THE MESSIAH
in
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS.

BY
ELEAZAR LORD.

NEW-YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 145 NASSAU STREET.
1853.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by

ELEAZAR LORD,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New-York.

TO THE DESCENDANTS OF ISRAEL.

From the earliest periods a belief has prevailed among Jews and Gentiles, that in one mode or another the Supreme Being has appeared visibly on earth. In the Eastern World, Divine incarnations are taught in the Brahminical and other systems.

For the origin of such a belief we must undoubtedly recur to the Divine appearances recorded in Moses and the prophets. Such visible appearances and the doctrine of the incarnation are taught in the Hebrew as well as in the Christian Scriptures.

It is the object of the ensuing pages to show that He who truly became incarnate, and is announced as Jesus, the Christ, and also as Jehovah, Immanuel, God with us, is the same who in the Hebrew oracles is often called Jehovah and Elohim, and designated also by official titles, as the Messiah, the Messenger, Adonai, the Elohe of Abraham; and that, under various designations, he appeared visibly in a form like that of man to the Patriarchs, and to Moses, and others. In Him, in accordance with their Scriptures, the descendants of Israel will at length discern the True Messiah, who took man’s nature, and in his stead, and as his substitute, was slain a sacrifice for sin, the Just for the unjust; who rose from the dead, and ascended on high in his glorified body; and who will come again, visibly, to sit and rule as King on the throne of David; to destroy the great Adversary and his works; to vindicate his earlier administration; to accomplish the ancient predictions concerning the Seed of Abraham, the land promised as an everlasting inheritance, and his own sacerdotal, prophetic, and regal offices; and to receive due homage of the universe as Creator, Ruler, and Redeemer.

Of him as Jehovah and as the Messenger, it is affirmed that he led the children of Israel out of Egypt. (See Exodus ii. and Judges i.) And, after the lapse of nine hundred years, He himself proclaimed to their dispersed and afflicted descendants: “Behold the days come, saith Jehovah, that it shall no more be said, Jehovah liveth that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; but, Jehovah liveth that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them: and I will bring them again into their land that I gave unto their fathers. For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face:—and they shall know that my name is Jehovah.” Jer. xvi. 14, 15, 17, 21.

CONTENTS

THE MESSIAH
IN
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS.

CHAPTER I.

Reasons for examining the Hebrew Records of the Messiah.

It is said of the Messiah, in a discourse with two of his disciples, that “Beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures, the things concerning himself.” And subsequently: “These are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understandings, that they might understand the Scriptures.” On another occasion he said: “Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” And again: “Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”

At his advent he was, pursuant to a prediction of Isaiah, called Immanu-El, God with us. In conformity with another prediction, it was the office of his fore-runner to prepare the way of Jehovah—the Lord. And an angel announced to the shepherds: “Unto you is born a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord,” (Jehovah.) “Philip saith to Nathaniel, We have found him of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth.”

We should naturally infer from these passages that the delegated official Person, Jesus, the Christ, was the theme of the Old Testament Scriptures; that his official agency and relations were there continuously and amply treated of; that his complex character, his divine prerogatives, his prophetical, sacerdotal and regal offices, his works as Creator, Lawgiver, and Ruler, and his relations as Covenanter and Redeemer, were there conspicuously set forth, and were the recognized and acknowledged objects of the faith and trust of patriarchs, prophets, and all true worshippers.

And such undoubtedly was the case. He was the Jehovah of the Old Testament; the Elohe of the patriarchs and of Israel; the Angel or Messenger Jehovah, the Jehovah Zebaoth, the Adonai, the Messiah of the ancient dispensations. Under these and other designations Moses, the psalmists, and the prophets wrote of him; saw, acknowledged, and believed in him; worshipped and praised him in the tabernacle and temple; recognized and obeyed him as their Lawgiver, and trusted in him as their Saviour.

Their faith rested on him as the present object of their homage and trust, asserting his prerogatives, dispensing his benefits, and in all his relations exerting his official agency. They regarded him not merely as he was typified, but as he then manifested himself and executed his offices. In some respects his future manifestations, and especially his sufferings and death for the expiation of sin, were vividly prefigured by typical rites, and were objects of their faith; but in other respects, as their Mediator, Prophet, Lawgiver, Priest, and King, he was the present object of their homage, faith, love, and obedience. The faith of Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and their successors, embraced his person and his official prerogatives and works, and was therefore effectual unto justification, precisely as that of believers under the present dispensation, who are therefore described as walking in the steps of that faith of Abraham which was counted for righteousness. The faith which was instrumental in his justification was the exemplar alike of that of all believers under the ancient, and of those under the present dispensation. To him the patriarchs erected altars and offered sacrifices and prayers, and from him received gifts and promises. To him the ministerial offices and typical services of the Levitical priesthood had immediate reference. In the tabernacle and temple, as Prophet, Priest, and King, he instructed them, prescribed their worship and obedience; and as their present Lawgiver and Ruler, exercised over them his providential and moral government.

All this is implied, indeed, in the facts that the Church of that and the present day is the same; that the method of salvation through faith in him was the same then as now; and that he was the Saviour and Mediator alike them and at present: and otherwise it is not perceived how an intelligible or satisfactory answer can be given to the questions, How did he exercise the office of Mediator under the ancient economy? What agency did he exercise towards his people? How did he exemplify his offices of Prophet, Priest, and King? A reference to the designations by which he was recognized, and the acts ascribed to him in connection with those designations, will supply the appropriate answer. If it was He who appeared in a form like that of man to Abraham, in the plains of Mamre, walked and conversed with him as a man, and heard the prayers addressed directly to him on behalf of the righteous dwelling in Sodom; and who, under various designations, appeared in the same form to Jacob, to Moses, to Balaam, to Joshua, to Gideon, to Manoah, to David, and others; then may we safely conclude that, under the like designations, he was familiarly known and worshipped throughout the patriarchal and Levitical dispensations.

[CHAPTER II.]

The Messiah announced by Malachi, as Adonai, even Melach, the Messenger of the Covenant—His Appearance to Jacob at Bethel; and to Isaiah, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, and others, under various designations, as Adonai, Melach, a Man, Jehovah Zebaoth, the Holy One, El-Shaddai, &c.

It will be seen that the designations referred to include all those which are applied to the Divine Being: and that in numerous instances they are applied interchangeably in the same passages and connections, in such manner as clearly to show that they identify the same Person. Thus the words El, Elohe, Elohim, translated God; and Jah, Jehovah, Adon, and Adonai, translated Lord, are, separately, and also in conjunction with Melach, Angel or Messenger, and with other names of office, employed to designate and identify that delegated Person who is “both Lord (Jehovah) and Christ.”

In demonstration of this, we may first refer to some passages in which the appellative Melach, the primary signification of which is Messenger, occurs, as a designation of him who was sent of the Father; as Malachi iii. 1: “Behold, I send my messenger, [John the Baptist,] and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Adon whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even Melach, the Messenger, of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith Jehovah Zebaoth.” And Isaiah xl. 3, 5: “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah, make straight in the desert a highway for our Elohe.... And the glory of Jehovah shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.”

These prophecies are quoted by the Evangelists as identifying Jesus the Christ. See Matthew iii. 1-6; xi. 10; Mark i. 2-4; Luke iii. 3-6; John i. 6-8. They point to John as he who was spoken of by these prophets, and as proclaiming in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of Jehovah. He whose way was prepared was therefore the Messenger of the Covenant, the Adon, the Elohim, and the Jehovah—the delegated official Person to whom these several designations are applied in the predictions. That official Person was the Revealer, as well as the subject of the ancient revelations; and, as will hereafter be more particularly noticed, manifested himself in different aspects and relations of his official work, and in those diverse relations often spoke predictively (as at the close of each of the above passages) and otherwise, to and of himself.

The same conclusions result from a passage in the narrative of Jacob’s journey from Padan-aram to Shechem, Gen. xxxii., taken in connection with the reference to it by the prophet Hosea: “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.... And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with Elohim and with men, and hast prevailed.... And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen Elohim face to face.” Hosea, referring to Jacob, chap. xii., says: “He had power with Elohim; yea, he had power over the angel, [Melach, the Messenger,] and prevailed; he wept and made supplication unto him: he found him in Beth-El, and there he spake with us; even Jehovah Elohe Zebaoth—Jehovah is his memorial.” Here the God-man, the only Divine Person who, under the ancient or present dispensation, has ever manifested himself visibly in the likeness of man, is seen face to face by Jacob, and is denominated Elohim, the Messenger, the Jehovah Elohe Zebaoth, whose peculiar designation is Jehovah. Accordingly, Hosea says of Melach, the Messenger, that Jacob made supplication unto him: he found him in Beth-El, indicating that it was in the place which he named Beth-El that he first recognized the official acting administrator of providence and grace, the God-man, in the relations in which he then appeared to him. The passage specially referred to by the prophet in relation to Beth-El is in Gen. xxviii., where Jacob’s flight to Padan-aram, to avoid the wrath of Esau, is narrated. On his way he slept in the open field, and beheld in a dream a ladder extending from earth to heaven. “And behold! Jehovah stood above it, and said, I am Jehovah Elohe of Abraham, and Elohe of Isaac, &c. And Jacob awoke and said, Surely Jehovah is in this place: ... this is the house of Elohim.” The Messenger therefore to whom Jacob made supplication, and whom he first saw at Beth-El, was Jehovah the Elohe of Abraham and Isaac, even Jehovah Elohe Zebaoth.

To show by another instance that He who in the ancient oracles is called Adon, Adonai, and Jehovah Zebaoth, is in the New Testament referred to as the Christ, Isaiah vi. may be cited. I saw, says the prophet, “the Adonai sitting upon a throne.” “Then said I, Woe is me!... for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah Zebaoth.” The apostle John, chap. xii., ascribes what was announced at this scene to Christ, and adds: “These things said Esaias when he saw his glory and spake of him.”

With respect to the point now particularly in view, the Scriptures quoted above render it certain that the Divine Person who by Malachi is called the Messenger of the Covenant, and the Adonai, and by Hosea, the Messenger, Elohim, and Jehovah, is identical with Jesus the Christ.

“Sometimes the same Divine appearance which at one time is called Melach Jehovah, is afterwards called simply Jehovah, as in Gen. xvi. 7; Col. v. 13; Exod. iii. 2; Col. iv., &c., &c. This is to be so understood that the Angel of God is here nothing else than the invisible Deity itself, which thus unveils itself to mortal eyes.” And after referring to Michaëlis and Tholuck, “Hence Oriental translators, as Saadias, Abusaides, and the Chaldeo-Samaritan, wherever Jehovah himself is said to appear on earth, always put for the name of God, the Angel of God.” Gesenius, Lex., Art. Melach.

Illustrations might be adduced from the New Testament to show that the apostles understood the Messiah and the Messenger Jehovah to be the same Person. Thus, Galatians iv. 14: “Ye received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus;” where the rendering, in our own and other versions, “an angel,” corresponds with the erroneous usage so common in the Old Testament. The meaning is: Ye received me with respect and confidence, as ye would have received the Melach, the Messenger Jehovah, even Jesus the Messiah. For undoubtedly, had a created angel been referred to, a comparison would not have been made placing the Messiah on a level with him. The instances in the New Testament in which the Angel Jehovah is referred to, though unhappily not discriminated in our translation, are from the context easily distinguishable. See Acts vii. 30, 35, 38.

The word Adonai occurs as a Divine designation several hundred times in the Old Testament, chiefly in the form indicated above, but sometimes simply Adon. It is often employed in connections which clearly show it to be a personal designation of the Messiah, and which assert or imply his official prerogatives, agency, or relations. It is employed interchangeably with Jehovah, Elohim, and other Divine designations, sometimes preceding and at others following them; sometimes with, but more commonly without the article.

In the second of the above forms, this word is commonly, like the secular English title lord, applied to men in the relation of masters or rulers, as Melach is applied to men to distinguish them officially as messengers. And as our own, in common with other translators, failed to mark the distinction between the use of the word Melach, as a designation of the Messiah, and the use of it with reference to created agents, human or angelic, so they seem to have regarded the words Adonai and Adon as importing something inferior to the Divine designations of Jehovah and Elohim; which difference they indicate by uniformly writing their translation of the former words in small letters, and their translation of the latter in capitals.

Whatever impression or inference may result from this usage to the English reader, or to the Israelite who reads the original under the same views which influenced the translation, it is by no means probable that either of them would infer, or be struck with the impression, that Adonai was a distinctive and familiar title of the delegated One, the Messiah, of correlative and equivalent significance as a Divine designation with those with which it is indifferently and interchangeably employed. For the further illustration of this point, therefore, the following passages are cited:

In Gen. xviii., we read that Jehovah appeared visibly to Abraham in the likeness of man, i. e., in the delegated official Person, Messiah. In what is related in the narrative as having been said or done by him, while visibly present, he is called Jehovah, while Abraham, in speaking to him, uniformly calls him Adonai, prays to him as having power to save the righteous in Sodom, and addresses him as Judge of all the earth. It is therefore manifest that the two designations, Jehovah and Adonai, identify the same Person; that Abraham speaks to him as visibly present; and that his visible presence in the likeness of man determines him to have been the delegated One. At the close of their interview, “Jehovah went his way, and Abraham returned to his place.”

When the personal Word came to Abram, Gen. xv., saying, Fear not, I am thy shield, &c., Abram, replying, verse 2, calls him Adonai Jehovah, and also in verse 8; while in verses 4, 6, 7, and 18, he calls him Jehovah. Instances like that in chap. xviii., and others, would seem to indicate that in cases of local visible manifestation of the personal Word, designations specially appropriate to his official character and agency were suggested to the minds of the beholders. Thus Moses, Exod, iv. 10, “said unto Jehovah, O Adonai.” The Person whom he addressed was the Messenger Jehovah, who had appeared to him. Again, verse 13, he says: “O Adonai.” In other parts of that chapter, the same Person is called Jehovah, Elohim, and Elohe. In Moses’ song, chap. xv. 17, Jehovah (that is, the Messenger) and the Adonai are addressed as the same Person: “Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance; in the place, O Jehovah, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in; in the sanctuary, O Adonai, which thy hands have established.” So, chap. xxxiv., when Jehovah (the Messenger) descended and manifested the glory of his Person to Moses, and proclaimed himself Jehovah as he passed by, Moses bowed and worshipped; and he said: “If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Adonai, let Adonai, I pray thee, go among us.” In like manner, Deut. iii. 23, 24, Moses, praying to Jehovah, addresses the Adonai: “And I besought Jehovah at that time, saying, O Adonai Jehovah.... I pray thee let me go over and see the good land.” Also, chap. ix. 26: “I prayed therefore unto Jehovah, and said, O Adonai Jehovah, destroy not thy people, and thine inheritance which thou hast redeemed.” Once more, when, after the trespass of Achan, the Israelites were smitten, Joshua fell upon his face before the ark of Jehovah, and said: “Alas! O Adonai Jehovah.... O Adonai, what shall I say,” &c. Similar instances occur in the prayers of Gideon, Manoah, David, and the prophets; and throughout their writings, as in the instances quoted, doubtless this term designates the Messenger of the Covenant, the Holy One, the Christ, and whether sometimes substituted by copyists for the word Jehovah or not, its import is the same, as appears from the connections in which it occurs.

At the interview of the same Divine Person with Gideon, Judges vi., he is called Melach Jehovah, Jehovah, Adonai, Melach the Elohim, and Adonai Jehovah Melach Jehovah came and sat under an oak—appeared visibly—and said unto Gideon, Jehovah is with thee. Gideon replied, O Adonai, if Jehovah be with us, &c. Jehovah looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might. Gideon answered, O Adonai, wherewith shall I save Israel? Jehovah said, Surely I will be with thee. Gideon prepared a sacrifice. Melach the Elohim said, Take the flesh, &c. Melach Jehovah touched the flesh with his staff. Fire rose out of the rock and consumed the flesh. Melach Jehovah departed out of Gideon’s sight. Gideon exclaimed, Alas, O Adonai Jehovah! for I have seen Melach Jehovah face to face. Jehovah said unto him, Peace be unto thee.

The purport of the expressions in this narrative may be more fully represented as follows: The Melach, (the Messenger,) who is Jehovah, came in the form of a wayfaring man, and sat down under an oak in a field where Gideon was, and said unto him, Jehovah is with thee. And Gideon said to him, (Jehovah,) O Adonai, &c. Jehovah looked upon him and said, Go in this thy might, &c. Gideon said to him, O Adonai, wherewith shall I save Israel? Jehovah said to him, Surely I will be with thee. Gideon presented a sacrifice to him. The Melach, (or Messenger,) who is the true Elohim, said to Gideon, Take the flesh, &c., and lay them upon this rock, and he did so. The the Melach, (or Messenger,) who is Jehovah, put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh, &c.; and there rose up fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh, &c. Gideon said, Alas, O Adonai Jehovah! for I have seen the Melach, who is Jehovah, face to face. To which Jehovah replied, Peace be unto thee; fear not, &c. Then Gideon built an altar there unto Jehovah.

So in the narrative of the visible appearance of the same Divine Person to Manoah and his wife, Judges xiii., where, as in the foregoing and other parallel instances, the term Melach distinguishes the Divine Person referred to as present and seen. The Melach (who is) Jehovah appeared unto the woman, &c. The woman came and told her husband, saying, A man, the Elohim, came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of the Melach (who is) the Elohim, &c. Then Manoah entreated Jehovah, and said, O Adon, let the man, the Elohim which thou didst send, come again unto us.... And the Elohim hearkened to the voice of Manoah, and the Melach, the (or who is the) Elohim, came again unto the woman as she sat in the field.... And she ran and said to her husband, Behold the man hath appeared unto me that came unto me the other day.... And Manoah came and said unto him, Art thou the man that spakest unto the woman? And he said, I am.... And the Melach (who is) Jehovah said unto Manoah, Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware. And Manoah said to the Melach (who is) Jehovah, I pray thee, let us detain thee, until we shall have made ready a kid for thee. And the Melach (who is) Jehovah said unto Manoah, Though thou detain me, I will not eat of thy bread: and if thou wilt offer a burnt offering, thou must offer it unto Jehovah. For Manoah knew not that he was the Melach (who is) Jehovah.... So Manoah took a kid, with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto Jehovah. And ... it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the Melach (who is) Jehovah ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on, and fell on their faces to the ground, &c. Then Manoah knew that he was the Melach (who is) Jehovah. And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen Elohim. But his wife said unto him, If Jehovah were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering at our hands, &c. Nothing surely can be more evident than that all these designations refer to the one delegated official Person—Messiah, the Messenger of the Covenant, visible in the form of man.

Behold, the Adon, Jehovah Zebaoth, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, &c. Isa. iii. 1.

Therefore shall the Adon, Adonai Zebaoth, send, &c. Isa. x. 16.

Behold, the Adon, Jehovah Zebaoth, shall lop the bough, &c. Isa. x. 33.

Thou (Abiathar) bearest the ark of Adonai Jehovah. 1 Kings ii. 26.

Thou art my Elohe and my Adonai. Ps. xxxv. 23.

To Jehovah Adonai belong the issues from death. Ps. lxviii. 20.

Let not them that wait on thee, O Adonai, Jehovah Zebaoth, be ashamed. Ps. lxix. 6.

Thou art my hope, O Adonai Jehovah. Ps. lxxi. 5.

But do thou for me, O Jehovah Adonai, for thy name’s sake. Ps. cix. 21.

O Jehovah Adonai, the strength of my salvation. Ps. cxl. 7.

Mine eyes are unto thee, O Jehovah Adonai. Ps. cxli. 8.

The phrases “Thus saith Adonai Jehovah Zebaoth,” “Adonai Jehovah,” and “Adonai Zebaoth,” occur in very numerous instances in the prophets. Probably in all such formulas the sense would be more perfectly expressed by interposing the words who is, or who art: as, The Adon who is Jehovah of hosts; The Adon who is the Adonai of hosts; The ark of Adonai, who is Jehovah. It is evidently by way of explanation, illustration, and emphasis, that two or more designations are so conjoined.

