who, however, had not been expressly mentioned; for Jehovah is there contrasted with the angels. In ver. 12, we read: "And behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it." In ver. 13, there is another sight: "And behold Jehovah stood by him and said, I am Jehovah, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed."
This passage is also in so far of importance, because, agreeably to what has been remarked in p. 119, it follows from it that even there, where Jehovah simply is mentioned, the mediation through His Angel is to be assumed.
He with whom Jacob wrestles, in [Gen. xxxii. 24], makes himself known as God, partly by giving him the name Israel, i.e., one who wrestles with God, and partly by bestowing a blessing upon him. Jacob calls the place Peniel, i.e., face of God, because he had seen God face to face, and wonders that his life was preserved. The answer which Elohim gives here to Jacob's question regarding His name, remarkably coincides with that which in Judges xiii. 17, 18, is given by the Angel of the Lord to a similar question. In Hosea xii. 4 (comp. the remarks on this passage in the Author's "Genuineness of the Pentateuch," vol. i. p. 128 ff.), he who wrestled with Jacob is called Elohim, as in Genesis; but in ver. 5, he is called מלאך, a word which is more distinctly defined by the preceding Elohim; so that we can, accordingly, think only of the Angel of God. As it was certainly not the intention of the prophet to state a new historical circumstance, the mention of the Angel must be founded upon the supposition, that all revelations of God are made by the mediation of His Angel,—a supposition which we have already proved to have its foundation in the book of Genesis itself.
Delitzsch says, S. 256, "Jehovah reveals Himself in the מלאך, but just by means of a finite spirit becoming visible, and therefore in a manner more tolerable to him who occupies a lower place of communion with God." And similarly, Hofmann expresses himself, S. 335: "It is quite the same thing whether it be said, he saw God, or an angel, as is testified by Hosea also; and nowhere have we less right to explain it as if it were an appearance of God the Son, in contrast with the appearance of an angel."
But since it is an essentially different matter, whether Jacob wrestled with God Himself, or, in the first instance, with an ordinary angel merely, we have, as regards this opinion, only the choice between accusing the prophet Hosea, who brought in the angel, of an Euhemerismus, or of raising against sacred history the charge that it cannot be relied on, because it omitted so important a circumstance. The name Israel, by which, "at the same time, the innermost nature of the covenant-people was fixed, and the divine law of their history was established" (Delitzsch), is, in that case, a falsehood. Jacob has overcome omnipotence, and, in this one adversary, all others who might oppose him,—as he is expressly assured in ver. 29: "Thou hast wrestled with God and with men, and hast prevailed." Can God invest a creature with omnipotence? Jacob would certainly not have gone so cheerfully to meet Esau, if in Him over whom he prevailed with weeping and supplication, he himself had recognised only an angel, and not Jehovah the God of hosts, as Hosea, in ver. 6, calls the very same, of whom in ver. 5 he had spoken as the angel. The consolatory import of the event for the Church of all times is destroyed, if Jacob had to do with a created angel only. With such an one, Jacob had not to reckon on account of his sinfulness, and it is just the humiliating consciousness of this his sinfulness which forms the point at issue in his wrestling. Moreover, with such a view, the New Testament Antitype would be altogether lost. Jesus, the true Israel, does not wrestle with an angel,—such an one only appears to strengthen Him in His struggle, Luke xxii. 43—but with God, Heb. v. 7.—The occurrence would, according to this opinion, furnish a strong argument for the worship of angels: "He wept and made supplication unto him," Hos. xii. 5 (compare Deut. iii. 23). The ἀγωνίζεσθαι ἐν ταῖς προσευχαῖς, mentioned in Col. iv. 12, in allusion to our passage, would, in that case, besides God, have the angels for its object.