Gideon and The Angel of YHWH
The LORD Appears to Gideon
CONCLUSION
We will conclude this Blog on the Self-Revealing God with the scriptural account of the call and commission of Gideon, by the Angel of the LORD. It is fairly long, but it is important to read and consider it as a whole. So it is printed here for your convenience. I have highlighted portions that are important for this study.
Judges 6:11-24:
Now the Angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak (terebinth) tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the Angel of the LORD appeared to him, and said to him, “The LORD (YHWH) is with you, you mighty man of valor!”
This is a visible appearance of The Angel of YHWH. Gideon doesn’t sense anything is strange. Gideon’s responses reveal that he does not consider this man’s appearance to be divine, he doesn’t think this man is YHWH.
13 Gideon said to Him, “O my lord, if the LORD (YHWH) is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
14 Then the LORD (YHWH) turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. Have I not sent you?”
I want to point out how the writer is blending the identities of both the Angel of the LORD and YHWH. Both have spoken to Gideon. This is not a mistake, there is a deliberate blurring of the two identities and yet they are also clearly separate.
15 So he (Gideon) said to Him, “O my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16 And the LORD (YHWH) said to him, “Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat the Midianites as one man.
17 Then he (Gideon) said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who talk with me. 18 Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.”
And He said, “I will wait until you come back.”
Gideon is asking the Angel of the LORD, which appears as a man to stay. Remember the opening verse points out that it is the Angel of YHWH who came and sat under the tree.
19 So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot; and he (Gideon) brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them. 20 The Angel of God (Elohim) said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so.
21 Then the Angel of Yahweh (the LORD) put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
It is the Angel of YHWH who appears as a man with a staff, setting under an oak tree, who touches the offering with his staff. The offering is consumed with fire (from heaven). When this takes place the man, who is identified as the Angel of YHWH disappears. it is at this point that Gideon believes the man was the Angel of YHWH.
22 Now Gideon perceived that He was the Angel of the LORD. So Gideon said, “Alas, Adonay Yahweh (O Lord God)! For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.”
Gideon, realizes this is not just his imagination, a dream or even a vision. It was real food, which he prepared himself and presented before the man who spoke to him. The man sitting under the oak tree. The man who greeted him with the words, “YHWH is with you.” Has consumed with heavenly fire the meal, and disappeared out of sight.
23 Then the LORD said to him, “Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.” 24 So Gideon built an altar there to the LORD (YHWH), and called it Yahweh Shalom, The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
Take notice that the invisible YHWH remains and speaks to Gideon after the visible Angel of YHWH leaves. The author is very intentional. He is revealing some very important concepts. He is laying the foundations of how we should understand the God of Israel.
I want you to think about the way we talk about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. As a Christian we affirm that there is One God. We also affirm God is more than one Person but that each of those Persons is the same in essence. Jesus is one of those Persons. He is God. But Jesus is not the Father God. God the Father is not Jesus the Son. We also believe in God the Holy Spirit, which is neither God the Son or God the Father but is ONE with them.
This theology did not originate in the New Testament. The revelation of One God in Three Persons is founded upon these Old Testament scriptures.
The Invisible YHWH (God the Father) who remains in the heavens.
The Visible YHWH (God the Son) who appears on earth as a man. He is the manifest Word of God, He is the Captain of the Lord’s Host. He looks like a man but can live in the holy fire and disappear from sight.
The Invisible Spirit (Elohim) of YHWH (God the Holy Spirit) who speaks to men as God and makes known LORD’s Presence in a tangible and location specific way.
Thank you for following along in this study. We will continue to develop this in the next Blog Section called:
The Beauty of the Triune God
(Under development)
In this Blog, we define Trinitarian Theology — what it is as well as what it isn’t. We will also study some of the titles of the LORD and how the New Testament uses these titles to identify the Lord Jesus as the Messiah of God.