Some critics, probably from regarding the terms Adonai and Adon as of inferior significance to Jehovah and Elohim, when employed as Divine designations, imagine that the Jewish copyists substituted the former in place of the latter, or in place of Jehovah, to avoid the enunciation of that sacred name. No supposition could well be more improbable than this, whether considered in relation to the subject-matter, or to the reason assigned for it. In relation to the subject, it would imply a general consent among copyists, Jewish readers, priests and rabbies, and Gentile proselytes, as to the instances in which such a surreptitious change should be made, received, and sanctioned. And as to the alleged reason, if it was a real and sufficient reason in a single instance, or in many instances, why not in all? Why suppress the fearful name, and substitute a term of inferior or doubtful import in some cases, and allow it to retain its place in a far greater number of cases? But the groundlessness of the supposition referred to is sufficiently shown by the fact that, in the passages above cited, and in many others, the several designations, Adonai, Adon, Jehovah, and Elohim, are employed conjointly in the same sentences, with reference to the same Person, and as of equivalent import as Divine designations.

The same Divine Person, the Messiah, the Administrator and Revealer, manifested himself to the inspired writers in various ways, and in different aspects of his person and relations: to their faith as the self-existent, omnipresent Jehovah; to their senses in his complex, official person, and delegated, covenant relations, the Messenger, visible in the likeness of man, Adonai, the Adon.

Thus Daniel, chap. x. 16, 17: “One like the similitude of the sons of men touched my lips; then I opened my mouth and spake, and said unto him that stood before me, O Adonai!... how can the servant of this Adonai talk with this Adonai?” And Amos, chap. vii., relates that he saw the Adonai standing on a wall, with a plumb-line in his hand, and that the Adonai spoke to and was answered by him. The context shows that, though appearing visibly as a man, he exercised Divine prerogatives. Again, chap. ix. 1: “I saw the Adonai standing upon the altar.” Afterwards he speaks as Jehovah, and, verse 16, utters the prediction, quoted Acts xv. 16, that, after the Gentile dispensation, “I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down, ... and I will set it up.”

In the first chapter of Zechariah the following Divine designations occur: Jehovah, Jehovah Zebaoth, Adonai, the Melach, and Melach Jehovah. The Person locally present and visible, who in the 9th verse is called Adonai and the Melach, in the 11th and 12th verses Melach Jehovah, and in the 13th, 14th, and 19th verses the Melach, is in the 8th and 10th verses called a man. I saw by night and behold, a man ... among the myrtle trees, v. 8. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered, v. 9. And they answered the Melach Jehovah that stood among the myrtle trees, v. 11.

But the prophet on seeing the man, v. 8, addresses him as Adonai. “Then said I, O Adonai! what are these?” And the Melach answered, &c. v. 9. In the progress of the ensuing colloquy, the visible Person, in the form of man, the Melach, the Melach who is Jehovah, speaks to and of Jehovah and Jehovah Zebaoth, as the Messiah did when visibly present incarnate in man’s nature on earth; and an audible response was in like manner given. See v. 10, 12, 13.

Illustrations of the same usage might be adduced from almost every part of the Old Testament, where the Messiah, as announced by designations peculiar to his complex official Person and character, and as visibly present, speaks to and of himself and also to and of the Father, under designations which refer only to the Divine Nature. The same is customary likewise with the prophets. Thus David, Ps. cx.: “Jehovah (the Father) saith to Adonai, (the Messiah, as is declared in the New Testament,) Sit thou at my right hand,” &c. And Ps. ii.: Why do the heathen rage?... and the rulers take counsel against Jehovah and against the Anointed, or Messiah, v. 1, 2. The Adonai shall have them in derision, v. 4. I (the Messiah) will declare the decree: Jehovah hath said onto me, Thou art my Son, &c., v. 7.

The exceeding confusion which obscures our common version of Zechariah, and especially of the first chapter, implies that the translators did not understand the designations above quoted, a man, the Melach, Melach Jehovah, and Adonai, as referring to one and the same person, nor all or any of them as referring to the official Person, Messiah.

In chapter ii., the Melach is the Divine speaker throughout: “And behold the Melach that talked with me (see i. 9) went forth, and another angel (a messenger) went out to meet him; and He (the Melach) said unto him, (i. e., to the messenger,) Run,” &c. v. 3, 4. Here, according to our version, the other angel is made to direct the Melach who is Jehovah (see i. 9, 11, 12) to run, &c., by the omission of the relative He, as printed in capitals above; which, it is obvious from the original, and also from the ensuing context, ought to be retained. For after directing the approaching messenger to run, &c., he proceeds: “For I, saith Jehovah, will be unto her, Jerusalem, a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her:” the reference of which is further evidence that the speaker is the Messiah, here designated the Melach and Jehovah. The same speaker, continuing to the end of the chapter, treats of the dispersion, preservation, and subsequent restoration of the Israelites, and reëstablishment of Jerusalem as his dwelling-place.

Throughout the remainder of the book, the Divine Person speaking to the prophet is the same as the man, the Melach, the Adonai, the Melach Jehovah, of the first chapter. He announces what is said by Jehovah, and Jehovah Zebaoth; his rebuke of Satan, iii. 2; his promise of The Branch, referring to the Messiah as he was to be manifested incarnate, iii. 8, and vi. 12. In various places the prophet designates the Melach, and Jehovah as his Adonai, and as the Adon of the whole earth, iv. 4, 5, 13, 14; vi. 4, 5; ix. 4. Adonai Jehovah, ix. 14, and Jehovah their Elohe, ix. 16, x. 6, declares that the man whose name is The Branch shall build the temple of Jehovah, and shall sit and rule upon his throne, and shall be a Priest upon his throne, &c., vi. 12, 13. That it was Jehovah who was prized at thirty pieces of silver, i. e., Jehovah says of himself, as Messiah, that he was so prized, xi. 13. Represents Elohim and Melach Jehovah as equivalent, identifies Jehovah Zebaoth with the Shepherd, the man that is his fellow, xiii. 7. Jehovah whose feet shall stand upon the mount of Olives which is before Jerusalem, xiv. 4. Jehovah who shall be King over all the earth, xiv. 9. The King Jehovah Zebaoth, whom all nations shall worship.

The term Zebaoth, Hosts, coupled with the Divine designations, points to the official Person, the Messiah, evidently in many, and probably in all instances. Thus He who, in Isaiah vi., is called Adonai, the King, Jehovah Zebaoth, is by the apostle John referred to as the Messiah. He who wrestled with Jacob as a man, Gen. xxxii., is called by Hosea (chap. xii.) the Messenger, and Jehovah Elohe Zebaoth. It was the Messiah who, with Moses, was with the church in the wilderness. (Acts vii. 38.) The Melach, or Messenger, who dwelt in the cloud and between the cherubim, (Exod. xiv. 19,) over the ark of Adonai (who is) Jehovah. (Isa. iii. 15.) The ark of the Elohim (who is) Jehovah that dwelleth between the cherubim. (1 Chron. xiii. 6.) The ark of the Elohim, whose name is Jehovah Zebaoth. (2 Samuel vi. 2.) The Adon (who is) Jehovah Zebaoth. (Isa. iii. 1.) The Adon (who is) Adonai Zebaoth. (Isa. x. 16.) The Adonai (who is) Jehovah Zebaoth. (Isa. x. 23, 24.)

This term is coupled with these designations more than three hundred times, chiefly in the prophets after the defection of the tribes to the worship of Baal as the Lord of the hosts of heaven, in opposition to Jehovah Zebaoth.

A personal reference to the Messiah is evidently intended in numerous instances by the term rendered in our version Holy One; as is often manifest from its connection with other designations, and from the personal acts or relations mentioned. Thus Isaiah xliii.: “I am Jehovah, thy Elohe, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: I gave Egypt for thy ransom. Fear not, for I am with thee. (v. 3.) Thus saith Jehovah, your Redeemer, [Goel,] the Holy One of Israel, (v. 14,) I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King,” (15.) Chap. xli. 14: “I will help thee, saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, [Goel,] the Holy One of Israel.” v. 20: “The hand of Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.” xlvii. 4: “As for our Redeemer, [Goel,] Jehovah Zebaoth is his name, the Holy One of Israel.” xlviii. 17: “Thus saith Jehovah, thy Redeemer, [Goel,] the Holy One of Israel, I am Jehovah thy Elohe, which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.” xlix. 7: “Thus saith Jehovah, the Redeemer [Goel] of Israel, his Holy One.” liv. 5: “Thy Maker is thy husband, Jehovah Zebaoth is his name, and thy Redeemer, [Goel,] the Holy One of Israel; the Elohe of the whole earth shall he be called.” lx. 14: “They shall call thee, The city of Jehovah, The Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” 2 Kings xix.: “Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel. By thy messengers thou hast reproached Adonai.” Ezek. xxxix. 7: “The heathen shall know that I am Jehovah, the Holy One in Israel.” Ps. lxxxix. 18, 19: “Jehovah is our defence, and the Holy One of Israel is our King. Then thou spakest in vision to thy Holy One.”

That “The Holy One,” “Jehovah,” and “The Messiah,” are the same, is taught in various other passages. Thus in the first instance in which the title occurs, Deut. xxxiii. 8, constituting in part the blessing on the sacerdotal tribe, and containing a reference to other passages: “And of Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy Holy One, whom thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of Meribah.” But He whom they proved at Massah, and with whom they strove at Meribah, was Jehovah. “And Moses called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted Jehovah, saying, Is Jehovah among us or not?” Exod. xvii. 7. “Ye shall not tempt Jehovah your Elohe, as ye tempted him in Massah.” Deut. vi. 16. “This is the water of Meribah, because the children of Israel strove with Jehovah.” Numb. xx. 13. “At ... Massah ... ye provoked Jehovah to wrath.” Deut. ix. 22. Now, we learn from 1 Cor. x. and Heb. iii., compared with Ps. lxxviii., xcv., and cvi., that it was the Messiah whom they tempted: “Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted.” ... “Harden not your hearts as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness, where your fathers tempted me;” that is, Christ, as the context shows.

“Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption,” Ps. xvi. 10; quoted with the context, Acts ii., as designating Christ: “For David speaketh concerning Him,” Jesus of Nazareth, “I foresaw the Lord always before my face.... Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” Again, Acts xiii., in proof of the resurrection of Christ as predicted: “Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” So the Christ is recognized in various other passages as the Holy One. “I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” Mark i. 24, Luke iv. 34. “But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, ... and killed the Prince of Life.” Acts iii. 14.

Of the passages, besides those above cited, in which he is identified with Jehovah, the Creator, the Redeemer, Saviour, and King, a few are subjoined. The remnant of Israel “shall stay upon Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel.” Isaiah x. 20. “At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel.” Ibid. 17. “Thus saith the Holy One of Israel.... Thus saith Jehovah Elohim, the Holy One of Israel.” Ibid. 30. “The hand of Jehovah hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.” Ibid. 41. “Thus saith Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker.” Ibid. 45.

It is thus evident that the appellations, Jehovah, Elohim, Elohe, Jehovah Zebaoth, Redeemer, Saviour, King, Creator, Maker, the Holy One, and the Christ, are indifferently applied to designate one and the same Person. The term Messiah, the Anointed, though familiar to the Jews of ancient and modern times, occurs but a few times in the Hebrew Scriptures as a designation of him. The appropriation of the term seems to have arisen from the custom of anointing the Levitical priests to a ministry typical of the sacerdotal ministry of Christ, and that of anointing their kings to their office as typical of his regal office. With reference to those priests and kings it is therefore often used; but as a designation of the Christ not perhaps more than five or six times: as in 1 Sam. ii. 10, 35; Ps. ii. 2, lxxxiv. 9; Dan, ix. 25, 26. The import of the phrase “Holy One” is so nearly similar, as very probably to have been employed in place of this. This designation occurs in about thirty instances in the prophecies of Isaiah, and frequently elsewhere. Like several other appellations, it is employed exclusively as a designation of the Christ, and is not, like “Messiah,” applied to those who are anointed and consecrated to typify his offices.

El-Shadai, Almighty, in like manner designates the Messiah. The Messenger Jehovah who appeared to Moses in the bush, and who speaking to him afterwards is called Jehovah and Elohim, said, Exod. vi. 3: “I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name El-Shadai.” “Jacob said unto Joseph, El-Shadai appeared unto me at Luz, ... and blessed me.” Gen. xlviii. 3. But when he was first at Luz, Jehovah visibly appeared to him in the vision of a ladder. Gen. xxviii. It was an appearance doubtless of the Messenger Jehovah. And in a subsequent instance, Gen. xxxv., the Elohim appeared to him, blessed him, and changed his name to Israel. “And the Elohim said unto him, I am El-Shadai.... And the Elohim went up from him in the place where he talked with him.” This, therefore, was a local personal appearance of the Messenger of the Covenant. Shadai was a familiar designation in the patriarchal period. It occurs frequently in Job. In the New Testament it is applied to Christ. “I am Alpha and Omega, ... saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.” Rev. i. 8, iv. 8, and xi. 17.

A similar illustration is furnished by the designations, Mighty God, Living God, God of Israel, High God, Most High God, God of heaven, Lord God, and other formulas of frequent occurrence.

There are a considerable number of instances in which the Personal Word appears to be designated by the phrase Dabar Jehovah, translated the Word of the Lord. The “Dabar Jehovah came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, I am thy shield, &c. And Abram said, Adonai Jehovah, what will thou give me?... And behold Dabar Jehovah (came) unto him, saying.” (The word CAME in this clause is not in the original. “Dabar Jehovah said unto him,” would perhaps be more correct.) “And he [Dabar Jehovah] brought, him forth abroad and said, Look now towards heaven.... And he believed in Jehovah,” (in the Word Jehovah, Chaldee Par.) Gen. xv. Here personal acts appear to be ascribed to Dabar—the Word. It was a person who conversed with Abram and brought him forth abroad; as is observed on a subsequent occasion.

“Dabar Jehovah came to Jacob, saying, Israel shall be thy name.” 1 Kings xviii. 31. But in Gen. xxxii. we read that “there wrestled a man with Jacob, and he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel.” Here, then, the visible person who, in the form of man, wrestled with Jacob, and who is, by Hosea, chap. xii., denominated the Messenger and the Jehovah Zebaoth, is called Dabar Jehovah, the Personal Word.

“Now Dabar Jehovah came unto Jonah, ... saying, [or, and said,] Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness is come up before me. But Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah, and he found a ship and went down into it to go unto Tarshish from the presence of Jehovah.” Chap. i. “And Dabar Jehovah came unto Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go unto Nineveh.” iii. 1, 2. These passages indicate a personal and visible presence. How else could Jonah attempt to conceal himself by flight? In the context the Personal Word who thus came is identified with Jehovah, who speaks and is addressed as one locally and visibly present.

“Now Samuel did not yet know Jehovah, neither was Dabar Jehovah yet revealed unto him.” 1 Sam. iii. 7. No manifestation of the Personal Word had been made to him. “And Jehovah appeared again in Shiloh: for Jehovah revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by Dabar Jehovah.” Ibid. v. 21. “Then came Dabar Jehovah to Samuel, saying, It repenteth me, &c.” Ibid. xv. 10. “It was charged me by Dabar Jehovah.... It was said to me by Dabar Jehovah.” 1 Kings xiii. 9, 17. “And Elijah came to a cave and lodged there; and behold, Dabar Jehovah came to him, and he said unto him, What dost thou here, Elijah?... And he said, Go forth and stand upon the mount before Jehovah. And behold, Jehovah passed by.” 1 Kings xix. 9, 11. “Dabar Jehovah came to Jeremiah, saying, Before I formed thee, I knew thee.... Then said I, Ah, Adonai Jehovah! behold I cannot speak.... Then Jehovah put forth his hand and touched my mouth.... Moreover, Dabar Jehovah came unto me, saying, [or, and said,] What seest thou?... And Dabar Jehovah came unto me the second time,” &c. Jer. i.

Such are some of the instances in which this term appears to be employed as a personal designation. The meaning and reference of such use of it appear to have been familiar both to the earlier and later Jews. See the chapters relating to the Chaldee Paraphrases.

[CHAPTER III.]

Reasons for rendering the formula, “Melach Jehovah,” the Messenger (who is) Jehovah; and not the Angel, or an Angel of the Lord.

An examination of the numerous passages in which the denominative Melach is coupled with the name Jehovah, or Elohim, or used interchangeably with those names, renders it conclusively manifest that in each and every instance the reference is to one and the same official Person. This, however, is not entirely obvious from our common version, owing to the circumstance that the translators rendered the formula, Melach Jehovah, the angel, or sometimes an angel of the Lord. The word Jehovah, in the original, never has the article; nor the word Melach, when coupled with Jehovah, though when employed alone to designate the same official Person, the article is sometimes prefixed, as in Gen. xlviii. 16: “The Melach, which redeemed me.” The word Elohim often has the article, and retains it in most of the instances in which the formula Melach Elohim occurs, requiring it to be read, Melach the, or who is the, Elohim. See some twelve instances in the book of Ezra, and more than twenty in Nehemiah, where there was a special occasion to distinguish the true from the false God. In the formula, Melach Jehovah, there is nothing in the original to forbid the two words being considered as in apposition, and the rendering consequently the Messenger Jehovah, or the Messenger who is Jehovah. And that such should be the rendering, instead of the angel or messenger of Jehovah, is apparent from the following considerations:

1st. That the Person identified by this name of office is Jehovah, as is shown by the use, in numerous passages, of the two names interchangeably. The word Melach, it may be observed, is, when coupled with the name Jehovah, and when used separately or interchangeably, with the same personal reference, always in the singular number; and, when coupled with that name, generally precedes it; by which circumstances, and the relations in which it occurs separately, all confusion as to its reference is precluded.

2d. From the consideration that this rendering corresponds with the official character of the Person designated. His office is that of a messenger, sent of the Father—the Mediator, the Christ. The designation in question is in no instance applied to any created angel, and no doubt it was intended to distinguish the delegated Person from the Father who sent him. But to render it, the angel or messenger of Jehovah, especially in sentences in which the Person designated is called Melach Jehovah, and also called Jehovah, Adonai, or Elohim, is not to distinguish but to confuse.

3d. This rendering comports with the official agency of the delegated Person, as the creator, upholder, lawgiver, and ruler of all creatures. The works ascribed to him are, in the same sentences and connections, ascribed to Jehovah.

4th. It comports with the designation by which, when he became incarnate, he was familiarly known, and which is translated Lord, as the equivalent of the name Jehovah in Hebrew. Thus, Luke ii. 11, he is announced as the “Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.” Campbell renders it, The Lord Messiah. The sense is the same as that of Jehovah who is the Messiah, or the Messenger who is Jehovah, or the Anointed who is Jehovah. Again, when Thomas saw him after his resurrection, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God”—my Jehovah and my Elohe. John xx.

5th. It comports with Hebrew usage in other cases. The instances are common in which particular persons are designated by two words in apposition, indicating different characteristics. Thus, 1 Kings iv. 1: “So king Solomon was king over all Israel;” literally, so was the king, Solomon (or, who is Solomon) king, &c. Ibid. vii. 13, 14: And the king, Solomon, sent and fetched Hiram, son of a woman, a widow—i. e., a woman who was a widow; and xvii. 9, a woman (who is) a widow. Deut. xxii. 23, 28: A damsel, a virgin—i. e., a damsel who is a virgin.

When the article is prefixed to the word Elohim, it often and perhaps always is meant expressly to distinguish the True God from the false; as when the people, seeing the triumph of Elijah over the prophets of Baal, exclaimed, “Jehovah, he is the Elohim:” he, and not the pretended Elohim of idolaters, is the true God. The import of the formula, Jehovah Elohim, is Jehovah the true Elohim, and is not clearly or fully expressed by the translation Lord God, any more than it would be by a repetition of one or the other of those words. The meaning is, Jehovah who is the true God. So Melach Jehovah, the respective terms referring indisputably to the same person, means, the Messenger who is Jehovah.

But our translators render Melach Jehovah, the angel of the Lord, as though the angel was a created agent; or, as though Jehovah in this connection was the Father. McCaul, in his observations on Kimchi’s translation of Zechariah, defends this rendering: First, on the ground, that if the words Melach Jehovah are in apposition, the translation should be, not, the Angel Jehovah, but an angel, or a Messenger Jehovah. But, since the word Jehovah never admits the article, and since in the formula in question the word Melach never admits it, no reason can be assigned why the rendering should not be the Angel, or the Messenger Jehovah; it being admitted that one and the same Person is uniformly designated by this formula. On the contrary, if this objection were well founded, then in rendering the word Jehovah, where it occurs alone, it should read in English, a Lord, instead of the Lord.

Moreover, if his criticisms were well founded, such a passage as 2 Chron. xxxii. 21, where the order of the designations is Jehovah Melach, would require to be rendered, Lord of the angel, instead of Jehovah the Messenger, or the Jehovah Messenger. The statement in the text just quoted from 2 Chronicles is repeated in Isaiah xxxvii. 36, where the order of the words in question is Melach Jehovah. Again, the formula, (the) Elohim Melach, occurs in 1 Chron. xxi. 15, and also in that and the next verse, Melach Jehovah, referring to the same Person.

