The Angel - The Name - The Voice
Honor The Name Obey The Voice
PART ELEVEN
We are still reading to discover how YWHW, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob revealed and identified Himself to the patriarchs and prophets. While many people have heard the account of Moses and the burning bush, few have stopped to consider what took place. It was through this event that Moses was called and commissioned. Moses was to represent God to the gentiles and to the children of Abraham. YHWH personally trained Moses to recognize, obey and understand Him through varied personal encounters and instructions.
Now at Mt. Sinai, YHWH is revealing yet another aspect of His person; one that puts Moses in remembrance of his first encounter.
Exodus 23:20-22 NKJV:
20 “Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him. 22 But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
This is no ordinary angel. This angel has the covenantal name of Yahweh in Him. The phrase “My name is in him” means Yahweh is in this Angel—His very presence and being.
The “I AM” of the burning bush would go with them. Other Biblical passages confirm that this is exactly what the writers are communicating. This is how comparing scripture with scripture is an important study tool. Doctrine is not based upon a single verse, but in the “mouth of two or more witnesses, everything is established.”
I am Yahweh (the LORD). I brought you out of Egypt to be your God (Elohim).
— Leviticus 11:45
To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD Himself is God; there is none other besides Him. 36 Out of heaven He let you hear His voice, that He might instruct you; on earth He showed you His great fire, and you heard His words out of the midst of the fire. 37 And because He loved your fathers, therefore He chose their descendants after them; and He brought you out of Egypt with His Presence, with His mighty power, 38 driving out from before you nations greater and mightier than you, to bring you in, to give you their land as an inheritance, as it is this day.
— Deuteronomy 4:35-38
For it was Yahweh our Elohim (the Lord, our God), who brought us and our ancestors up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. He performed those great signs before our very eyes and protected us along our entire journey and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the LORD (YHWH) drove out all the people before us.
— Joshua 24:17-18a
Judges 2:1:
Then the Angel of the LORD came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you.”
We believe that the words of the Bible are inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. That the Bible is Authored by God. We believe God chose and anointed men who would faithfully communicate what God wanted us to understand about Himself.
Psalm 103:7 says, “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the people of Israel.”
As we continue in the scriptures, we are seeing the theological roots of Trinitarian Theology. YHWH can be known by His Invisible Presence. He is the visible Angel of the LORD in the form of a man. He is the Divine Being that appears in the fire of God. We can recognize Him, we can know His Voice. This is the Self-revealing God in three persons, YHWH is ONE.
By the way when we come to the New Testament we will see a fuller revelation of this truth.