Gwen Frangs / Corrandulla / 26 August 2022
In Exodus 6:2-3 Yahweh speaks with Moses:
2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the Lord.’ 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob in El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.
Exodus 6:2-3
Exodus 6:2-3 provides a hermeneutical key for interpreting the appearances of God to the Patriarchs in the Book of Genesis. For example,
- In Genesis 12:6 we are told that Yahweh appeared to Abram in Shechem.
- In Genesis 15 we are told that the Word of Yahweh appeared to Abram.
- In Genesis 16:7 the Angel of Yahweh appears to Hagar the maid of Sarai.
- In Genesis 22 the Angel of Yahweh asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and then stops him from sacrificing him.
Exodus 6:2-3 provides the key to understanding that Yahweh, Who appears to Abraham at Shechem, the Word of Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh are all the same Person.
This is because we are told in Exodus 6:2-3 that the Person Who appeared to the Patriarchs was El Shaddai. Therefore, we can know that Yahweh Who appeared to Abram in Shechem, the Word of Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh was El Shaddai and not three different people.
Genesis 48 reveals that El Shaddai is an angel. In Genesis 48 Jacob speaks about El Shaddai, Who appeared to him at Luz (Genesis 48:3) and Who had helped him all of his life. In Genesis 48:15-16 Jacob describes El Shaddai both as God and as the Angel:
15 Then he blessed Joseph and said,
“May the God before whom my fathers
Genesis 48:15-16
Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully,
the God who has been my shepherd
all my life to this day,
16 the Angel who has delivered me from all harm
—may he bless these boys.
May they be called by my name
and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac,
and may they increase greatly
on the earth.”
Hosea 12:4-5 reveals that the memorable name of this Angel is Yahweh:
And, yes, he struggled with the Angel and prevailed. He wept and sought favour from Him. He found him in Bethel and there He spoke to us, that is Yahweh God of Hosts. His memorable name is Yahweh.
Hosea 12:4-5 Interlinear
Yahweh Himself verifies that His name is in this Angel in Exodus 23:
20 “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to what he says. Do not rebel against him; he will not forgive your rebellion, since my Name is in him. 22 If you listen carefully to what he says and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and will oppose those who oppose you. 23 My angel will go ahead of you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.
Exodus 20:20-23 NIV
Therefore, we see why it was appropriate for the author of Genesis to say that Yahweh appeared to Abraham at Shechem. What makes it even more appropriate is that in Exodus 6:2-3, Yahweh Himself tells Moses that He appeared to the Patriarchs in El Shaddai.
In Exodus 6:2-3 Yahweh speaks with Moses:
2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the Lord.’ 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob in El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.
Exodus 6:2-3
Although commonly translated as God telling Moses that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, this is not what the verse actually says. The correct translation of the verse says that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in El Shaddai.
The preposition on the word ‘el’ is בְּ which is the preposition ‘in’ in ancient Hebrew.
In Exodus 6:2-3 the preposition בְּ is attached to the beginning of the word אֵ֣ל. The word אֵ֣ל is the ‘El’ of El Shaddai. In Exodus 6:2-3 the preposition on the word בְּאֵ֣ל means either ‘in’, ‘at’ or ‘with’ in the ancient Hebrew (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%91%D6%BE). It does not mean ‘as’ because כְּ is the preposition which means ‘as’ (8af3842462324e4d5443b28852f9368b3e9aa672.html). If you look at the blue parts of speech under the original Hebrew text the preposition is listed as Prep-b. Prep-b, according to the Hebrew parsing, means ‘in’ (https://biblehub.com/hebrewparse.htm). Therefore, the verse does not read:
….. I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai…
Rather, the verse reads as:
….I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob in El Shaddai…
Although the preposition can also mean ‘at’ or ‘with’ we can know that in this case it means ‘in’ because Jesus confirmed this when He came to earth. He told His disciples that the Father was ‘in’ Him:
Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me…
John 14:11a
Therefore, Yahweh the Father was in El Shaddai when He appeared to Abram. Abram was being visited simultaneously by Yahweh the Angel and Yahweh the Father, because Yahweh the Father was in the Angel. This is why in Isaiah 63:9 the Angel is called the Angel of Presence:
In all their affliction He was [a]afflicted,
Isaiah 63:9
And the Angel of His Presence saved them;
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bore them and carried them
All the days of old.
The Angel of Presence is called by this name because Yahweh the Father was present in Him.
The New Testament verifies that Yahweh the Father can live within another being because He is an invisible Spirit (Colossians 1:15 ; 1 Timothy 1:17 ; Hebrews 11:27). Jesus told His disciples that if they obey His commandments that both He and the Father would live in them:
Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
John 14:23
Yahweh the Angel is called the Word of God because He speaks the words of the Father. Jesus, the Word made flesh, verified this in John 14 when He told Philip that the words that He spoke were from the Father, Who was living within Him:
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
John 14: 8-10
We see this happen in Genesis 22:16-17 where we are told that the Angel of Yahweh calls to Abraham a second time from Heaven and speaks the words of the Father to Abraham:
And called the Angel of Yahweh to Abraham a second time out of Heaven and said: ‘By Myself I have sworn says Yahweh that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies.’
Genesis 22:16-17
The Angel of Yahweh is telling Abraham that Yahweh the Father has said that He has sworn by Himself that He will bless Abraham with numerous descendants because he was prepared to sacrifice Isaac.
Therefore, Exodus 6:2-3 provides the key for us to understand that there are two Yahweh’s, Yahweh the Father and Yahweh the Angel and that they both appeared to the Patriarchs simultaneously. This was because Yahweh the Father was living in Yahweh the Angel. The Angel was speaking the words of the Father, Who was within Him, when He interacted with the Patriarchs. When Yahweh the Angel became flesh, Yahweh the Father continued to live within Him, in the same way that He had lived within Him in the Old Testament.