2d. He urges that if the words Melach Jehovah were to be rendered the Angel Jehovah, then we should expect to find the article before the word Melach; because, he says, the word Adon uniformly has it when employed to designate Jehovah. But this is a misstatement. When so employed, that word, in its different forms, is generally without the article; as Joshua iii. 11 and 13: “The ark of the covenant of Adon,” translated the Lord, “of all the earth.” “The ark of Adon Jehovah, Adon of all the earth,” rendered in our version, “the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth.” Here the translators suppress the word Adon where it first occurs; probably assuming, as in the case of Melach above referred to, that it was not in apposition with the next word, Jehovah; and seeing that if it was not, the version must be, the Lord of the Lord, as they rendered Melach Jehovah, the angel of the Lord. But the reference of the word Adon being in every such connection identical with that of the word Jehovah, and the two words, when conjoined, being, like Melach Jehovah, in apposition, the version should have been, the Lord (who is) Jehovah, the Lord of all the earth.

Again, 1 Kings ii. 26: “The ark of Adon Jehovah,” rendered, the ark of the Lord God; where the two words are taken to be in apposition: and if the translator felt a difficulty, he would seem to have sought to avoid it, as in other like instances, by an unusual version of the word Jehovah. Again, 2 Kings xxii. 6: “Go up, for Adon,” rendered the Lord, “shall deliver it.” And to give but one other out of very numerous instances, Ps. lxviii. 20: “Unto Jehovah Adon,” rendered God the Lord, “belong the issues from death.” In all the foregoing and similar instances the sense requires the words “who is” to be inserted or understood.

McCaul further observes, that the word Jehovah must sometimes be taken as the genitive case, and cites Mal. ii. 7: “The priests’ lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, [referring to Jehovah Zebaoth, vs. 2 and 4,] for he is Melach Jehovah Zebaoth,” rendered, “the messenger of the Lord of hosts.” But he gives no reason why Melach Jehovah in this passage should not be rendered, the Messenger Jehovah, as well as in any other passage. Again, he observes, that to translate the formula, Melach Jehovah, the angel Jehovah, is plainly against the Masoretic punctuation. But that is not conclusive; for the points formed no part of the original text, and no one pretends that they were inspired. The authors of that system of punctuation were governed, in their application of the points, by their theological, as well as by their grammatical theory; and however grammatically correct they may have been in their appropriation of them in all ordinary cases, in those passages of which they held an erroneous theological or exegetical theory, they of course arranged the points conformably, so as to make the text express their preconceived opinions. In relation to the present instance, for example, Kimchi, as McCaul observes, “considered the Person designated the ‘angel of the Lord,’ as nothing more than one of the many angels to whom he supposes the governance of this lower world is committed.” Observations, page 9. Doubtless the authors of the points held the same opinion. McCaul observes, in his introduction, that Kimchi and other Rabbies of his day “endeavored to get rid of the Christian interpretations, and to root out the Christian doctrines which had descended from the ancient Jewish Church.”

[CHAPTER IV.]

Visible Appearance of the Messenger Jehovah to Hagar.

The first recorded instance of the visible appearance of the Angel or Messenger Jehovah, is that to Hagar, Gen. xvi., where the designation Melach Jehovah is repeated several times. The Messenger Jehovah found Hagar by a fountain of water. He called her by name; directed her to return to her mistress; promised to multiply her seed exceedingly; and directed her to call her son Ishmael, “because Jehovah had heard her affliction.” “And she called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou El seest me: for she said, Have I also here looked after him that seeth me?” The visible Person whom she saw, and who spoke to her, and promised what none but a Divine Person could promise, is called Melach Jehovah, and also Jehovah, and El. He was therefore not a messenger of Jehovah, or a distinct person from him, but Jehovah himself, as recognized and worshipped under the several designations here applied to him. Considered as the administrator of Providence, the things said and done by him were in keeping with his delegated character, and with the acts ascribed to him on other occasions. There is a further notice of his dealings with Ishmael, Gen. xxii. 17, after his expulsion, with Hagar, from Abraham’s house, and her abandonment of him in despair of his life. “And Elohim heard the voice of the lad: and Melach Elohim [in our version, the angel of God] called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her, What aileth thee, Hagar? Fear not; for Elohim hath heard the voice of the lad, where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him in thy hand; for I will make of him a great nation. And Elohim opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and Elohim was with the lad,” &c. Here the speaker is Melach Elohim, which designation must refer to the same official Person as that of Melach Jehovah in the former instance, for he personally promised the same thing; saying in the one case, “I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude;” and in the other, “I will make him a great nation.” That the import and reference of the two formulas is the same, is also evident beyond a question from other passages, where both are indifferently applied to the same person; as Judges vi. 20, 21: “And Melach (the) Elohim said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes and lay them upon this rock, and pour out the broth. And he did so. Then Melach Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh,” &c. And again, Judges xiii. 3-9: “And Melach Jehovah appeared unto the woman, and (the) Elohim hearkened to the voice of Manoah, and Melach (the) Elohim came again unto the woman.” The narratives in which these passages occur clearly restrict the reference to one and the same Person.

In the original of these quotations, the article is prefixed to the word Elohim, as it is also elsewhere, (underscored, or included above and hereafter in parenthesis,) which is by some supposed to require the rendering to be, as in our common version, the angel or messenger of Elohim. But this conclusion cannot be sustained: 1st, because it indicates something different in respect to the Person referred to from the formula Melach Jehovah; and 2d, because in other instances of similar formulas the article does not occur, as in Gen. xxi. 17: “And Melach Elohim called to Hagar.” The occurrence of the article does not determine the construction. It is often redundant, and is prefixed to the word Elohim where it cannot be a sign of the genitive, because not immediately preceded by a noun to govern it. Thus in the passage above quoted from Judges xiii. we read, “and the Elohim hearkened,” &c., the article being prefixed in the original. So Gen. vi. 11: “The earth also was corrupt before the Elohim.” Gen. xvii. 18: “And Abraham said unto the Elohim.” Gen. xxii. 3, 9, xxvii. 28, and many other places.

[CHAPTER V.]

No visible Divine Appearances ever made except of the Messiah, the Mediator in all the Relations of God to the World.

Having shown that the denominative Melach, when coupled with the name Jehovah, or the name Elohim, or used interchangeably with either of those or with other Divine names, is a designation of the Messiah; that when that denominative is employed interchangeably with the names Jehovah, Elohim, or Adonai, those names designate the same official Person; and that the formulas Melach Jehovah and Melach Elohim have one and the same personal import and reference, the way is prepared for an examination of other Scriptures in which occur the same designations of the delegated One of whom Moses and the prophets wrote, the Word who was in the beginning, and by whom all things were created and are upheld.

This wonderful Person often, in the course of the ancient dispensations, manifested himself visibly in the likeness of that form which in due time he permanently assumed, by taking human nature into union with his person. In his delegated official character, being the agent in all external and visible works and manifestations, and the medium of all relations between creatures and the Self-existent, he was from the beginning the image and acting representative of the invisible Deity; delegated of the Father to accomplish the works which, pursuant to the counsels of eternity, belong to his comprehensive administration. To him, in this character and in distinction from the Father, belonged all visible personal manifestations. And hence, to enforce the necessary discrimination, and prevent erroneous impressions, the Evangelist John, chap. i., on announcing the visible Word, the Word incarnate, as the visible expression of the glory of the Father, says: “No man hath seen God (the Father) at any time; it is [see Campbell’s version] the only-begotten Son, that is in the bosom of the Father, who hath made him known.” And again, chap. vi. 45: “Every man that hath heard and learned of the Father cometh unto me; not that any man hath seen the Father;” (or, as rendered by Campbell,) “not that any man, except him who is from God, hath seen the Father. He, indeed, hath seen the Father,” Again xiv. 9: “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father;” that is, hath seen the image, the only visible representative of the Father. And in his first epistle, chap. iv: “No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us. And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.”

These statements preclude the supposition of any visible personal appearance during the preceding dispensations, excepting of the delegated official Person to whom the revelation of the Invisible was assigned; and who when referred to as Creator is called Elohim and Jehovah, and when referred to as the administrator of Providence, or in his relations to individuals and to the house of Israel, is called indiscriminately by all the Divine names and titles, whether significant especially of his Divine nature, or of his official person, agency or character.

In these multiform relations he was the great theme, as he was the lawgiver, administrator and revealer of the ancient dispensations; asserting the same prerogatives and performing the same acts when referred to by official titles, as when specially denominated Jehovah or Elohim. In both cases, from the nature and historical connection of the acts ascribed to him, it is evident that the actor was personally one and the same.

The word Elohim is a general term, employed, it may be presumed, originally, with reference only to the Supreme Being, but subsequently appropriated to imaginary deities. In the Hebrew Scriptures it occurs in several forms, as El, Elohe, Eloah, Elohim, referring sometimes to the Divine Being absolutely, sometimes definitely to the Father, sometimes to the Holy Spirit, but commonly to the Son; as is the case with corresponding and equivalent designations in the New Testament. The radical idea of this word, in its simplest form, is, according to some Hebrew lexicographers, that of interposer, intervener, mediator; derived from the intervention of air and light between all bodies in space, and indicating the universal agency of the Divine Person, primarily designated as interposer or mediator. And undoubtedly the scope of numerous passages implies this special reference, though not always apparent, without reference to other scriptures; as in Psalm xlv. 6: “Thy throne, Elohim, is for ever and ever;” and cii. 24: “I said, El, [with the suffix for my, and rendered O my God,] take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish,” &c. These passages are quoted, Heb. i., as having referred expressly to Christ.

Hengstenberg, in his Christology, p. 160, vol I., introduces his investigation respecting the character of the Angel or Messenger, in which he designs to show that the alleged essential oneness of the Messiah with the Jehovah does not contradict the Old Testament doctrine of the unity, by observing, “that the New Testament makes us acquainted with God, the Father of Jesus Christ, as a Spirit, who, being every where equally present, never manifests himself in a sensible form. But besides this concealed God, it makes known to us also a revealed God, associated with him by the oneness of their nature; the Son or Logos, who has constantly filled up the infinite distance between the Creator and the creation, and been the Mediator in all the relations of God to the world and the human race; who, even before he became man in the person of Christ, was in all ages the light of the world, and to whom especially the whole direction of the visible Theocracy belonged. Although this doctrine was first unfolded with perfect clearness in the New Testament, yet we find an essential distinction between the unrevealed and the revealed God, even in the writings of the Old Testament.”

After examining the principal passages which speak of the Messenger or Angel Jehovah, and showing “that they really contain the doctrine of a distinction between the concealed and the revealed God,” pp. 165-182, he thus concludes, pp. 183-187: “We believe then that we have satisfactorily shown that by the Angel of Jehovah is to be understood the Revealer of God, who being a partaker of his Godhead, and united with him in the same nature, was the mediator in all his relations, first with the patriarchs, and afterwards with the visible Theocracy. This Revealer of Jehovah then was expected as a great Restorer in future times. This is evident from those places in the Old Testament which ascribe to the Messiah Divine names, attributes, and works; for if the Messiah were God, he could stand, according to the whole system of the religion of the Old Testament, in no other relation to the Most High God than that which the Angel of Jehovah was thought to sustain. Further, the passage in Malachi iii. 1 affords the most distinct testimony in favor of the identity of both. There the Messiah bears the name of the Angel of the Covenant, either, according to the general import of the term covenant, the angel who is the mediator in every engagement between God and men, or, according to its special meaning, the angel who established the covenant of Sinai with the people of Israel. From this appellation, therefore, it appears that the Messiah is the same as the Angel Jehovah, whose agency in giving the law at Sinai is not indeed expressly mentioned in the Mosaic account, but it is rendered sufficiently certain by analogy, and by the positive testimony of the prophet. As the Angel Jehovah, in those passages where he is expressly named, bears interchangeably the names Jehovah and Elohim, so must we often suppose him to be intended, where Jehovah only is spoken of throughout. Comp. Gen. xxxii. 24, &c., with Hosea xii. 4-6, and Exod. xx. 3, where the angel is not mentioned, and Jehovah says, ‘I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.’ Allowing it to have been the office of the Angel Jehovah in general to act as mediator in the transactions between the invisible God and men, his mediation must be assumed, in many instances, where it is not expressly mentioned.” “This identity of the Angel of Jehovah and the Messiah was acknowledged also by the later Jews.” “But what renders this identity indubitably certain is the evidence of the New Testament, in which Christ appears as the Mediator of the Old Covenant, and every thing is attributed to him which in the Old Testament is spoken of Jehovah and his Revealer. According to John xii. 41, Isaiah saw the glory of Christ and spake of him; on the other hand, in the passage referred to, chap. vi., Isaiah saw the glory of Jehovah. 1 Cor. x. 9, it is said, ‘Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and were destroyed of serpents.’ According to this passage, therefore, Christ was the leader of the Israelites through the wilderness, and was tempted by them. On the other hand, the Pentateuch relates that they were led by the Angel Jehovah; and in Numb. xxi. 5-7, that they tempted Jehovah. 1 Pet. i. 10 declares that the Spirit of Christ spake by the prophets: but the prophets themselves always refer to Jehovah as the source of their predictions. According to Heb. xi. 26, Moses preferred reproach for the sake of Christ, to the treasures of Egypt: the narrative in Exodus informs us that he sacrificed every thing to the service of Jehovah. According to Heb. xii. 26, at the giving of the law, the voice of Christ shook the earth: in Exodus this was done by Jehovah.” “We must in a certain respect distinguish between the Angel Jehovah and the Son of God, and not, with the Fathers and most of the old theologians, venture to say that they are perfectly identical.” “That the Mediator of the New Testament was also, as the Angel Jehovah, the Mediator in all the relations of God to the people of the Old Testament, was, with the exception of the above named Fathers, the unanimous opinion of the ancient Church.”

After quoting a list of authorities, he concludes: “Let us now briefly sum up the result of the preceding investigation. In the prophetic Scriptures, a divine as well as human nature is attributed to the Messiah; and yet every polytheistic idea is excluded by the assumption of his essential unity with the Most High God. It was expected that the Angel or Revealer of Jehovah, who had often before made himself occasionally visible, and acted as the Mediator between God and the people, in all their transactions, would assume human nature in the person of the Messiah, and redeem and bless both Jews and Gentiles.

“Here the question yet arises: If the distinction between the revealed and the unrevealed God was already made known under the Old Testament, wherein is the New Testament in this respect superior to the Old? The preference consists in this: Under the Old Testament the distinction was necessarily kept more out of view, and hence might easily appear to be founded not so much on a relation in the Godhead itself, as on a relation to those to whom the revelation was made. In the Old Testament, the Mediator commonly spoke and acted in the name of God, whom he revealed. Nor could it be otherwise before the Logos had become flesh. Hence the Revealer and He who was revealed in a manner lost themselves in each other. But under the New Testament, on the contrary, they appeared distinguished from each other, as Father and Son. Religion thus gained a two-fold advantage. It became more spiritual, and at the same time more an object of sense: more spiritual, by the exclusion of those limited conceptions of the spirituality, the omniscience, and the omnipresence of God which arose from confounding the Revealer with him who was revealed; more an object of sense, because the Son of God, in his life, sufferings, and death, brought the Divine Being nearer to man than was possible in the transient appearances of the Angel under the Old Testament. But such a condescension of the Deity to fallen man is indispensable to his becoming like God.”

On these passages it may be observed, that in what the author says of the Mediator having “constantly filled up the infinite distance between the Creator and the creation,” he proceeds on the common theory that the invisible, the concealed God, in distinction from the personal Word, is the Creator. This is inconsistent with the preceding statement, that he never manifests himself in a sensible form: for He who created, upholds and governs, appeared personally and visibly to Abraham, Jacob, Moses and others, as Jehovah, gave the law at Sinai, and was the leader of Israel. With respect to the distinction which he refers to as existing in a certain respect between the Angel of Jehovah and the Son of God, it is presumed that he considered the latter title as applicable to the second Person of the Trinity, eternally, and as designating that Person anterior to his appointment as Mediator, and without reference to his incarnation or his official work in any respect. The doctrine which he ascribes to the Fathers is presumed to be, that the official Person who is called the Angel Jehovah, and who took on him the seed of Abraham, was identically the same Person before and after the accession and union of man’s nature to the Divine; and that he was designated as the same person by the phrase, “the Son of God.” In the passages above quoted, where the preposition of is not inserted between the words Angel and Jehovah, the author gives the Hebrew words. When he translates them, he inserts the preposition.

[CHAPTER VI.]

Appearances of the Messenger Jehovah to Abraham and to Jacob.

In the narrative of Abraham’s offering of Isaac, Gen. xxii., we read that “Melach Jehovah called unto him out of heaven, and said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, for I know that thou fearest Elohim, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me. And Melach Jehovah called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith Jehovah, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, That in blessing I will bless thee, because thou hast obeyed my voice.”

At the commencement of this narrative it is said that (the) Elohim did tempt Abraham, i. e., try him in respect to his faith and obedience. “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah, and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham went unto the place of which (the) Elohim had told him.” There he built an altar, and having bound Isaac he laid him on the altar, and took the knife to slay him; when Melach Jehovah called to him, forbade the intended sacrifice, and said, I know that thou fearest Elohim, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son from me. From this it is evident that the offering was intended to be made, and was virtually made, to Melach Jehovah. For “By faith Abraham when he was tried offered up Isaac; accounting that God was able to raise him up from the dead, from whence also he received him in a figure.” Heb. xi. His faith, in this extraordinary act of worship, had immediate respect to the delegated Messenger Jehovah, then and ever the resurrection and the life. He was the Divine speaker on the occasion, his voice it was that Abraham obeyed, and to him he rendered the highest acts of homage and obedience. It was in his official name, as well as in that of Elohim, that he spoke to Abraham, and to him in all respects the scene evidently refers. After offering the animal provided in place of Isaac, he discerned an import and a reference in the transaction, which were to be fulfilled on the same mount at a future day; and he therefore named the place Jehovah-Jireh, importing that what was signified by his offering would be realized and witnessed there, and giving rise to a saying expressive of that result, and pointing no doubt, so explicitly as not to be misunderstood, to the sacrifice of Christ: namely, “In the mount of Jehovah it shall be seen;” or, according to Warburton, Book vi. sec. 5, “In the mount Jehovah shall be seen.”

In the narrative of Jacob’s departure from Laban, Gen. xxi., he says: “Melach (the) Elohim spake unto me in a dream, and he said, I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. I am the El of Beth-El, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me.” Here the Messenger Jehovah declares himself to be the God of Beth-El, and that the vow made there was made to him. In chap. xxviii., where that transaction is related, he is announced, not by this special name of office, but by other designations, showing that in his official character he was familiarly recognized by the various Divine names, whether employed separately or conjointly. And Jacob awaked and said, “Surely Jehovah is in this place; this is the house of Elohim: and Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If Elohim will be with me, &c., then shall Jehovah be my Elohe.”

There is in the history of Jacob another striking illustration of this usage. On his way from Padan-aram, after his interview with Esau, he came to Shalem in the land of Canaan and pitched his tent there, and built an altar which he called El-Elohe-Israel. Subsequently Elohim said unto Jacob, “Arise, go up to Beth-El, and dwell there; and make there an altar unto El that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother. Then Jacob said unto his household, Let us arise and go up to Beth-El, and I will make there an altar unto El who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. So Jacob come to Beth-El, and he built there an altar, and called the place El-Beth-El, because there (the) Elohim appeared unto him, when he fled from the face of his brother. And Elohim appeared unto Jacob again; and Elohim said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Isra-El shall be thy name. And Elohim said unto him, I am El-Shadai, (God Almighty.) And Elohim went up from him in the place where he talked with him.” Chap. xxxv. But He who visibly appeared to, and wrestled with him on the occasion referred to, Gen. xxxii., and whom he saw face to face, was Elohim in the likeness of man, and is called by Hosea Melach, the Messenger, even Jehovah Elohe of Zebaoth.

The above-mentioned appearance of Elohim to Jacob was doubtless a visible appearance, for after talking with Jacob, Elohim went up from him and from the place of meeting. And it is clear that the same Person who before was called a man is here called Elohim. Probably in other instances, where Jehovah or Elohim is said to appear, as to Isaac, Gen. xxvi. 2, 24, and to Abraham and others on various occasions, were visible personal appearances.

