When the Angel of the Lord spoke to Hagar, “she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her El Roi” (Gen. xvi. 11, 13). When God tempted Abraham, “the Angel of Jehovah called unto him out of heaven, and said, ... I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son ... from Me” (Gen. xxii. 11, 12). When a man wrestled with Jacob, he thereupon claimed to have seen God face to face, and called the place Peniel, the Face (Presence) of God (Gen. xxxii. 4, 30). But Hosea tells us that “He had power with God: yea, he had power over the Angel, ... and there He spake with us, even Jehovah, the God of hosts” (Hos. xii. 3, 5). Even earlier, in his exile, the Angel of the Lord had appeared unto him and said, “I am the God of Bethel ... where thou vowedst a vow unto Me.” But the vow was distinctly made to God Himself: “I will surely give the tenth to Thee” (xxxi. 11, 13; xxviii. 20, 22). Is it any wonder that when this patriarch blessed Joseph, he said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which hath fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which hath redeemed me from all evil, (may He) bless the lads” (xlviii. 15, 16)?
In Exodus iii. 2 the Angel of the Lord appeared out of the bush. But presently He changes into Jehovah Himself, and announces Himself to be Jehovah the God of their fathers (iii. 2, 4, 15). In Exodus xiii. 21 Jehovah went before Israel, but the next chapter tells how “the Angel of the Lord which went before Israel removed and went behind” (xiv. 19); while Numbers (xx. 16) says expressly that “He sent an Angel and brought us out of Egypt.”
By the comparison of these and many later passages (which is nothing but the scientific process of induction, leaning not on the weight of any single verse, but on the drift and tendency of all the phenomena) we learn that God was already revealing Himself through a Medium, a distinct personality whom He could send, yet not so distinct but that His name was in Him, and He Himself was the Author of what He did.
If Israel obeyed Him, He would bring them into the promised land (ver. 23); and if there they continued unseduced by false worships, He would bless their provisions, their bodily frame, their children; He would bring terror and a hornet against their foes; He would clear the land before them as fast as their population could enjoy it; He would extend their boundaries yet farther, from the Red Sea, where Solomon held Ezion Geber (1 Kings ix. 26), to the Mediterranean, and from the desert where they stood to the Euphrates, where Solomon actually possessed Palmyra and Thiphsah (2 Chron. viii. 4; 1 Kings iv. 24).
FOOTNOTES:
[38] Even if the rendering were accepted, “Must My Presence (My Face) go with thee?” (Can I not be trusted without a direct Presence?) the argument would not be affected, because Moses presses for the favour and obtains it.