Another instance in the history of Jacob, in which the official designation Melach occurs interchangeably with Elohim, is Gen. xlviii. 15: “And he blessed Joseph and said, (The) Elohim, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, (the) Elohim which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Melach which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads.” The identity of Person here is made emphatic by the article prefixed to each designation.

[CHAPTER VII.]

References to various Appearances of Jehovah and Elohim to the Patriarchs.

It is evident from the preceding illustrations that during the patriarchal dispensation, the personal Word, Jehovah in the delegated character of Messiah, appeared visibly in the form of man, and was recognized under official and other Divine designations, appropriated separately and interchangeably to the one manifested and acting interposer and agent in the works of creation, providence and redemption. There are in the records of that dispensation numerous collateral evidences and implications to the same effect, which may be comprised under what relates to personal designations and appearances, the import and reference of sacrificial offerings, the places, manner, and immediate object of worship, prayer, faith and trust, and the familiarity of intercourse on the part of the Divine administrator of Providence and guardian of his people during that economy.

As a further evidence that the instances in which it is said that Elohim or Jehovah appeared to Abraham or others were local, personal, visible appearances, it may be observed that on the occasion mentioned, Gen. xvii., it is said that Jehovah appeared to him: “And he left off talking with him, and Elohim went up from Abraham;” as in a passage before referred to, chap. xxxv., that “Elohim appeared unto Jacob; and Elohim went up from him in the place where he talked with him.” The word translated went up, signifies to ascend, to go up, &c., and is of frequent occurrence. Thus, Ps. lxviii. 18: “Thou hast ascended up on high, thou hast led captivity,” &c.; quoted and applied to Christ, Eph. iv. Judges xiii. 20: “When the flame went up towards heaven from off the altar, Melach Jehovah ascended in the flame of the altar.” Ezekiel xi. 23: “And the glory of Jehovah went up from the midst of the city, and stood upon the mountain.” Gen. xix. 28: “The smoke of the country went up, as the smoke of a furnace.”

The like evidence as to the local, personal presence of Jehovah on such occasions, results from the use of the word translated came down, descended, where his presence or the local exercise of his prerogatives is mentioned. Thus, with reference to Babel and the dispersion: “Jehovah came down to see the city and the tower.... So Jehovah scattered them abroad,” &c. Gen. xi. 5. So on the occasion of his first visible appearance to Moses: “Melach Jehovah appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon Elohim. And Jehovah said, I am come down to deliver them,” &c. Exod. iii. Again: “Jehovah came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount; and Jehovah called Moses up to the top of the mount, and Moses went up.” Exod. xix. 20. And when Moses took the two tables of stone up to the top of Sinai, “Jehovah descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah.” Exod. xxxv. At the consecration of the seventy elders, “Jehovah came down in a cloud, and spake unto Moses.” Numbers xi. 25. At the sedition of Miriam and Aaron, “Jehovah came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and said, Hear now my words.” Ibid. xii. 5. These and various other passages clearly import a personal descent in a visible form; and no less clearly indicate, by the titles, occasions and acts narrated, that it was the delegated One, the Word, to whom all such manifestations refer, conformably to the allusion to the ascension of Christ, Ephes. iv.: “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens.”

The word translated appeared, in all the instances of local personal manifestation, literally means appeared visibly, was seen; as Gen. i. 9: “Let the dry land appear;” Gen. viii. 5: “The tops of the mountains were seen;” and vii. 1: “Thee have I seen righteous;” ix. 14: “The bow shall be seen;” xxxi. 42: “Elohim hath seen mine affliction;” xlviii. 3: “El-Shadai appeared unto me at Luz;” literally, was seen by me. Judges xiii. 22: “We have seen Elohim.” Exod. xxiv. 10: “And they saw the Elohe of Israel.”

This will be further illustrated by reference to particular instances mentioned in the book of Genesis. “And Jehovah appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto Jehovah who appeared unto him.” Chap. lxii. 7. That this was a visible manifestation, is indicated not only by the obvious import of the terms employed, but by Abram’s building an altar, and consecrating the locality as a place of worship, and of typical offerings to Jehovah.

Again, chap. xvii. 1: “Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am El-Shadai; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And Abram fell on his face; and Elohim talked with him, saying,” &c. After changing his name to Abraham, and that of his wife to Sarah, announcing a covenant with him, hearing his prayer for Ishmael, and giving sundry promises and directions, “Elohim left off talking with him, and went up from Abraham.” The language, and all the circumstances and details of this interview, imply a local, personal, visible presence of Jehovah.

The next instance, chap. xviii., is that in which “Jehovah appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre,” in the likeness of man; was entertained by him, walked and conversed with, and heard his requests in behalf of the righteous in Sodom: which undoubtedly was a local, visible, personal appearance of Jehovah the Word.

In the 26th chapter we read that Isaac went to Gerar, “And Jehovah appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt,” &c. Afterwards he removed to Beersheba, “And Jehovah appeared unto him, and said, I am the Elohe of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee,” &c. “And he builded an altar there, and called upon the name of Jehovah, and pitched his tent there.” At these interviews the same promises substantially respecting his descendants were made to him, that had been made to Abraham, with the same introductory formula concerning the appearance of the Divine speaker; and considering that Isaac built an altar and fixed his residence at Beersheba, worshipped, doubtless presenting typical offerings on the altar, and consecrating that as the place of his future worship in the confidence of its being thereafter a place of Divine manifestation, there seems to be very ample ground to conclude that these were local, personal, and visible appearances, similar in their form, as they were in their object, to those vouchsafed to Abraham.

The first instance to be noticed in the history of Jacob, is referred to in chap. xlviii. 3: “And Jacob said unto Joseph, El-Shadai appeared unto me at Luz, and blessed me,” &c. The occasion was that of his vision of a ladder: “And Jehovah stood above it and said, I am Jehovah Elohe of Abraham;” see chap. xxviii. Subsequently, chap. xxxv., he was directed to return and reside at that place. “Elohim said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel, and make there an altar unto El, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau. And he built there an altar, and called the place El-Beth-El; because there (the) Elohim appeared unto him, when he fled,” &c. The repetition of the word appeared in these passages, its implied significance as a reason for building an altar, the occasion referred to, and the object of speaking of it to Joseph, indicate a memorable personal, visible appearance at the place specified.

“And Elohim appeared unto Jacob again, and said unto him, I am El-Shadai; and Elohim went up from him in the place where he talked with him,” chap. 35: which can hardly be taken for any other than a local and visible presence.

[CHAPTER VIII.]

Of the Doctrines, Worship, and Faith of those earliest mentioned in Scripture—Reference to the History of Moses, Noah, Joshua.

Waiving for the present a notice of many analogous instances in other parts of Scripture, it may be observed that there are, in the history of the patriarchs, a variety of statements and expressions which, from the occasions to which they relate, the connections in which they occur, or the things specified, naturally imply the local personal presence of the Divine speaker, especially when considered in connection with the instances in which it is clearly shown that he was visibly present. In the course of that history there are numerous intimations that the worshippers of Jehovah had places appropriated to their religious services, where they offered prayers and sacrifices, and where, by an audible voice, he held immediate and familiar converse with them. Thus in the first recorded instance of worship, Gen. iv., we read that Cain, and Abel also, “brought an offering unto Jehovah. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and his offering he had not respect; and Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?” It is apparent from this narrative, and from their dissimilar occupations, that they prepared their offerings not in concert, but separately from each other; that they brought them to the same place at the same time; that they respectively offered them to Jehovah; and that he was present in such a way as to be recognized by them, for he immediately indicated to their apprehension and conviction his acceptance of one and rejection of the other, and spoke directly and pointedly to Cain. After his slaughter of Abel, and probably on his resorting again to the place of worship and Divine manifestation, Jehovah spoke again to him, and pronounced a curse upon him for his crime; to which Cain replied, as though not unaccustomed to speak to Jehovah, and said, among other things, as though conscious that he was excommunicated and banished from the consecrated place: “From thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.... And Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah.” Strongly implying that he had been accustomed to the visible presence, and had seen Jehovah, and that banishment from that place forbade the hope of such vision of him again.

It is evident from the details and circumstances of this scene, and from references to it in other parts of Scripture, that there was no want of intelligence in either of the parties, as to the nature and import of their offerings, the ritual and reference which they implied, or the righteous discrimination and the moral bearing and significance of the verdicts and consequences in their respective cases. “Cain was of the wicked one,” a disciple and servant of the great adversary, and slew his brother “because his own works were evil and his brother’s righteous.” He knew, as the questions which Jehovah addressed to him imply, that if he did well, if with the like faith he made an offering like that of Abel, he would in like manner be accepted; and that he had no just ground to be angry, or even to be disappointed on being rejected for taking a contrary course. But he brought—not like Abel a sin offering, implying a conviction and acknowledgment of his personal sinfulness, and of his faith in that great expiatory sacrifice to which his typical offering owed all its significance—but an offering of fruits, an expression of acknowledgment to the Creator, which implied no acknowledgment on his part of his being a sinner and needing a Saviour, or of his having any faith in the prefigured atonement, or any disposition to conform to the ritual of worship. The faith of Abel exhibited on this occasion was, like that of Abraham, effectual to his justification; a faith in the person, sacrifice, and righteousness of the Divine Redeemer; and is the first on the illustrious roll recorded, Heb. xi. And from the nature of the case, as well as from the particulars of the narrative, we must conclude that his offering was in all respects an example of conformity to the ritual of worship instituted by Jehovah, that it comprised not merely firstlings of his flock, but such as had all the characteristics which are specified in subsequent records; that it was made by fire on an altar, at a place appropriated to that object; that it was a medium of his faith and an expression of his homage and obedience, solely by reason of its reference to the person and prefiguration of the atoning sacrifice of Christ; and that it was rendered to that Person then locally present, in the form which he was at length permanently to assume, and in which his sacrifice of himself was to be made. So far at least as these particulars are concerned, the ritual and rationale of the worship prescribed does not appear to have been changed during the patriarchial dispensation, nor in that which ensued, though in the Mosaic ritual many details were added on the basis of those originally prescribed. The method of acceptable worship, the immediate object of homage, and the faith which was unto salvation, continued the same; and it is clear from the narratives in various instances, that burnt offerings, typical sacrifices, were made to the delegated one, personating the promised Seed, under the designation of Jehovah, or Melach Jehovah, when he was locally and visibly present.

It is to be considered that Moses wrote about 2500 years after the creation; that the children of Israel had retained the language and customs of their ancestors, so as to render it superfluous to particularize either the religious or civil institutions of earlier times, any farther than was necessary to the personal narratives or historical notices of individuals and families. They understood and practised what had been handed down from the beginning through Noah, Abraham, Jacob, and others, and though to some extent infected with the idolatrous spirit of the Egyptians, were familiar with the ritual, the sacrifices and offerings, and other institutions of the revealed system of religion. Moreover, all that concerned their religious doctrines and rites was, under his ministry, renewed, and with new revelations and ordinances set forth in writing for their instruction, and that of their successors. Hence the scanty, and for the most part merely incidental, mention of things of that nature in his retrospective history. It by no means follows from the brevity and infrequency of his notices, that such men as Abel, Enoch, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Job, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose united lives extended from the first institution of religious rites down to the settlement of Israel in Egypt, had not a clear and comprehensive knowledge of all the leading truths and essential doctrines of revealed religion, which were known to Moses or any of his successors prior to the advent of Christ. On the contrary, judging from the characters and relations which they sustained, the personal converse with Jehovah which most of them are recorded to have had, and the references made to several of them in the prophets and in the New Testament, we must conclude that they had such knowledge. They received instruction directly from the Great Revealer. Most of them were, at times, inspired, and prophesied. And one might as well conclude that Solomon did not understand even the simplest forms of numerical computation, because mathematics are not mentioned among the subjects upon which he spoke or wrote, as to conclude, because so little is recorded of them in detail by Moses, that these men of world-wide celebrity for their religious faith and practice, and their eminence as princes and heads of nations, did not understand the doctrines and the faith which they professed, and for which they are set forth as examples to Christian believers under the present dispensation.

The possession of such knowledge on their part, and the reality of the local presence and often the visible appearance of the Messiah, the Messenger Jehovah, may be illustrated by reference to the personal history of Moses, Noah, and Joshua, and to the use of terms by them and by other sacred writers.

After the children of Israel had sojourned in Egypt about four hundred years, Moses was called to conduct them to the land of promise. By oppressive laws and rigorous exactions under a new dynasty of kings towards the close of the period of their bondage, they were greatly depressed. At the birth of Moses, however, there were those who had faith, and the knowledge of the true religion was by no means generally effaced. In the exercise of faith his parents concealed him three months. “The children of Israel sighed by reason of their bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto the Elohim by reason of the bondage. And Elohim heard their groaning, and Elohim remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob; and Elohim looked upon the children of Israel, and Elohim had respect unto them.” Exod. ii. The people generally, it would seem, cried to the Elohe of their fathers for relief, and were heard and regarded.

Though from childhood to the age of forty Moses was one of the family and court of Pharaoh, and probably, therefore, could have had no peculiar advantages of instruction in the true religion, he nevertheless had such knowledge and experience of it, that “by faith, when he was come to years, he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” Heb. xi.

In this brief testimony concerning him, we clearly recognize the faith of Abraham, and of the prophets and martyrs of later times. He made no compromises with the honors, riches, or pleasures of the world, but renounced them. He sought not to serve two masters. He clearly discerned what distinguished the people of God from idolaters and unbelievers, and was well aware of the afflictions and trials which were consequent on their faith, and their allegiance and obedience to the Messiah, the Divine Mediator, the Messenger Jehovah, the Christ. In the certain prospect of affliction, reproaches, and sufferings, he chose publicly to manifest his faith and allegiance by his conduct. He forsook the court of Pharaoh, renounced the pleasures of sin and the riches of Egypt, and welcomed the cross.

In the family of Jethro, the priest of Midian, he probably found true worshippers, and met with nothing detrimental to his sentiments; and by the scene in which the Messenger Jehovah visibly appeared to him, doubtless his faith was so confirmed, and his knowledge increased, as to qualify him for the extraordinary services to which he was called. Hence we further read of him that, after the miracles and plagues by which Pharaoh was at length made to yield, “By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king.... And by faith he kept the passover and the sprinkling of blood.” Heb. xi.

Now it is in the light of his character as thus referred to—of his knowledge and experience of the true religion as held by the people of God then and in earlier times—of his faith in the person and mediatorial work of the Messiah—that we are to regard him as the writer of the primeval and patriarchal history; and if it is evident that he recognized the Messiah in the person of the Messenger Jehovah, and that in all his subsequent narratives he designated the same official person by the terms Jehovah, Elohim, and Elohe, as well as by the terms Messenger, Adon, and Adonai, then it is safe to conclude that he intended to designate the same Person by the same terms in the earlier history.

At the period of the legation of Moses, the word Elohim was in familiar use in Egypt and among the Israelites as the designation of the object of religious homage; very probably it was the only name of God known to the people generally. Moses accordingly, in the first two chapters of Exodus, which probably were written before the book of Genesis, employs that name only. The third chapter opens with the announcement of the Messenger Jehovah appearing in the bush, and in its progress applies to him indifferently the names Elohim and Jehovah; and in the fourth and ensuing chapters, the same, and Adonai and El-Shadai, but most frequently Jehovah.

If now we suppose the book of Genesis to have been written by him after the events in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and at mount Sinai, and the setting up of the tabernacle, (which occurred about twelve months after the exodus,) where the people, though generally familiar only with the name Elohim, must have become in some degree used to the name Jehovah, we may perhaps discern a fitness and beauty in the first announcements of the Creator in Genesis; where, in the first chapter and the first three verses of the second, the name Elohim only is used; in the second, from the fourth verse, the name Jehovah Elohim, and in the ensuing chapters these names separately and conjointly, and various other designations, as Melach Jehovah, Adonai, and El-Shadai. In numerous instances the article is prefixed to the name Elohim, as if emphatically to designate the God of Israel, the Creator, as the true Elohim, in distinction from the false god of idolaters.

By this method he recalled, and reëstablished in the minds of the people, all the Divine designations known to the patriarchs of preceding ages, and their reference and applicability as designations to the one mediatorial Person; rendering it plain that the Elohim of the Israelites in Egypt, and of the first chapter of Genesis, was identical with Jehovah, Melach the Messenger, Adonai, &c. In this view the resemblance of the first verses of the Gospel of John is noticeable, considering that it was his object to identify the Christ, as he appeared visibly incarnate, with Elohim the Creator announced in the first verses of Genesis.

Let it then be observed that in the narrative, Exod. iii. and iv., it is evident that one Divine personage only is referred to and designated by the several titles which are employed. That Divine personage appeared to Moses in the established or visible glory, the bright cloud-like envelope so familiar afterwards on mount Sinai and in the tabernacle. Moses, recording this appearance, says, “The Messenger Jehovah appeared to him.” This was a person bearing an official title—one sent—the Messenger of the Covenant, for whose appearance incarnate John Baptist was to prepare the way, Mal. iii. Moses turned to behold the sight. And when Jehovah, he who appeared in the visible glory, the Messenger, saw that he turned aside to see, Elohim, that is, the person in the visible Shaking, “called unto him out of the midst of the bush, ... and said, I am the Elohe of thy father, the Elohe of Abraham, the Elohe of Isaac, and the Elohe of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon Elohim;” that is, upon the ineffable glory of the Person, the Messenger Jehovah, the Elohim, who thus visibly appeared to him. “And Jehovah said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry, ... and I am come down to deliver them:” come down as a Person, so as to be locally and visibly present. The Elohim to whom the children of Israel cried, (chap. ii.,) and who heard their cry, is, on his first appearing visibly, called the Messenger Jehovah, and here announces himself to be Jehovah who had heard their cry and come down to deliver them. So surely therefore as these acts of seeing the affliction of the people, hearing their cry, coming down, and speaking to Moses, are the acts of a Person, this narrative and these several designations relate to one and the same Person; and this Person is shown to be the Messiah by his official title.

It being thus manifest that, as a Person locally and visibly appearing, these several designations were equally applicable to him, Moses in the next ensuing verses calls him Elohim, and asks by what name he shall designate him to the children of Israel. It is to be observed that there is no record of any visible appearance of the Messenger Jehovah prior to this since the days of Jacob; and it is probable that the names Jehovah and Messenger Jehovah, though known to the true worshippers, were not familiar to the people generally. But these designations being peculiar, and more distinguishing than that of Elohim, which was in common use among idolaters, were now to be proclaimed and brought into familiar use. “And Elohim said unto Moses, I am that I am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you:” expressions equivalent to those of John, “In him was life,” “I am he that liveth;” that is, the self-existent. “And Elohim said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah Elohe of your fathers, the Elohe of Abraham, the Elohe of Isaac, and the Elohe of Jacob, hath sent me unto you.... Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, Jehovah Elohe of your fathers, the Elohe of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you and seen that which is done to you in Egypt.” But it was the Messenger Jehovah who appeared to him, and speaking from the midst of the bush said, “I am the Elohe of thy father, the Elohe of Abraham, the Elohe of Isaac, and the Elohe of Jacob.... I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry.”

Again: “The elders of Israel shall hearken to thy voice, and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, Jehovah Elohe of the Hebrews hath met with us.... And now let us go that we may sacrifice to Jehovah our Elohe.” Jehovah Elohe of the Hebrews, and the Angel Jehovah who appeared to Moses, is therefore one and the same Person. The Messenger Jehovah, the Person who locally and visibly met with Moses, was the Elohe of the patriarchial dispensation.

In what follows, chap. iv., for the encouragement and confirmation of Moses, the power of working miracles is imparted to him by Jehovah, that the people might “believe that Jehovah Elohe of their fathers, the Elohe of Abraham, and the Elohe of Isaac, and the Elohe of Jacob, hath appeared unto thee.” By thus demonstrating the reality of the appearance, he would no less conclusively show that the appearance of the Messenger Jehovah was no other than the appearance locally and personally of the Elohe of their fathers.

Jehovah, still conversing with Moses, said, (verse 11,) “Who hath made man’s mouth, or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, Jehovah? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” Here the same Person, the Messenger, asserts the prerogatives of Creator, and the office of prophet or teacher. When Moses and Aaron had gathered the elders of Israel, “Aaron spake all the words which Jehovah had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people. And the people believed; and when they heard that Jehovah,” that is, the Messenger, “had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their afflictions,” which the Messenger asserted of himself, “then they bowed their heads and worshipped.”

In the progress of the narrative, and throughout the writings of Moses, the use of the same Divine appellations as in chap. iii. and iv., indifferently and interchangeably, with reference to the same acts, leaves no room to doubt but that the same Divine personage is uniformly referred to. Generally, that Person is called Jehovah when he speaks to Moses. When he appears visibly, as in the cloudy pillar, he is called the Messenger Jehovah. When his attributes or relations, as in covenant, are referred to, he is called the Elohe. In all cases alike he is the official Person, the Messiah, the Messenger of the Covenant. Hence Stephen, Acts vii., referring to the whole period of Moses’ intercourse with him, says, “This Moses is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the Messenger which spake to him in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers, who received the lively oracles to give unto us.” Thus it was the Messenger who spoke to Moses and to the elders and people at mount Sinai, though he is there called Jehovah and Elohim. “And Jehovah said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever.... And Jehovah came down upon mount Sinai on the top of the mount.... And Elohim spake all these words, saying, I am Jehovah thy Elohe, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, &c.... And the people [at the close of the scene] said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear, but let not Elohim speak with us lest we die.” Exod. xix., xx. Here the several Divine appellations are by Moses employed to designate the Person whom Stephen calls the Messenger. And Moses, Deut. v., says, “Jehovah talked with you face to face in the mount, out of the midst of the fire.”

Once more, Exod. xiv. 19, Moses, speaking of the passage of the Israelites through the sea, says, “The Messenger Elohim, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them: and it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel, and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these.” Here the same Person who is elsewhere called the Messenger Jehovah, is called the Messenger Elohim. This Person, and his change of position, are distinguished from the cloudy pillar, and its removal from the front to the rear of the camp. The Divine acts which ensued are ascribed to Jehovah; among which we are told that “Jehovah looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.” But it was the Messenger who was in the pillar of fire, (the Shekina,) and who therefore looked through the pillar of cloud which had been interposed between him and the Egyptians.

Suppose the Israelites under Moses to have had a knowledge, by previous revelations, of the truth concerning the person and work of Christ, and the way of salvation through him. In that case, such revelations not being committed to writing prior to Moses, but having been matter of oral instruction, were significantly expressed in an outward and visible manner by typical sacrifices, and other religious rites and prescriptions. By complying with these rites, the devout Israelite expressed his faith in the revealed truths which they were employed to recall and commemorate. The visible types were illustrative of revealed truths already known. They were not the medium of a revelation, but a medium through which faith in an existing revelation and obedience to it were expressed. Their office was not prophetic, but illustrative.

Thus, when under the Levitical economy the high priest, duly prepared and arrayed, entered the most holy place, his official person and acts constituted a striking visible emblem of certain truths concerning the Messiah’s person and sacerdotal work. Beholding that visible token and illustration of these truths, the believer’s faith was called into exercise. So when the priest offered a sacrifice of atonement and sprinkled the blood, burnt incense, or performed any other official act; and when the worshipper laid his hand on the head of the animal to be sacrificed, celebrated the paschal supper, or complied in any other respect with the prescribed ritual.

This method of worship and obedience through significant tokens and visible emblems, and types illustrative of known truths, was instituted soon after the fall, and suited in all respects the economy of outward and visible manifestation which prevailed down to the advent of Christ. Thus Abel, the patriarchs and prophets, worshipped, and thus Simeon and Anna at the time of the incarnation.

Of the patriarch Noah we read, Genesis vi.-ix., that he found grace in the eyes of Jehovah; that he was a righteous man; that he walked with (the) Elohim; that Elohim repeatedly spoke to him, directed him to build an ark, and prescribed the form of it, forewarned him of the deluge and of its object, directed him to enter the ark, and shut him in; that he did according to all that Jehovah commanded him; that Elohim directed him to go forth from the ark; that he built an altar unto Jehovah, took of animals denominated clean, and offered burnt offerings on the altar, and was accepted; that Elohim blessed Noah and his sons, prescribed certain laws to be observed thereafter, and announced a covenant of which the rainbow was made a perpetual token.

In all these communications, the form of address is like that of a person locally and visibly present: “I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh.... But with thee will I establish my covenant.... Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me, in this generation.... Elohim spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, I, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you.” And when Noah offered burnt offerings on the altar, “Jehovah smelled a sweet savor.” From all which, and the occasion and nature of the things said and done, and a comparison of this with the occasions of local appearance to Abraham and others, which are declared to have been visible, we may without presumption conclude that He who spake to Noah was present in a visible form. That he was one of the most eminent and most favored of those with whom Jehovah conversed, whose righteousness he attested, and to whom he assigned the most important services, and imparted the highest gifts, is shown by his being named first of the three, who, by their preëminent righteousness, might, if present, be expected by the captive Israelites to shield them from exterminating judgments. “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in the land, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith Jehovah Elohim.” Ezekiel xiv. And if there was, in the course of the patriarchial or Levitical dispensations, any occasion on which the nature and magnitude of the events were reasons for the local and visible presence of Jehovah, surely that of the judicial destruction of the whole race, excepting Noah and his family, may be assumed to have been such.

The word translated altar is from a root which signifies to kill, to slaughter animals for sacrifice, to sacrifice; also a sacrifice, the victim, or thing, sacrificed; and in the form translated altar it denotes the place or instrument of sacrifice, on which the slaughtered victim (wholly or in part) was consumed by fire, and the blood poured out or sprinkled. See Levit. viii. 21, 24, xvii. 6, and elsewhere. Accordingly, to build an altar unto Jehovah, was to erect a structure on which to offer to him slaughtered animals, to be consumed (probably in all instances of acceptable worship) by fire caused immediately by him. Such altars were, in many instances, and probably in all, erected by his direction, and at places specified by him, and they were places of customary worship and of Divine manifestation. It would therefore be incongruous and preposterous to suppose that the worshippers did not understand the doctrines and typical references involved in the system, as well as the ritual forms and observances.

The altar of burnt offerings, above referred to as the instrument of sacrifice by the shedding of blood, was typical of the cross as the instrument on which our Lord offered himself a sacrifice; and to this undoubtedly the true worshippers had reference, which implies a right apprehension of his person and office, as well as of the necessity and efficacy of his expiatory death, and its relation to the justification and acceptance of believers. His personal presence, in a form adapted to suggest such apprehensions, would seem to have been as necessary, when typical offerings were made by Abel, Noah, and others, during the patriarchial dispensation, as when made in the tabernacle and temple, where he was present in the visible Shekina, as is hereafter to be more particularly noticed. At present it may suffice to observe, that since he is declared to have been present in the likeness of man, and as the Melach Jehovah, on some occasions when burnt offerings were offered to him with his sanction and acceptance, as in that relating to Isaac in the history of Abraham, that of his appearance to Manoah, and that to Gideon, it may reasonably be inferred that his personal presence was equally requisite on all occasions of similar offerings.

The local personal presence of Jehovah in the form in which he was often visible is implied and affirmed in passages like the following:

When the children of Israel at Rephidim murmured against Moses because they had no water, Jehovah directed Moses to advance with the people and the elders, and said, “Behold, I will stand before thee upon the rock in Horeb, and thou shalt smite the rock,” &c. “And Moses called the name of the place Massah, &c., because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted Jehovah, saying, Is Jehovah among us or not?” Exod. xvii. 7; i. e., is he personally and locally present or not?

After the apostasy manifested in making a molten calf, Jehovah said to Moses, Depart with the people, &c., and I will send an angel before thee; for I will not go up in the midst of thee, lest I consume thee, &c. Moses having removed the tabernacle out of the camp, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle; and Jehovah talked with Moses. And Jehovah spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. Moses having expressed his great anxiety at the proposed substitution of an angel, and prayed for further instruction, Jehovah said, “My presence shall go with thee;” and he said, “If thy presence [i. e., thou, thyself] go not with me, carry us not up hence. For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.” Moses, for further assurance, desired to see the splendor of Jehovah’s person, and, in a modified degree, his request was granted. Jehovah descended—his glory passed by, &c. Exod. xxxiii. 34. This whole scene implies his local personal presence, in distinction from his universal, invisible presence.

The visible Deity is intended in all such phrases as, “before the Lord,” “being seen,” “going with,” “among you,” “in the midst of you,” &c., a local reference being manifest.

“Ye have despised Jehovah which is among you.” Numb. xi. 20.

The Egyptians “have heard that thou, Jehovah, art among this people; that thou, Jehovah, art seen face to face; and that thy cloud standeth over them; and that thou goest before them by day-time in a pillar of a cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night.” Numb. xiv. 14. Thus Moses argued to avert the destruction threatened on occasion of the murmuring at the report of the spies. The passage clearly imports that it was Jehovah himself who was seen face to face, and who went in the cloud.

So when a portion of the people resolved presumptuously to proceed, Moses says, Go not up, for Jehovah is not among you. Numb. xiv. 42; Deut. i. 42.

“The Lord thy God walketh in the midst of thy camp.” Deut. xxiii. 14.

In the future misery and desolation of the people they will say, “Are not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?” Deut. xxxi. 17.

When the Israelites were about to cross the Jordan to Jericho, Joshua, referring to the miracle by which they were to pass over dry-shod, says, “Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you.”

Moses is directed to exclude lepers, “that they defile not the camp in the midst of which I dwell.” Numb. v. 3.

“The sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah; and Satan came also amongst them.” Job i. 6. The context shows that a local personal presence is intended.

“God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved.” Ps. xlvi. 5. “Great is the Holy One in the midst of thee.” Isa. xii. 6. “I am God and not man, the Holy One in the midst of thee.” Hosea xi. 9. “Thou, O Jehovah, art in the midst of us; leave us not.” Jer. xiv. 9.

Joel, predicting the millennium, says, ii. 27, “Ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else.” See Zeph. iii. 15-17: “The King of Israel, even Jehovah, is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.” And Zech. ii. 5, x. 11, and viii. 3: “For I, saith Jehovah, will be the glory in the midst of her. Lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Jehovah. And many nations, &c. Thus saith Jehovah, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem shall be called, A city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts, The holy mountain.”

Jesus himself stood in the midst, &c. Luke xxiv. 36, John, &c. In the midst of the seven candlesticks. Rev. i. 13; ii. 1. In the midst of the throne stood a Lamb. Rev. v. 6.

The angel Jehovah appeared in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. Exod. iii. 2. Jehovah spake out of the midst of the fire. Deut. iv. 12.

“Jehovah said unto Moses, Lo, I come to thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee. Be ready, ... for the third day Jehovah will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai.... And on the third day, in the morning, there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount.... And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with the Elohim; and they stood at the nether part of the mount. And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because Jehovah descended upon it in fire.... And ... Moses spake, and (the) Elohim answered him by a voice. And Jehovah came down upon mount Sinai, on the top of the mount; and Jehovah called Moses up to the top of the mount; and Moses went up.... And Elohim spake, saying, I am Jehovah, thy Elohe.... Thou shalt have no other Elohim before me.” Exod. xix., xx.

If the acts here attributed to Moses are literally described, so also are those of Jehovah. If Moses literally went up to the top of the mount, the narrative no less plainly avers that Jehovah came down to the top of Sinai. He came down visibly—in the sight of the people; was personally and locally present.

On another occasion, chap. xxiv., he said unto Moses, “Come up unto Jehovah, thou and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders, and worship ye afar off; and Moses alone shall come near Jehovah, but they shall not come nigh.... Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the Elohe of Israel, and there was under his feet as it were a paved work.... They saw (the) Elohim, and did eat and drink.”

No terms could well express more distinctly a personal appearance, in the form seen by Abraham and others. His person was manifest to their senses. They ate and drank in his presence, who in the same form partook of a repast with the patriarch, and walked and conversed with him as one human person does with another.

“Jehovah called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.... And Moses went into the midst of the cloud.” Exod. xxvi. 16, 18. The cloud then was such that Moses could subsist in and be enveloped by it.

“And Jehovah said, I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy-seat.” Levit. xvi. 2. In this and similar instances a local personal appearance is evidently intended. No such phraseology would be suited to indicate the omnipresence, or merely the spiritual presence of Jehovah. See Deut. xxxi. 15.

“And the cloud of Jehovah was upon them by day when they went out of the camp. And it came to pass when the ark set forward that Moses said, Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return, O Jehovah, unto the many thousands of Israel.” Numb. x. 35, 36.

On these occasions the cloud visibly rose above the tabernacle, and advanced before the children of Israel; and again descended and rested on the tabernacle. The address of Moses seems unintelligible, unless Jehovah was personally present.

“And Jehovah came down in the pillar of the cloud and stood in the door of the tabernacle.... And he said, With Moses will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently; ... and the similitude of Jehovah shall he behold.” Numb. xii. Surely a local personal presence is here intended.

“At the door of the tabernacle before Jehovah, I will meet you, to speak there unto thee; and there I will meet with the children of Israel; and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory; and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their Elohim. And they shall know that I am Jehovah their Elohe, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt that I may dwell among them.” Exod. xxix. 42-46. “Defile not the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I Jehovah dwell among the children of Israel.” Numb. xxxv. 34. “I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. In all the places wherein I have walked with the children of Israel,” &c. 2 Sam. vii., and 1 Chron. xvii.

So of the phrases, “dwelleth between the cherubim,” “sitteth between the cherubim,” and the like, which imply the local personal presence of Jehovah.

The local presence and agency of the Messenger Jehovah, as Captain of his hosts, and dictator to Joshua of all the steps taken by him in the conquest and destruction of the Canaanites, is clearly indicated throughout the book of Joshua.

Joshua had, for forty years in the wilderness, as minister to Moses, been familiar with the personal presence, the agency, the miraculous power, and the voice of the Messenger, in the tabernacle, in the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, on mount Sinai, and on many peculiar and special occasions.

His name properly signifies Saviour. The Hebrew word Jehoshua is equivalent to the Greek name Jesus, or Saviour.

On the occurrence of the war with Amalek, shortly after the passage of the Red Sea, Joshua was appointed by Moses to command the army of the Israelites. He led out the chosen men of war, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur took their station on a neighboring hill, where Moses held up the rod of God, as a token that all the success under Joshua, in the destruction of the Amalekites, was owing to the superior power of Jehovah exerted specially on the occasion. When Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed.

The battle being ended by the discomfiture of Amalek and his people, Jehovah said unto Moses, “Write this for a memorial, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, That I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi,” i. e., the Lord my banner. Exod. xvii.

Thus the supremacy and leadership of Jehovah was fully acknowledged. It was his war, executed under the lieutenancy of Joshua, in accordance with the specific directions given to Moses, and in the exercise of faith in the will of Jehovah, as indicated by tokens of his appointment.

On the occasion of the giving of the tables of stone, Joshua accompanied Moses, as his minister, into the mount of God. There they tarried forty days, while “the sight of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire on the top of the mount, in the eyes of the children of Israel.” The directions concerning the construction of the tabernacle were given on that occasion. Exod. xxiv. When they descended from the mount, Joshua seems first to have heard the shouting of the people before the molten image they had made. Exod. xxxii.

In the progress of the events which succeeded this defection, the cloudy pillar—the Shekina—descended from Sinai, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and Jehovah talked with Moses. “And Jehovah spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And Moses turned again into the camp, but his minister Joshua departed not out of the tabernacle.” He, therefore, doubtless heard and saw the same as Moses. Ibid. xxxiii.

He was one of those sent to examine and report concerning the land of Canaan, Numb. xiii.; on which occasion, Moses changed his name from Oshea to Jehoshua. Ten of those sent were unfaithful. The joint report of Joshua and Caleb was true and faithful. The ten were destroyed by a plague; the two were protected and preserved. Ibid. xiv.

Joshua was specially set apart as the successor of Moses, and consecrated by the laying on of Moses’ hands, in the presence of the high priest and the congregation. Numb. xxvii. He, with the high priest, was appointed to divide the land. Ibid. xxxiv. When Moses was forbidden to enter the good land, he was notified that his minister Joshua would lead the children of Israel thither, and commanded to encourage him. Deut. i. 38. This he did, Deut. iii., and more emphatically, chap. xxxi., when in the presence of all Israel he encouraged him, and cited the predictions concerning his causing the people to inherit the land; adding, “And Jehovah, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee; fear not, neither be dismayed.”

On the death of Moses, we read that “Joshua, the son of Nun, was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands upon him; and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as Jehovah commanded Moses.” Deut. xxxiv.

Notwithstanding all this training, discipline, and intimate fellowship with Moses for forty years, and the premonitions, designations and predictions of him, as leader of Israel in place of Moses; yet such was the sacredness and specialty of the relation in which he was to officiate, that Jehovah spake unto Joshua, charged him with the duties he was to perform, and promised him victory and complete success, in case of his fidelity. “As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee. I will not fail nor forsake thee. Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” Josh. i.

Joshua was to act only upon the authority expressly delegated to him, and in the strictest subordination to the directions previously given to Moses, and those which Jehovah now and from time to time announced to him. The circumstances, like those which attended Moses at the commencement and throughout his official life, required an assured and unwavering faith in the declared purposes, the promises, the presence and power of Jehovah the Elohe of Israel, the king, preserver, teacher, and guide of his people.

There was, no doubt, a degree of mysteriousness connected with the personal and local manifestations of Jehovah, which rendered an unwavering faith constantly requisite. The minds of men, no less at that than at other periods, were most readily and strongly affected by visible and familiar objects. The chief incitements to idolatry were visible, and such as were supposed to be easily comprehended. The fears of men, founded in their consciousness of guilt and ignorance, had reference naturally to things invisible and mysterious. The conscious depravity, corruption, blindness and ill-desert of men, in contrast with the perfect holiness, righteousness, impartiality, and other perfections of Jehovah, could not but excite their natural inclination to exclude him from their thoughts, instead of loving and confiding in him, and realizing his presence by faith.

Whether for these or other reasons, a strong, constant, unwavering faith in the person and the perfections, prerogatives and works of Jehovah, was not uniformly exhibited even by the patriarchs and prophets of the ancient dispensation. That dispensation was specially characterized as one of outward and visible manifestations, miraculous interpositions, and audible revelations; yet in the most signal instances of strong faith as occasioning it, some special and overpowering manifestation of Jehovah was vouchsafed. Thus Abraham, on the occasion of entering into and ratifying the covenant concerning the everlasting inheritance of the promised land by his posterity, through Christ as his Seed; the Shekina visibly appeared, passed between the pieces of the sacrifice, and probably consumed them. And again, prior to the destruction of Sodom, when that event was revealed, and the earlier promises were renewed to him, Jehovah appeared in the form of man, and conversed and walked with him.

[CHAPTER IX.]

Narrative concerning Job.

In the narrative concerning Job, who is supposed to have lived in the age preceding that of Abraham, we read, chapter i., that he from time to time offered burnt offerings continually; and that “there was a day when the sons of (the) Elohim came to present themselves before Jehovah, and Satan came also among them. And Jehovah said unto Satan, Whence comest thou?—And Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah.” A statement in the same words is made in relation to another day, chapter ii.; from which passages it appears that Job, as priest of his family, offered typical sacrifices according to the custom of that age; and that there was a place to which the true worshippers came to present themselves before Jehovah—a place doubtless of customary resort for worship, and, from the analogy of the patriarchal history, of visible manifestation. They came there to present themselves before Jehovah, implying that he was personally and locally present; which is also strongly implied in the statement, on both occasions, that Satan went forth from the presence of Jehovah. That adversary and accuser of the sons of Elohim was literally present, and it is not perceived how he could be said to go forth from the spiritual presence of Jehovah. It is probable that he was not visible to the worshippers, and that neither the words addressed to him, nor his replies, were audible to them. But those words proceeded from Him from whose presence he went forth.

However this may be, it is evident from subsequent passages that Job had clear apprehensions of the person and office of the Redeemer, and recognized him as Jehovah in the administration of providence. To that official person he doubtless refers under the designation Shadai, translated Almighty, which he employs more than thirty times; which appears from Exod. vi. to have been familiar to the patriarchs, and which, from a comparison of passages from the Old and New Testaments, signified the same divine Person as Melach Jehovah. In one instance only he employs the term Adonai as a Divine designation—namely, in the passage concerning Wisdom, chap. xxviii.: “Elohim understandeth the way thereof. When he made a decree for the rain, then did he see it. And unto man he said, Behold the fear of Adonai, that is wisdom.” In chapter xix. he refers to the same Person under an official designation of frequent occurrence. “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and ... in my flesh shall I see Eloah.” The word Goel, translated Redeemer, is employed with the same reference in the following among other passages. “Melach the Messenger, which redeemed me from all evil.” Gen. xlviii. “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Jehovah, my strength and my Redeemer.” Ps. xix. “And they remembered that Elohim was their rock, and El, their Redeemer.” Ps. lxxviii. “Thus saith Jehovah your Redeemer, and the Holy One of Israel.” Isa. xliii. 14. “Thus saith Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah Zebaoth.” Ibid. xliv. 6. “Thus saith Jehovah thy Redeemer, and he that formed thee, I am Jehovah that maketh all things, that stretcheth forth the heavens alone,” &c. Isa. xliv. 24. “All flesh shall know that I Jehovah am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.” Isa. xlix. 26.

The original word, as a verb, signifies to redeem, to ransom; and as a noun, a kinsman, blood relation, one having a right, or to whom it pertained, to redeem; redeemer, kinsman-redeemer. Hence, when employed as in the passages above cited, it includes a reference to the complex person of Christ, and to Eloah in human nature, as spoken of prospectively by Job.

At the close of his appointed trial, when the integrity of Job had been vindicated, and the imputations and predictions of the adversary confuted, a different and more glorious manifestation of Jehovah was made to him, a manifestation adapted and designed—like that to Ezekiel, chap. i., in the likeness of a man on a throne in the midst of fire and cloud, moving as in a whirlwind, and like that to Isaiah, chap. vi., and that to the disciples on the holy mount—to impart to him new and more exalted apprehensions of the perfections, prerogatives, and works of Jehovah; to fit the humbled and penitent beholder for the gifts and honors he was to receive, the duties he was to perform, and the conspicuous station he was to occupy as one whose righteousness had been publicly tried and divinely attested. “Jehovah answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” &c.; adding a prolonged detail of his works of creation and providence, and contrasting the ignorance and nothingness of man with the operations of his wisdom and power. Job answered: “Behold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.” He confesses his sinfulness, the ignorance and errors which had marked his replies to his friends, and adds: “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” He saw him in that ineffable and, to mortals, all but insupportable splendor of glory, which caused such an impression of his deity and his holiness, as in contrast to make him conscious of his own vileness as a sinner, and induce in him the utmost self-abasement; as in the parallel instance of Ezekiel, it is said that “he fell upon his face;” and in that of Isaiah, that he exclaimed, on seeing Adonai Jehovah Zebaoth, “Woe is me! for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips;” and of Daniel, in an analogous instance of his vision of the same glorified Person in the likeness of man, chap. x., that he fell with his face to the ground, that there remained no strength in him, that his comeliness was turned into corruption. So at the Transfiguration on the mount, the disciples fell on their faces and were sore afraid. Paul, on witnessing a like personal manifestation, fell to the earth; and John, in Patmos, seeing that glorified Person, fell at his feet as dead.

There was prevalent, at a very early period, a sentiment that to see God would occasion or be followed by the death of the beholder; which probably arose, not from simple appearances in the likeness of man, on occasions which called for no exhibitions of Divine majesty and glory, but from manifestations of overpowering, insupportable radiance, comparable only to that of lightning, or that of the unclouded sun. Such a manifestation we may well suppose to have been made on the expulsion of Adam from Eden, in conjunction with the cherubic forms, as in repeated instances afterwards. It was demanded by the occasion and the end to be accomplished. There were sword-like flames, or lightnings, as when Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with (the) Elohim, when he descended on mount Sinai; and they, terrified by the lightnings, said, “Let not Elohim speak with us, lest we die;” and as in the vision of Ezekiel, “out of the fire went forth lightning.” So when the seventy elders ascended mount Sinai with Moses, “and saw the Elohe of Israel, the sight of the glory of Jehovah was like devouring fire.”

The sentiment or apprehension above referred to is indicated by Jacob, after wrestling with the Messenger Jehovah: “I have seen Elohim face to face, and my life is preserved.” Also in the words addressed to Gideon after he had exclaimed, “Alas, O Adonai Jehovah! for because I have seen the Messenger Jehovah face to face. And Jehovah said unto him, Fear not, thou shalt not die.” And, “Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen Elohim.” Such an inference is very likely to have been drawn from the declaration of Jehovah to Moses, Exod. xxxiii. 20: “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live;” that is, see me unveiled by the human form, or by a dark or luminous cloud-like envelope, as in the burning bush, on mount Sinai, and in the tabernacle; for in these modes of appearance Moses had repeatedly seen him, and in the chapter above referred to, vs. 9, we read that, “As Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle; and Jehovah spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” But, owing to the defection of Aaron and the people in making and worshipping a molten image, he had, to the consternation of Moses, intimated a purpose to withdraw from among them; and after he had, upon the earnest entreaty of Moses, signified that his presence should continue with them, Moses, in his anxiety and perturbation, and perhaps fearing that he would not visibly manifest himself, (see vs. 16,) besought that he would show him his glory, the unclouded glory of his person. This was denied, as certain to be fatal. But as far as he could endure the sight and live, the request was granted. “And Jehovah descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the earth, and worshipped.”

[CHAPTER X.]

Further notice of Divine Manifestations to Abraham and Jacob—Mysteriousness attending the Divine Appearances—The visible Form always like that of Man.

In resuming the notice of expressions and statements in the history of the patriarchs, which imply the local and visible presence of Jehovah, the first to be referred to is in Gen. xii.: “Now Jehovah had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing, and in thee”—thy SEED, which is Christ, Gal. iii. 16—“shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as Jehovah had spoken unto him. And Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran ... to go into the land of Canaan.” He had, some time before this, migrated with Terah his father from Ur of the Chaldees to Haran, as is related chap. xi. 31. That removal, by which probably he was separated from idolatrous neighbors, is thus referred to, chap. xv. 7: “And Jehovah said unto him, I am Jehovah that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.” And again, Nehemiah ix. 7: “Thou art Jehovah (the) Elohim, who didst choose Abram, and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees.” From those references it is apparent that he was chosen, called, and received immediate personal communications from Jehovah, whom he afterwards saw in the form of man, and knew as El-Shadai, Jehovah, Adonai Jehovah, and Melach Jehovah.

Having arrived at the plain of Moreh, in the land of Canaan, “Jehovah appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy SEED will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto Jehovah who appeared unto him.” Considering the reiterated statement in this brief passage that Jehovah appeared to Abram; that the occasion was that of the first formal announcement of the great promise of that dispensation to which all subsequent revelations, covenants and promises to Abraham relate; that on the most explicit renewal of this promise, chap. xxii. 18, Melach Jehovah is the speaker; and that Abram signalized the occasion of this first announcement by erecting an altar to Jehovah, and doubtless offering burnt offerings thereon, there seems sufficient ground to conclude that this was an instance of local visible presence.

Abram next removed to a mount east of Beth-El, “and there he builded an altar unto Jehovah, and called upon the name of Jehovah.” Chap. xii. 8. On the occurrence of a famine he went down to Egypt, whence he returned to Beth-El, “unto the place of the altar which he had made there at the first, and there Abram called on the name of Jehovah.” xiii. 4. These passages indicate his custom of offering typical sacrifices, and calling on the name of Jehovah at the place set apart, for the time being, to that purpose; and from the nature of the case, and its analogy to other recorded instances (as Gen. xxxii. 13) of such offerings to Melach Jehovah, there is no ground to suppose that the same official Person was not the immediate object of homage in the present instance.

So of the ensuing narrative, Gen. xiii. 14-18: “And Jehovah said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.” “Then Abram removed his tent, and came and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, and built there an altar unto Jehovah.”

In chapter xv. we read that “The Word of (rather who is) Jehovah came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram; I am thy shield and thy exceeding great reward. And Abram said, Adonai Jehovah, what wilt thou give me, &c. And behold, the Word (who is) Jehovah came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; ... and He brought him forth abroad and said, Look now toward heaven and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in Jehovah, and He counted it to him for righteousness. And he said unto Him, Adonai Jehovah, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” In this narrative the Personal Word appears to be designated by a term equivalent to Logos, as applied in the first chapter of John, namely, Dabar, importing the same as the Chaldee term Memra, frequently inserted with the same personal reference by the Chaldee paraphrasts. The Dabar (who is) Jehovah came unto Abram, saying, ... He brought him forth abroad, and said, &c. These are personal acts, not to be affirmed of an audible voice. They imply the local presence of the speaker, whom Abram addresses as Adonai Jehovah. Throughout the chapter he is the speaker. Abram’s faith in him as Jehovah is unto righteousness. In this, as in some instances hereafter to be noticed, the sense and construction of the passage seem to require that the term translated Word should be considered a personal designation, having the same relation to the term Jehovah as Adon, Adonai, and Melach.

On the occasion of changing the patriarch’s name to Abraham, and that of his wife to Sarah, chap. xvii., “Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am El-Shadai; walk before me, and be thou perfect.... And Abram fell on his face, and Elohim talked with him.” vs. 1, 3; and vs. 19, 22: “Elohim said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed.... And Elohim went up from Abraham.” Here the phraseology in each of the clauses quoted implies a local personal presence of Jehovah. That it was a visible appearance is further implied in the next chapter, where, in the narrative of his appearance in the likeness of man, he refers to this promise of a son as having been made by him, vs. 10; and to remove the doubts of both Abraham and Sarah, he adds: “Is any thing too hard for Jehovah? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.”

Of the appearance last referred to, chap. xviii., when, in the form of a wayfaring man, he partook of the repast prepared by Abraham, spoke concerning Sarah, walked towards Sodom, disclosed his purpose of destroying that place, and heard Abraham’s request on behalf of the righteous, there can be no question of its having been local and visible. It is noticeable that the narrative of this manifestation is introduced by the same formula as others which include no express indications of his visibility. Thus, vs. 1: “And Jehovah appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre.” In the progress of the narrative, the Divine visitant is called a man, Jehovah, and Adonai, and at its close it is said that “Jehovah went his way”—literally, “walked away”—as “soon as he had left communing with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.” In the next chapter, which relates the destruction of Sodom, the same Person is called Jehovah and Elohim. “Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before Jehovah”—that is, before the visible Person in the likeness of man, to whom he addressed his prayers for the righteous. “And it came to pass when Elohim destroyed the cities of the plain, that Elohim remembered Abraham.”

When the time had arrived for Jacob to withdraw from Laban, “Jehovah said unto him, Return unto the land of thy fathers.” Gen. xxxi. 3. Referring to this, vs. 7, he says: “The Elohe of my father hath been with me.” After relating to his family something of the treatment he had received from Laban, and of the special favor of Elohim to him, he recurs to the command above quoted, vs. 11-13: “And Melach (the) Elohim spake unto me in a dream and said, I am the El of Beth-El, where thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow unto me. Now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred.... And Rachel and Leah answered, ... Now, whatsoever Elohim hath said unto thee, do.” The statements in the two clauses first above cited evidently refer to the same occasion as those which follow; and therefore the Elohe of his father, who had been with him, was Melach, the Messenger Elohim who spoke to him, vs. 11, and who doubtless appeared to him to be present, in a form with which he was familiar. This is further implied in the words at the close of his remonstrance with Laban, vs. 42: “Except the Elohe of my father, the Elohe of Abraham, and the Fear of Isaac had been with me, surely thou hadst sent me away now empty. Elohim hath seen my affliction, and the labor of my hands, and rebuked thee yesternight.”

The familiarity of Jacob with the visible presence of Jehovah is indicated by his expression when, to his surprise and joy, Esau met him with a kindness and cordiality which showed that he no longer harbored any ill-will towards him. Jacob urged him to receive his present, and said: “I have seen thy face, as though it had been the face of Elohim, and thou wast pleased with me,” chap. xxxiii. 10; implying that this personal interview and manifestation of favor produced an effect upon his feelings resembling that of visible Divine manifestations, to which he was accustomed; a signal instance of which had just occurred, chap. xxxii., when “he saw Elohim face to face.”

Doubtless there was a degree of mysteriousness inseparable from those appearances of the Divine Person, arising, however, not from their infrequency, for they seldom seem to have occasioned surprise, but rather from the different forms of manifestation, the different degrees of visibility; a consciousness that He who was sometimes visibly present was, when unseen, not absent; not less cognizant of their thoughts and actions, nor less their preserver and defender. They knew that he could, at pleasure, render himself visible in the simple form of man, in a vision, in a dense or a luminous cloud, in the colors of the precious gems and minerals, and in the insupportable splendors of the solar and electric fires. They knew that he was of purer eyes than to behold iniquity with any allowance, and were conscious of their defilement and ill-desert. Their faith reposed on him, unseen as well as manifest; and when he was locally present to their senses, it was necessary to exclude or modify their accustomed discrimination between spiritual and physical, invisible and visible conditions and modes of being.

There must have been, besides a familiarity with the fact of his visible appearances, a well-established association of authorized and intelligent convictions in their minds respecting his official person and character, the nature of his Agency, his mediatorial relations, which assumed a covenant or stipulated relationship of man with the Deity in his Person, and harmonized the Divine in his manifestations with the human in his visible form, all which necessarily involved more or less of the mysterious and unknown. Yet they well understood the tokens which identified him, and, if not exhibited in the first moments of his appearance, recognized them as soon as given, and promptly rendered him the homage, addressed him by the titles, and ascribed to him the prerogatives and works of the Creator, Proprietor, Ruler and Redeemer of the world.

But he was not at all times visible. The patriarchs lived by faith as well for the most part of their days and years, perhaps, with respect to him personally, as with respect to the future issues of his interpositions and administration. They could not see him at their pleasure, even when his words or acts indicated that he was locally near them. “Lo, he goeth by me,” saith Job, “and I see him not: he passeth on, also, but I perceive him not. Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him; he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him; but he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.”

It would seem to have been by an effect wrought in them, both when awake and when asleep, that he, and also that created spiritual beings, when locally present, became visible or manifest to their consciousness. In several instances the eyes of the beholders are said to be opened, not to behold objects ordinarily visible, but objects which, though present, it was not, without that operation, their privilege to see. Thus, in the narrative of Balaam, “the Messenger Jehovah stood in the way as an adversary against him,” and repeatedly checked his progress, while to him invisible. At length, “Jehovah opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the Messenger Jehovah standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand,” &c. So in the case of the servant of Elisha: “Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire, round about Elisha.” And of the disciples on the way to Emmaus in company with the risen Saviour, it is said, “their eyes were holden that they should not know him;” and at length “their eyes were opened, and they knew him, and he vanished out of their sight.”

Considering that in all ages and countries the minds of men have been startled and thrown off their balance by the supposed apparition of spirits, real or imaginary, angelic or human, from the invisible world, whether in material or in impalpable forms, and have regarded them as inscrutably mysterious and appalling, the fact that such impressions of surprise and dread were not commonly occasioned, or are so slightly indicated, when the Messenger Jehovah was unexpectedly and visibly recognized, strongly implies that the beholders were familiar not only with the reality and the modes of his appearance, but with his official Person, character and relations.

The statements and intimations contained in the Holy Scriptures concerning the celestial beings comprehensively called angels, warrant the conclusion, that the faculties by which they perceive external objects are analogous to those of man. They see and hear, and are seen and heard, in a way similar to that of the bodied human race. They have the faculty of becoming visible to men, and when visible, they have, in all recorded instances, the human form. It is obvious that, in order to be discernible by the human eye, they must have a specific form; and accordingly, both with reference to the Messenger who is Jehovah, and to the created angels, such is the case in each and every instance of visibility. Thus in the case of the three who, in the form of men, appeared to Abraham, prior to the destruction of Sodom. In form, the three appeared alike, and the two were distinguished from the One only by the circumstances which ensued.

To created angels appearing visibly in this manner, it is clear that the same laws of optics and acoustics are available as to men, only in a far higher degree. That they saw objects which are naturally visible to men as clearly as men see them, and heard sounds and voices audible to them as distinctly as they, is evident from every narrative in which such things are mentioned or implied. But their power of visual and auricular perception is not restricted as in the human race. From the nature of the organism in which the spirit of man resides, his natural power in these relations is very limited. In the instance of vision, however, his natural power may, in conformity with the ordinary laws of vision, be, by the appliances of art, immeasurably increased. Telescopes and microscopes are but additions to the natural organ. In angels that organ may naturally as far transcend the optical power of human skill and science, as the latter exceeds the unaided power of vision in man. Moreover, to spirits inhabiting angelic organisms, things which circumscribe human vision probably constitute no obstructions. Material bodies which to the human eye are opaque, may to them be as transparent as crystal or the atmosphere to man. The degree of light necessary to their vision of objects may be as nothing compared with that required by the human eye; and distance, so wonderfully obviated by the effect of optical instruments, may be, and undoubtedly is, proportionally, as nothing to them.

Now, since those beings have a distinct, personal, visible form—visible to the unaided human eye on the occasion of their appearance in the earlier and at the opening of the present dispensation, as at the annunciation and the resurrection—and since their visual perceptions correspond to our law of optics, it is to be inferred that they see each other and all external objects in the same way as they saw men; and doubtless the like, both with respect to the mode and the degree or extent of perception, may be safely inferred in relation to their hearing and feeling.

Whatever else may be true of the organisms in which they dwell, enough is revealed to justify the conclusion, that, being in their attributes as spirits like the spirits of men, they exercise their faculties through the instrumentality of those organisms in the same way as men through theirs. Thus it is certain that by means of those visible forms they exercise physical power. The two angels who came in the form of men to Lot in Sodom, “put forth their hands and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. And the men said unto Lot, Hast thou here any besides?... And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, ... and they brought him forth and set him without the city.” Gen. xix.

The established form, then, in which, from the beginning, spiritual beings have visibly appeared, was conformable to that assigned to the human race; insomuch that such beings were never otherwise discernible to the human eye. That form was assumed, with man’s nature, by the Messiah when he became incarnate; and there is therefore nothing incongruous or inherently improbable in the supposition of his having appeared visibly in the likeness of that form at earlier periods, as the Scriptures clearly teach. It is not more unlikely that in those earlier appearances, on occasions when no Divine effulgence was exhibited, his visible appearance should be like that of angelic messengers, than that theirs should be like that of man, or that his should be so when literally incarnate. And if the Deity has ever appeared visibly to man, it was indubitably to the patriarchs and prophets as the Messiah, under the designations and on the occasions heretofore referred to, and publicly in Judea at the period of his literal incarnation.

Consistently with these views, the Scriptures, in speaking of him in the various aspects and relations in which he appeared, employ terms which are appropriate to one with attributes and modes of visible action like those of man; of his head, face, eyes, hands, feet; of his sitting down, rising up, standing, walking, working, resting, hearing, speaking, and the like. As leader and defender of his people, “Jehovah is a man [is like a man] of war, Jehovah is his name.” Exod. xv. 3. “And Jehovah went [walked] his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham.” Gen. xviii. 33. “Jehovah looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud.” Exod. xiv. Moses and the elders ascended mount Sinai, “and they saw the Elohe of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire; ... and upon the nobles (Moses and the elders) he laid not his hand: ... they saw the Elohim, and did eat and drink.” Exod. xxiv. “And Jehovah descended in the cloud and stood with Moses, and proclaimed the name of Jehovah. And Jehovah passed by before him, and proclaimed, Jehovah, El, merciful and gracious. And Moses said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Adonai, let Adonai, I pray thee, go amongst us, and pardon our iniquity and our sin.” Exod. xxxiv. “Melach Jehovah stood in the way for an adversary against Balaam.... Jehovah opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw Melach Jehovah standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand.” Numb. xxiii. “And Joshua looked, and behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand.... And he said, As captain of the host of Jehovah am I now come.... And the captain of the host of Jehovah said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy.” Josh. v. “Melach Jehovah came up from Gilgal [the place where the ark, the ark of the Adon of all the earth, then rested] to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you into the land which I gave unto your fathers, and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.” Judges ii. “Thus saith Jehovah, Elohe of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and I said unto you, I am Jehovah your Elohe.” “And Melach Jehovah came and sat under an oak, and said unto Gideon, Jehovah is with thee. And Melach the Elohim said unto him, Take the flesh and the unleavened cakes and lay them upon this rock. And Melach Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes.” Judges v. “The eye of Jehovah is upon them that fear him.” Ps. xxxiii. 18. “The eyes of Jehovah thy Elohe are always upon it [the land].” Deut. xi. “The eyes of Jehovah are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry. The face of Jehovah is against them that do evil. Melach Jehovah encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them. They cry, and Jehovah heareth them.” Ps. xxxiv. “Melach Jehovah touched Elijah, and said, Arise and eat.” 1 Kings xix.

The preceding observations concerning the faculties of angels suggest the relation to their acquisition of knowledge of the visible persons, objects and events within their view on earth, and the congruity of that relation with the visibility of the God-man, Messiah, Mediator, Ruler, and Revealer.

Suppose the celestial hosts, with the visual powers and the freedom from the conditions of distance above intimated, from the moment of their creation in the full maturity of their faculties and of their endowments, except in respect to the knowledge to be derived from the evolution and progress of events, to have seen each other, and the visible objects of their own and other spheres; to have seen, among the earliest of events, the rebellion and dejection from their ranks of an archangel, with numerous adherents, followed by the apostasy and degradation of the progenitors of the human race; and, in connection therewith, to have seen the Personal Word walking in Eden, to have heard his voice, and thenceforth to have observed the acts and events connected with our race. It is plain that if they see and hear in conformity with the same laws as men, and acquire knowledge by so seeing and hearing, then it was necessary to them, as well as to man, that all the agents in the scene should be visible, and that their voices should be audible.

The object, on the occasions referred to, was to instruct and influence, by visible and tangible realities presented to the senses. To suppose some of the agents and acts to have been what they are declared to be, and others to have been illusions, unreal, imaginary, is to defeat the object of them, divest them of all certainty, and justify the same inference with respect to the human as to the celestial agents. In numerous instances it is evident that the power of vision in men was so enlarged, that they beheld objects not ordinarily visible to them. Had that augmented power continued, those objects would have continued to be visible, and so far from being less, would have been more free from illusion and uncertainty; and it is absurd, and contrary to all analogy, to suppose that it did not render their vision as certain, and their inference from it as just, in respect to every person and object apprehended by it, as in respect to any one of them. And if, as in the case of the three who appeared to Abraham, and in other cases, they did not see the persons in the likeness of men whom they are declared to have seen, then we have no ground of certainty that they themselves were present, or acted the parts ascribed to them.

It is observed above that in every instance of the personal manifestation of the Messenger Jehovah under the ancient dispensations, he was distinctly recognized in the likeness of man. On many occasions he is expressly called a man; and in various instances acts peculiar to a man are ascribed to him. Thus, at his appearance to Abraham in the plain of Mamre, to Jacob at Peni-El, to Joshua, to Manoah, to Ezekiel, to Daniel, to Amos, and to Zechariah, he is expressly called a man; in Eden and in the plain of Mamre he walked and spoke as a man; to Moses he spake face to face, as a man speaketh with his friend, and of him it was said, “the similitude of Jehovah shall he behold;” to Balaam, Joshua, and David, he appeared with a drawn sword in his hand; when accepting the offering of Gideon, he put forth the staff that was in his hand, and touched the sacrifice; he “touched Elijah, and said, Arise and eat.” Again, in the instances in which it is said that he appeared to Abraham and others, without specifying that his person was visible, and in those in which it is said that he came, or that the Word of the Lord came, to Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, and the prophets, the things said and done are, as to matter and manner, in respect to the persons addressed or spoken of, reference to circumstances of time and place, particularity of directions and details, similar to those in which he visibly appeared as man.

In the minds of the patriarchs and prophets, therefore, the human likeness in which he visibly appeared was intimately and familiarly associated with his person. When they thought of him, they thought of him in that form, and accordingly his visible appearance in that form occasioned little or no surprise. They knew, it may well be believed, from and after the first appearance or announcement of the Messiah in Eden, that human nature and the human form were appointed and essential conditions of his complex official person and his sacerdotal work. Every typical sacrifice, the piacular shedding of blood, the altar typifying the cross, the burnt offering, the paschal lamb, every net of worship founded on the revealed doctrine of mediation, implied this distinctive apprehension of his person as Mediator. To suppose that patriarchs and prophets to whom he appeared in this manner, and whom he inspired to teach others, did not know and recognize him in his true character, is not less derogatory to him than to them; and to suppose that those who earliest offered typical sacrifices did not as truly and adequately understand what belonged to his personal and official character as those who succeeded, is to nullify their worship and their faith, and to treat the system as a device of sinful and ignorant men, rather than as divinely revealed and sanctioned.

But the Divine Mediator being thus clearly and familiarly known from the first beginning of the race, as to the constitution of his complex official person, his delegated character, his sacerdotal and mediatory work; this knowledge being common to all true worshippers, and being illustrated and confirmed to others by local visible appearances of the Personal Word, by oral instructions from inspired men, and by the external institutions, rites and forms of the true worship; it is obvious how, and with what facility, the adverse party, the worshippers of Baal after the deluge, obtained their antagonist counterfeit notions of the incarnation of their rival god, and afterwards of other spiritual beings and disembodied intelligences; of a shekina of visible glory as the residence or tabernacle of Baal; of mediation, oracular responses, altars, sacrifices, incense, &c. To suppose that any one of these things was originally conceived and invented by the natural reason of man, is at once to yield the question between revealed religion and the competency of fallen man to devise one which should obtain the undivided suffrage of nine tenths of the human race from age to age. The utter absurdity of such a supposition is shown by the fact that all the different nations and tribes of idolaters have, from the earliest records and traditions of their history, held essentially the same ideas upon these and kindred subjects. In the history of some countries, indeed, as in that of India, Thibet and China, the notion of the incarnation, and of repeated incarnations, of their false god is more conspicuous than in that of others. But the notion that the shedding of blood would procure the remission of sin, that the piacular sacrifices must be offered on an altar and burnt with fire, that the firstlings of the flock must be sacrificed, and that incense must be burned by consecrated priests, has prevailed among all pagan nations and tribes, with or without letters, in all climates, and in all ages, and if not derived from the descendants of Noah at the dispersion, we must, by ascribing the invention to each distinct community for itself, imagine a greater miracle than that of the inspiration of true prophets.

The revolt of the arch-apostate, with his angels and the head of the human race, was an open renunciation of allegiance to Jehovah as Creator, Lawgiver and Ruler, from which a total and ceaseless alienation and opposition ensued, which, but for his redemptive work, would have subverted and defeated his design as Creator. To counteract and overcome that revolt required his humiliation unto death. Prior to that event, his opposers denied his prerogatives and rights as Creator, Lawgiver and Ruler, and arrogated them for creatures. The antagonist system of rivalship and homage was exhibited in the face of the universe in the forms of political tyranny and idolatry. To reässert and exhibit to the whole universe his claims, after his humiliation, he rose from the grave, ascended on high, was invested with all power in heaven and earth, and in his glorified and visible person as God-man was recognized as swaying the sceptre of universal empire.

His claims and prerogatives as Creator, Upholder and Ruler being thus manifested and established, and the efficacy of his vicarious death being at the same time demonstrated by the conversion and salvation of multitudes from age to age, he will at length return to the earth to consummate his victory over all adversaries, to remove the curse and restore the earth to its primeval state, assume his visible regal sway, and establish his everlasting kingdom.

The union, as appointed and fixed in the order of events, of the Divine and human natures in the Person of the God-man, was a primary condition in the great scheme of Divine works and manifestations. That union is, accordingly, implied in all the designations, whether prophetic or otherwise, of the Anointed, or official Person; the Logos, who was in the beginning; the Christ, who was before all things. On the basis of this union of the second Person of the Godhead with human nature, rendering him capable of subordinate relations and agencies, the works of creation, providence and grace were delegated to him by the Father.

Such a provision in the constitution of his official person, in order to the subordinate relations, delegated agencies, and visible manifestations, involved in his undertaking, would seem manifestly necessary. Apart from that provision, he was in all respects equal with the Father; and in respect to his person, therefore, some special ground of subordination, in order to the delegation to him of such works in such relations with man, and with material and visible things, would seem to be necessary. Again, the works delegated to him, and for which he was sent of the Father, all of them in some relations, and many of them absolutely, implied and required this union of the human nature with his person. Accordingly, in this delegated, subordinate official Person, he was foreordained before the foundation of the world, and had glory with the Father before the world was.

By him and for him, in his official person and delegated character, are all things. By him and for his pleasure they were created. He upholds all things, and by him all things consist.

His undertaking included the works of creation, providence and redemption; the physical and moral government of the world, and the manifestation of the Divine perfections to all intelligent creatures.

In the execution of his undertaking, local and visible manifestations of his person and of his official prerogatives and acts were indispensable, in the relations he was to sustain as Lawgiver and Ruler, Prophet and Priest. His undertaking comprised a succession of acts and dispensations, and of corresponding changes in the manner of his agency, the nature of his manifestations, and the immediate objects of his administration. In these respects the progress of his work is indicated in the revelation he has made in the Holy Scriptures, in which his person and his acts appear, from stage to stage, in different aspects. He speaks of himself, and is spoken of by the inspired writers, sometimes with reference only to his Divine, and at other times with reference only to his human nature. On some occasions acts are ascribed to him which are proper to him only as Divine; and on other occasions such as could be affirmed of him only as human; as in one case, the act of creation, and in the other, the act of walking.

It is in this complex person that he is primarily the object of all our knowledge of the Deity as revealed in the Scriptures. He is the image, the visible manifestation of the invisible God, whom no man hath seen or can see. He in this person hath declared, manifested the Father; no less under the earliest, than under the present dispensation.

Accordingly, though distinguished by Moses in the beginning of his narrative by designations which specially relate to the Divine nature in his person, acts are ascribed to him which denote his complex official person; such as walking in the garden of Eden, and conversing face to face with Adam. As his official work is in Scripture referred to as one comprehensive undertaking, though involving a long succession of acts and events, so his official person is ever referred to as the same, though in the succession many events preceded that of his taking man’s nature into union with that person. By appointment and covenant, virtually and officially he was the same from the beginning; and on that ground, and because his expiatory death in man’s nature was essential to his undertaking as a whole, and its effect as necessary to the earliest as to any succeeding portion of man’s race, he is spoken of as “slain from the foundation of the world.”

Had no apostasy of man taken place, we are warranted in believing that he would have continued that local, visible presence and intercourse with Adam and his descendants which characterized the earliest period of their existence. For as Creator of all things he was the Heir and Lord of all, and would have been Lawgiver and King of the race, the medium of their relations to God and of their homage, as he is to be hereafter at the restitution of all things to their primeval condition, when all the evil consequences of the fall shall have been superseded, death itself destroyed, and the earth delivered from the curse and restored to its original perfection.

But no such course of things could have been possible had the earth, at the epoch of man’s creation, been in its present imperfect condition, the scene of disease and death. Nor can there, if it was at the outset so imperfect and so fraught with physical evils, be a restoration of it hereafter to its pristine state. If it is to be renovated, remodelled, new-made, it is because it has been degraded from its primeval condition. If it is to be restored by the instrumentality of fire, that is to happen as the counterpart of its destruction by water. If its renovation is to be one of the consequences and concomitants of his perfect triumph over the evils of the apostasy, its subjection to its present state is no less certainly a consequence of the apostasy.

In view of this scheme and course of administration, we may perhaps discern some of the reasons why this earth and the human race were selected.

We may suppose that of all the orders of intelligent creatures, man, with his material body, is the least exalted, and for that reason, in such a course of manifestation to all orders, alliance with his nature would be selected.

The visibility required in such a scheme would require union with a visible body.

So far as we have reason to conclude, no other race of intelligent creatures is multiplied by succession. That peculiarity of the human race rendered it practicable for the Creator to take the human nature into union with his person; and it likewise allows of a perpetual increase of the subjects of his grace and of his kingdom, after the ruins of the fall shall have been overcome, and the sovereignty of the rest of the universe, preserved and confirmed in holiness, shall have been surrendered to the Father.

Probably the preservation of the rest of the universe from defection is among the results of his expiation of sin, his ascension incarnate to heaven, his reign there till his second advent, and his victory over Satan and all opposition. That being accomplished, he resumes and prosecutes his original purpose as visible Head and King of the human race.

[CHAPTER XI.]

Of the official Person and Relations of the Messiah.

The term Jehovah, though employed interchangeably with the other Divine designations, is in one respect peculiar. It is never used with reference to any other than the Divine Being. Hence it is by many regarded as a proper name. It is however replaced in the New Testament by an appellative.

Gesenius, who regards this as a proper name, and the word Elohim as an appellative, refers to the “Seventy” as uniformly prefixing the definite article to the word which they substitute for Jehovah; making the version, as in the English, The Lord. He considers the formulas, “I shall be what I am,” and “which is, and which was, and which is to come,” as expressing the meaning of this name, by which the being designated was to be distinctively recognized, remembered, and acknowledged for ever, according to the declarations: “This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations;” and “this is my name for ever: so shall ye name me throughout all generations.”

But, as has been shown, this name is employed both separately and conjointly, with strictly official designations, to identify the second Person of the Trinity in his delegated character and work; who in the New Testament is announced as Jehovah, Immanu-El, Jesus, the Christ.

The subsistence of three distinct coëqual Persons in the Godhead is eternal. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are, as persons, coëternal, coëqual, and alike infinitely removed from all possibility of change. Whatever change has taken place with respect to them must therefore be merely relative, and have reference to their respective agencies, and to the works of creation, providence, and grace. They are accordingly revealed to us in connection with those works, and in the relations which they sustain to them, and to each other in connection with them; and pursuant to the economy or covenant in which those relations and works are founded, the designations by which they are respectively made known are official designations, or employed with a personal and official reference. The Father is first, the fountain of authority, and delegates the Son. The Son is second, and is subordinate to the Father. The Holy Spirit is third, and is subordinate to the Father and the Son. The Father sends the Son to accomplish the works assigned to him. The Son reveals the Father, and executes his will. The Holy Spirit does the will of the Father and the Son. It is in these relations that the respective Persons are worshipped, and not jointly or in unity. The Father is worshipped through the Son as the medium of access and homage. The Father and Son respectively are worshipped through the gracious indwelling influence of the Holy Spirit.

These relations of the respective Persons are therefore official, and must be referred to as originating in the covenant, in which the whole scheme of agency and manifestation in the works of creation, providence, and redemption, was founded. No such relations are to be conceived of as existing eternally; for in their nature the respective Persons are coëqual. Subordination must have been voluntarily assumed for special purposes and agencies which required it. When creatures were to be brought into existence, relations not previously existing were requisite; and as those relations to creatures required various agencies of the respective Persons, new relations between them were requisite; and these, being founded in compact, are properly termed official. Accordingly, all Divine acts towards creatures are personal acts of the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit. They act not as a unity in respect to creatures.

Hence all the acts of the Son in the works of creation, providence, and redemption, are ascribed to him in one and the same official Person and delegated character, by whatever designations he may, in relation to those works, be referred to; and it was accordingly in that character that he appeared personally and visibly in the ancient dispensations; assumed the human form, walked, conversed, and performed various actions proper only to one in that form. The nature of his delegated undertaking, and the objects of those dispensations, required such local manifestations of his person and visible agency, and also that he should speak to and of himself in the different aspects in which he then appeared, and in which he exercised his prophetic office, in relation to his future coming and his sacerdotal work. Thus he speaks of himself as the Seed of the Woman, the Son of David, the King, the Saviour, the Anointed, the Messenger, the Redeemer, the Holy One, the Branch, the Shepherd, Immanuel.

This may be illustrated by referring to the New Testament, and considering that the Divine and human natures being united in the Person of the incarnate Word, whatever is true of either of those natures in that union, is affirmed of him as a Person; and for aught that appears, whatever is affirmed of his Divine nature in that Person is affirmed of him in his official character, whether with reference to his preëxistent or to his incarnate state. Many things are said of him which are predicable of his human nature only, but which nevertheless could not be said if he was not both God and man in one Person. Thus it is said, that he died for our sins—and that he rose for our justification. Other things are said of the same Person, which are predicable only of his Divine Nature; as that he came down from heaven, that he came forth from God, and that he was in the beginning. Hence the propriety with which in both the Old and New Testaments the various Divine names and titles are applied to him, to designate the One Anointed, delegated—Person.

Since writing this work, the author has read the treatise of Dr. Isaac Watts, entitled, “The Glory of Christ as God-Man,” in which he describes the visible appearances of Christ before his incarnation, inquires into the extensive powers of his human nature in its present glorified state, and endeavors to explain and illustrate the Scriptures which relate to those appearances, and to the Person who under various divine names and official designations visibly appeared, by supposing that the human soul of Christ was created prior to the creation of the world, and thenceforth, being united to the Second Person of the Godhead, appeared and acted, visibly and otherwise, in all that related to this world. There being no question but that the mediatorial Person created the world, appeared visibly, and conducted the administration of the Old Testament dispensations, there is, as might be anticipated, a degree of plausibility in the reasonings and illustrations of this venerated author. But many grave and unanswerable objections to his peculiar views present themselves. It is not perceived that the supposition of the preëxistence of the human soul of Christ is either sustained by the Scriptures, or has in any respect, as a means of explanation, any advantage as compared with the view taken in this work, viz: that, pursuant to a covenant between the Persons of the Godhead, the Second Person assumed the official character and relations which are peculiar to him as Mediator; those, viz: in which he executed the works of creation and providence, and manifested himself under various Divine names and official designations, as Jehovah, Elohim, the Messenger, the Messiah; the official personal actor and revealer. To his Person in this official character and agency the human nature was in due time united, so as to include two natures in his one Person. But since the delegated official Person, into union with which the human nature was taken, preëxisted, and as a Person was the same before as after the incarnation, the acts of that Person in the delegated official character and relations above referred to, were to the same effect, and involved essentially the same conditions before as after the advent. Since he undoubtedly acted as Mediator in the ancient dispensations, we must, in reference to his agency then, ascribe to him what peculiarly constituted and ever preëminently distinguishes that character, viz: its being the delegated official character of a Divine Person. Regarded in that light, there seems no more difficulty in ascribing visible appearances and other acts suitable to his office in his relations to men, prior to the assumption of human nature into union with his Person, than after that union. The relations of his Person, in his delegated official character, to creatures and material things, were the result, not of the incarnation, nor of any occurrence after the commencement of his delegated, subordinate, mediatorial work, but of his appointment to that work, and must be regarded as coëval with that appointment. They were the relations of the official, mediatorial Person; and for aught that appears or is conceivable, rendered visible personal appearances in the likeness of man, and the performance of acts, utterance of words, &c., like those of man, as practicable before as after the addition of human nature to that Person.

The views advanced by Dr. Watts proceed upon the assumption that two distinct persons were united; whereas it was two distinct natures that were united in one Person. That Person existed before the human nature was added to it. The nature added had no separate or distinct personality. It became part of the preëxisting Person. “He took it to be his own nature, ... causing it to subsist in his own Person,” says Owen. The Logos, the personal Word or Revealer, the delegated Official Person or Mediator, who “was in the beginning and was God, was made flesh and dwelt among us.” John i. “He took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” Heb. ii. 16. “He did not assume a nature from angels, but he assumed a nature from the seed of Abraham.” Syriac Text. “The Lord Jesus Christ is God and man in one person. For there is supposed in these words (Heb. i. 16) his preëxistence in another nature than that which he is said here to assume. He subsisted before, else he could not have taken on him what he had not before. Gal. iv. 4; John i. 14; Tim. iii. 16; Phil. ii. 6, 7. That is, ... the Word of God ... became incarnate. He took to himself another nature, of the seed of Abraham according to the promise; so, continuing what he was, he became what he was not; for he took this to be his own nature ... by taking that nature into personal subsistence with himself, in the hypostasis [substance or subsistence] of the Son of God; seeing the nature he assumed could no otherwise become his. For if he had by any ways or means taken the person of a man in the strictest union that two persons are capable of, in that case the nature had still been the nature of that other person, and not his own. But he took it to be his own nature, which, therefore, must be by a personal union, causing it to subsist in his own person.... This is done without a multiplication of persons in him; for the human nature can have no personality of its own, because it was taken to be the nature of another person who was preëxistent to it, and by assuming it, prevented its proper personality.” (Owen on the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap. ii. 16.)

“Christ is the Jehovah whose dominion is proclaimed, [Psalm xcvii.,] who is declared to be the God whom men and angels are bound to serve and worship. Such is He who for our deliverance condescended to assume our nature.... For thus it seems the matter stood in the counsels of Eternal Wisdom: It behooved Him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining unto God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” (Horsley’s Sermon on the 97th Psalm.) That is: It behooved Him, the Christ, Jehovah in the preëxisting official Person, to assume our nature.

[CHAPTER XII.]

Local and visible Manifestations, Intercourse and Instructions as characterizing the primeval and Mosaic Dispensations—Local Presence of the Messenger Jehovah in the Tabernacle.

It being evident that the Messiah appeared to the patriarchs in a visible form, that they recognized him under various designations, saw him face to face, conversed with him, offered to him burnt offerings and prayers, believed in him with that faith which is unto righteousness, received from him revelations, promises, and covenants, and in all the aspects and relations in which he appeared, regarded him as their God and the God of providence and grace, their Creator, Preserver, Lawgiver, and Ruler, it is safe to conclude that this method of personal and visible manifestation and intercourse was a primary and essential characteristic of that dispensation. If the instances of such personal appearance and intercourse in which minute details are recorded, as in that to Abraham in the plain of Mamre, and that to Jacob at Peni-El, are not greatly multiplied, they are yet sufficiently numerous, considered in connection with the occasions, circumstances and expressions by which other instances are distinguished, to warrant us in supposing the frequent occurrence of like manifestations to the same individuals, and to many others of whose personal history no extended details are recorded, and many others of whom nothing, or nothing except their names, is mentioned. Moreover, when Moses wrote, such visible manifestations were familiar to the Israelites, and in his retrospective history no more required to be specially mentioned, except as incidents interwoven with, and inseparable from, the personal narratives of the past, than full details respecting sacrificial offerings, their typical references, the law of the Sabbath, and other matters, which were in like manner familiar, and constituted the essential elements of their religious system.

There is ground to conclude that this mode of manifestation was coëval with the creation; and that, if there had been no apostasy of man, He “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things,” would have continued visibly and constantly present with the race on earth, as he will be after he shall have destroyed the last enemy, and obviated the consequences of the fall. At that predicted restitution, a condition of things like that which preceded the defection is to be realized; when he is to dwell with men—their God.

The New Testament clearly ascertains to us that he was personally the Creator. The style and manner in which he spoke and acted, as recorded by Moses in his account of the creation, and in his primeval intercourse with Adam, coincides in familiarity, and may be described as homogeneous, with that employed on occasions of his visible manifestations to Abraham, Jacob, and others. When he said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” it may well be presumed that, among other things, he had reference to that visible form in which he was thenceforth frequently recognized, and in which he at length became incarnate, and will hereafter be seen by every eye.

As instances of the appropriateness of what he said to a person locally present, and speaking and acting as a man would naturally do, the following are referred to: “He saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. And on the seventh day, having ended his work, he rested, and blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which Elohim created and made.” Such references to time and place imply an actor having coincident relations. Again, “He planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed, and commanded him, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” After the transgression, the same local references, and the like familiarity, and implication of his personal presence, are continued: “And they heard the voice”—according to Owen and others, the Word—“of Jehovah Elohim, walking in the garden; and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence”—literally, the face—“of Jehovah Elohim, amongst the trees of the garden. And Jehovah Elohim called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice, and I was afraid, and I hid myself.” These passages seem to be demonstrative of the local personal presence of the Divine speaker, as clearly as of that of the guilty couple. They heard him in the garden, and to avoid meeting or being met by him, they hid themselves among the trees. This would have been to no purpose, had he not been locally, but only spiritually present. They heard him walking, and having retreated to a covert for concealment, he called to Adam; acts which, in a plain, literal narrative, imply a local personal presence.

If on this occasion, when the delinquent parties were successively arraigned and questioned, and the sentence of condemnation was pronounced in words addressed personally to each, he was locally present, the otherwise seeming paradox, that the same style and manner of address to the subtle adversary should be employed as to Adam, disappears. So the words addressed to Cain can hardly be thought to have been literally spoken, but upon the supposition that the Divine speaker was locally present, and that his presence was matter of previous and familiar recognition to Cain. A like inference may be made from the statement that Elohim came to Abimelech, and spake to him in a dream, and from his address to Jehovah, Gen. xx.; and also from the statement that Elohim came to Laban in a dream, and his mention of the fact, and of the caution he renewed to Jacob, Gen. xxxi.

Nor is there in any respect any thing improbable in the supposition that he was locally and visibly present in the likeness of man at that period, any more than at subsequent periods. On the contrary, the statement (John i. 1) that the Word—the delegated Person who in due time assumed our nature and was visibly on earth—was in the beginning, and created all things, implies that he was then recognized in his official character, which implies relations and acts of which place and visibility were indispensable conditions. Such must undoubtedly have been the case when he was seen, if not uniformly when his voice was heard. He may have been often locally present when, though heard, he was not seen. Such, with respect to Daniel’s companions, was the case in his vision, chap. x. He saw one in the form of man, whose face was as the appearance of lightning, and heard his words; but the men that were with him saw not the vision. And when Paul saw his person so unequivocally as to constitute him a witness of his resurrection, the men accompanying him heard his voice, but saw him not. When it is simply said that he appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, or others, and the narrative proceeds to relate what he said, and what answers were made, the language plainly implies his local personal presence, though no mention is made of his being seen. The occasions and objects of his appearance in such instances were, so far as we can judge, as important and as appropriate to such local and visible manifestations, as those in relation to which it is expressly recorded that he was seen in the likeness of man.

The primeval and Levitical dispensations were specially characterized by visible manifestations, acts, rites and events, embodying, enforcing, and illustrating the great truths which were revealed. Thus, on the part of man, the first prohibition enjoined upon Adam, besides its reference to his will, had relation to an external and visible act, and an external and visible object, the fruit of a particular tree. The ritual of worship prescribing, among other offerings, that of slaughtered animals on an altar, the observance of the Sabbath, the long list of fasts, feasts, convocations, ordinances, rites and ceremonies, and most of the injunctions and prohibitions of the moral law, had respect to outward and visible acts. And on the other hand, the Divine Lawgiver and Ruler manifested himself visibly, announced his revelations and commands in audible words, distinguished the righteous generally by outward prosperity, long life, and numerous descendants, and the wicked by opposite evils, or by special calamities and judgments manifest to public observation. By this method, the personality, the attributes and perfections, the prerogatives and rights, the holiness, faithfulness, mercy and truth of Jehovah, were not only exhibited to the view of all intelligent creatures, fallen and unfallen, but were exhibited in such relations to accountable creatures, in their various circumstances, and in their connections with laws, covenants, promises, and predictions, as to lead unmistakably to a right apprehension of them, and a right apprehension of the conduct of men in view of them; results which, so far as we can judge, could have been produced in no other way, unless by endowing creatures with omniscience, or with plenary inspiration. For, from their nature as created, finite and dependent agents, their thoughts, apprehensions and inferences are successive, and all the knowledge of external things which they acquire otherwise than by inspiration, they acquire by means of their external senses; seeing visible objects, hearing audible sounds, &c. Those to whom these divine manifestations, personal, visible, and audible, were first made, had no prototypes, precedents or analogies, to assist them in gaining right apprehensions, and deducing just conclusions, had the method of instruction been that merely of announcements, from an invisible source, of abstract propositions. But by the method actually adopted, prototypes, precedents and analogies were furnished, which, being recorded in the relations and historical connections in which they occurred and were observed, serve effectually for the instruction of those to whom similar outward and visible manifestations are not vouchsafed.

On the other hand, by the method taken, the nature, deserts, and consequences of sin were unmistakably shown, by its being embodied and publicly exhibited in visible acts and their consequences. Thus the transgression of Adam, regarded in its connection with the prohibition which had been emphatically enjoined, with his arraignment, and the sentence pronounced upon him, and with his expulsion from Eden, and the curse and blight visibly produced upon the earth on which he was doomed to toil for a subsistence, and at length to decline and die, furnished illustrations of the indescribable turpitude of his apostasy, and of the moral and physical evils that were among its just and legitimate consequences, which neither then nor now could be conveyed in an abstract statement. So the hypocrisy, envy, infidelity, and malignity of Cain, regarded in connection with the knowledge he had of the consequences of Adam’s transgression, and of the laws, obligations, and duties which were binding upon him; and in connection with the remorse visibly depicted on his countenance, his expulsion from the accustomed place of worship and of intercourse with Jehovah, and the spectacle he was to exhibit as a fugitive and a vagabond, despised and shunned as an outcast, for whom the earth, in respect to his tillage of it, was specially cursed and blighted; furnished, to the view of all intelligent observers, lessons and illustrations which could in no other conceivable way have been exhibited.

The like may be observed concerning the spectacle of violence and corruption which all but universally prevailed before the deluge, and on account of which that exterminating judgment upon the race, with its visible accompaniments and its physical effects upon the earth itself and its irrational inhabitants, was, in the view of the whole universe of accountable creatures, specially and judicially inflicted. Also, concerning the notorious and awful wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the exterminating retribution visited upon them, making them a public and perpetual example. And, omitting to specify less conspicuous and individual instances to the like effect in the history of the patriarchs, or that of the treatment of the Israelites in Egypt, and its counterpart in the plagues which ensued, or any of later date, it is manifest that this method of manifestation, instruction, warning, and reproof, was characteristic of those early times.

If now, in conformity with “the unanimous opinion of the ancient Church,” we consider that He who in his delegated character is, in Moses and the prophets, designated by all the Divine names and titles, and specially, among his peculiar official titles, by that of the Messenger Jehovah, “was the mediator in all the relations of God to the people,” and, as expressed by Hengstenberg; from the beginning constantly filled up the infinite distance between the Creator and the creation, and was in all ages the Light of the world, and Mediator in all the relations of God to the human race, then his early method of local, personal, and visible manifestations, interpositions, and instructions, is obviously in keeping with that exhibited during his subsequent sojourn on earth, and so accordant with the nature and ends of his official character and its relations and objects, as to imply that the present dispensation is an exception, to be succeeded by one of renewed and more glorious, impressive, and instructive visibility than that of Paradise, when all his prior administrations and agencies will be completely vindicated, every eye will see him, and every tongue confess that he is Jehovah, to the glory of God the Father.

The foregoing observations may be further illustrated by reference to the tabernacle as the local residence of the Messenger Jehovah, and as in some respects typical.

The pattern of the tabernacle which was shown to Moses in the mount, was a representation to him of the person and work of the Mediator as Priest and King in human nature, which he was required to represent to the children of Israel by the visible structure which he was to erect. The true tabernacle, of which this was the figure, was his human nature, in which his sacrifice, intercession, and regal glory were to be realized.

The tabernacle, with its furniture and services, signified to the worshippers the leading truths concerning the person, offices, mediation, incarnation, sacrifice, intercession, and final glory and reign of Christ. It taught these truths by means of visible signs—figures intended to serve that purpose till Christ should come, and in human nature, the true tabernacle, make atonement by shedding his own blood, and openly manifesting the way of reconciliation and access to God through him.

This way into “the holiest of all,” i. e., heaven itself was not to be openly and completely manifested, but only as was practicable through these visible signs and teachings, during the continuance of the tabernacle erected by Moses, and afterwards placed in the first temple, as a figure of the true; but the coming of Christ in the true tabernacle, his human nature, to offer himself a sacrifice, would fulfil and make manifest the things signified in the figure. The tabernacle signified that he would become literally incarnate; but by the actual exhibition of his person in human nature, all obscurity and doubt would be removed.

The tabernacle, as a figure of his incarnate person, included, in the sanctuary within the veil, the golden altar of incense, the ark of the covenant, and the mercy-seat, which was the throne; and in the other apartment, the altar of burnt offering, the show-bread, the candlestick, &c., answering to the offices and benefits of Him who was both priest and sacrifice, altar and mercy-seat.

That they had an ark and tent answerable essentially to the tabernacle anterior to that erected in the wilderness, is implied in several passages. Thus, Exod. xxxiii., before the gifts had been received for the new structure, “Moses took the tabernacle and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp; ... and as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and talked [see Heb.] with Moses.” Again, Exod. xvi., on the first dispensation of manna, Aaron is directed to “Take a pot and put an omer full of manna therein, and lay it up before Jehovah, to be kept for your generations. So Aaron laid it up before the testimony, to be kept:” that is, probably, in the tent or place where the Shekina dwelt, as afterwards in the tabernacle at Shiloh and Mizpeh, prior to the erection of the temple. The same thing may be implied in the words of the Philistines when the Israelites brought the ark of the covenant into their camp: “The Philistines were afraid, for they said, Elohim is come into the camp. Woe unto us!... this is the Elohim that smote the Egyptians.” 1 Sam. iv. As if, in the information they had received concerning the plagues of Egypt, the presence of the Elohim was associated with a tent or tabernacle, and the ark of the covenant. That there was such a place of Divine manifestation among the Israelites during their sojourn in Egypt and at the legation of Moses, is in the highest degree probable, since the true faith and worship were preserved; and probably it was to that place that Moses, in the progress of his controversy with Pharaoh, often repaired for direction and authority. And Moses returned unto Jehovah, and said, Adonai, wherefore,” &c. Exod. v. “And Moses spake before Jehovah....” “And Moses said before Jehovah.” vi. “And Moses went out from Pharaoh, and entreated Jehovah.” viii. “And Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, [perhaps from the district of the Egyptians to that of the Israelites,] and spread abroad his hands unto Jehovah.” ix. The same word (Sheken or Shekina) which is employed to signify that Jehovah dwelt in the pillar of cloud and of fire, and in the tabernacle between the cherubim, is employed also Gen. iii. 24, which may read, “He caused the cherubim to dwell at the east of the garden of Eden,” i. e., as in a tent or covering, a tabernacle, or column of cloud or fire.

Doubtless Moses previously understood the true doctrine concerning the person, mediation, and sacrifice of the Divine Mediator; but to qualify him to teach this doctrine and to enforce the duties connected with it, an exhibition was made to him of that Person in the form in which he was to make atonement by the sacrifice of himself. On the occasion of receiving instruction concerning the tabernacle, being called up into the mount, he, with Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders, saw the Elohe of Israel, in the likeness of the God-man, as appears from the allusion to his person, and what took place. “There was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone.... Upon the nobles he laid not his hand.... They saw (the) Elohim, and did eat and drink.” They evidently saw his person in the form in which he was to execute the priestly office, and which was to be foreshown by the tabernacle. No man hath seen the Father. But Moses saw (the) Elohim, the Elohe of Israel, Jehovah, the Messenger, the God-man. On another occasion Jehovah came down and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and said, “With Moses will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of Jehovah shall he behold.” Numb. i. He appeared in the form of man to Abraham, Jacob, and others, with no accompaniment of visible glory. Isaiah saw him, the King, Jehovah Zebaoth, seated on a throne; Ezekiel, in the likeness of a man on a throne, John, as the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to his feet.

After this manifestation to the leaders and elders of Israel, Moses went alone into the midst of the cloud on the mount, and remained there forty days, receiving instructions for himself and the people concerning the tabernacle. “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering, &c.; ... and let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.” This perfect model, by an imitation of which he was to represent the incarnate person and sacerdotal work of Christ, was shown to him in the mount. No doubt a visible pattern of the tabernacle and its instruments was shown to him. That it was not a mental vision, or a verbal description merely, by which he was instructed, is clearly indicated by the phraseology above quoted from Exod. xxv. 9: “According to all that I show thee;” more strictly, “According to all that I make thee to see.”

Again, after a variety of directions concerning the table for the show-bread, the candlestick, and other articles of furniture, Jehovah said to Moses, “Look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount.” Exod. xxv. 40, and xxvi. 30. “Thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion thereof which was showed thee in the mount.” And relating to the altar of burnt offerings: “Hollow with boards shalt thou make it: as it was showed thee in the mount, so shalt thou make it.” xxvii. 8. Again, at the dedication of the tabernacle it is said, “According unto the pattern which Jehovah had showed Moses, so he made the candlestick.” Numb. viii. 4.

This phraseology, accompanied as it is by minute verbal descriptions of the several objects, still refers to something more definite; a form, model, pattern, which he was strictly to imitate. The purposes to be answered required perfect accuracy in the copy. And hence the apostle, Heb. viii. 5, alluding to this scene, says: “Moses was admonished of God, when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.”

This construction is confirmed by a portion of subsequent history. When Solomon was about “to build an house for the sanctuary,” David, instructed by Divine inspiration in respect to the forms of different parts of the edifice, caused patterns or models thereof to be constructed for the guidance of his son. “Then David gave to Solomon the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the place of the mercy-seat; and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of Jehovah, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of Elohim, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things.” 1 Chron. xxviii. In these services no discretion was left either to Moses or to Solomon. The things to be made were to be made in exact imitation of the patterns furnished.

If we suppose that Moses beheld the person of the Mediator in the likeness of man, and at the same time beheld the model of the tabernacle and its furniture, by a copy of which he was visibly to prefigure and represent the human nature and the official works of Christ, then the structure erected by him, with the throne, the altar, and all the instruments and rites of the Levitical service, will appear in the highest degree fitted to instruct the people in the great truths concerning his kingly and priestly offices. His consecration of the most holy apartment as his dwelling-place, answerable, as the place of his intercession and of his mediatorial throne to that in which he was to appear after his incarnation and ascension, will be intelligible; and the fact that there he reigned as King, dictated laws, and administered the Theocracy, and that he was on subsequent occasions soon in connection with the visible form and accompaniments of the tabernacle, by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others, and lastly by John after his ascension, will appear consistent with all that is made known to us of his mediatorial agency and visible manifestations under the primeval, patriarchal, and Mosaic dispensations. During those dispensations he as truly officiated as Mediator as after the full realization of what the tabernacle prefigured; exercised the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, and dwelt personally in the holy place of the tabernacle after that was prepared, till he formally forsook and withdrew from it, prior to the destruction of the first temple. His office and relations, as civil head and ruler of the nation, implied his personal presence. That, as their civil ruler, he was King in the same sense as other kingly rulers, appears from what is said when, through unbelief and desire of a leader and judge who should be always visible, they sinfully demanded a king from among themselves, like the kings of other nations: “Ye said, A king shall reign over us, when Jehovah your Elohe was your king.” 1 Sam. xii. 13.

From the oracle, the cover of the mercy-seat in the holy place within the veil, as one ever present, he spoke to Moses, dictated the laws which are recorded after the erection of the tabernacle, and gave responses to the high priest on special occasions, whenever appealed to, not only during the ministry of Moses, but afterwards. And it is to be noticed that, as there were during the earlier dispensations certain localities appropriated to Divine worship, where altars were erected to Jehovah and typical sacrifices offered, and Divine manifestations and revelations were vouchsafed; so, after the tabernacle was set up, and also after it was transferred to the temple, it was the place resorted to for oracular responses as well as for sacrifices of burnt offering. On the occasion of the war with Benjamin, “the children of Israel, and all the people, went up and came unto the house of Elohim, and wept, and sat there before Jehovah, and fasted that day until even, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before Jehovah. And the children of Israel inquired of Jehovah, (for the ark of the covenant of [the] Elohim was there in those days, and Phinehas the son of Aaron stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle? &c.... And Jehovah said, Go up,” &c. Judges xx. Thence, in the days of Eli, Jehovah spoke to Samuel 1 Sam. iii. See also Joshua vii. 6; 1 Chron. xxi. 30; 2 Sam. xxii. 7; Psalm xviii. 6; xxvii. 4; Isaiah lxvi. 6.

Now, the tabernacle was erected expressly to be the dwelling-place of Jehovah as Mediator, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” Exod. xxv. 28, “Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shall put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.” xxv. 21, 22. “There I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory.... And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God, and they shall know that I am Jehovah their Elohe, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them.” xxix. 43, 45, 46. The tabernacle in the wilderness had its station in the midst of the camps; from the precincts of which all lepers were to be excluded, “that they defile not their camps in the midst whereof I dwell.” Numb. v. 3. So no satisfaction might be taken for the life of a murderer in the land of Canaan; for blood defiled the land, and it could not be cleansed “but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I Jehovah dwell among the children of Israel.” Numb. xxxv. 34. Accordingly we read that “the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle.... The cloud of Jehovah was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.” Exod. xl. 34, 38.

All this phraseology plainly indicates the local presence of the Personal Word; as plainly as the records of his visible presence on any occasions. Various other scriptures confirm this. When king David said to Nathan, “See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains,” Nathan was directed to “Go and tell David, Thus saith Jehovah, Shalt thou build me an house to dwell in? Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day; but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle.” To this follow allusions to his dealings with David, and promises concerning the future. “Then went king David in [i. e. into the tabernacle] and sat before Jehovah, ... and made acknowledgments, thanksgivings, and prayers to Jehovah Zebaoth, the Elohe of Israel.” 2 Sam, vii.

It is thus manifest that the tabernacle was intended as the residence of the official Person, and with reference to his official works; and being a figure of his human nature, he dwelt in it, and exercised his prophetic, regal, and priestly offices in it, as he was to do afterwards when literally incarnate. If it represented his human nature, then doubtless he dwelt in it and if he dwelt in it in any sense answerable to his subsequent dwelling in the human nature, then he dwelt in it locally and personally. The services performed there accordingly imply and confirm this view. There was a shedding of blood, the blood of the covenant, which has flowed in every age, through which remission of sin was granted. See Levit. xvii. 2; Heb. ix. 22.