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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Joshua 5:13 - 5:13
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Appearance and Message of the Angel of the Lord. - Jos 5:13-15. When Joshua was by Jericho, בִּירִיחֹו, lit., in Jericho (בְּ expressing immediate proximity, the entrance as it were into some other object, vid., Ewald, §217), - that is to say, inside it in thought, meditating upon the conquest of it-he saw, on lifting up his eyes, a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand; and on going up to him, and asking, “Dost thou belong to us or to our enemies?” he received this reply: “Nay (לֹא is not to be altered into לֹו, which is the reading adopted in the Sept., Syr., and a few MSS), but I am the prince of the army of Jehovah; now I am come.” The person who had appeared neither belonged to the Israelites nor to their enemies, but was the prince of the army of Jehovah, i.e., of the angels. “The Lord's host” does not mean “the people of Israel, who were just at the commencement of their warlike enterprise,” as v. Hofmann supposes; for although the host of Israel who came out of Egypt are called “the hosts of the Lord” in Exo 12:41, the Israelites are never called the host or army of Jehovah (in the singular). “The host of Jehovah” is synonymous with “the host of heaven” (1Ki 22:19), and signifies the angels, as in Psa 148:2 and Psa 103:21. With the words “now I am come,” the prince of the angels is about to enter upon an explanation of the object of his coming; but he is interrupted in his address by Joshua, who falls down before him, and says, “What saith my lord to his servant?” so that now he first of all commands Joshua to take off his shoes, as the place on which he stands is holy. It by no means follows that because Joshua fell down upon the ground and יִשְׁתָּחוּ (Eng. Ver. “did worship”), he must have recognised him at once as the angel of the Lord who was equal with God; for the word הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה, which is connected with the falling down, does not always mean divine worship, but very frequently means nothing more than the deep Oriental reverence paid by a dependant to his superior or king (e.g., 2Sa 9:6; 2Sa 14:33), and Joshua did not address the person who appeared to him by the name of God, אֲדֹנָי, but simply as אֲדֹנִי, “My lord.” In any case, however, Joshua regarded him at once as a superior being, i.e., an angel. And he must have recognised him as something more than a created angel of superior rank, that is to say, as the angel of Jehovah who is essentially equal with God, the visible revealer of the invisible God, as soon as he gave him the command to take off his shoes, etc. - a command which would remind him of the appearance of God to Moses in the burning bush, and which implied that the person who now appeared was the very person who had revealed himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. (On the meaning of the command to take off the shoes, see the exposition of Exo 3:5.) The object of the divine appearance was indicated by the drawn sword in the hand (cf. Num 22:31), by which he manifested himself as a heavenly warrior, or, as he describes himself to Joshua, as prince of the army of Jehovah. The drawn sword contained in itself this practical explanation: “I am now come with my heavenly army, to make war upon the Canaanites, and to assist thee and thy people” (Seb. Schmidt). It was not in a vision that this appearance took place, but it was an actual occurrence belonging to the external world; for Joshua saw the man with the drawn sword at a certain distance from himself, and went up to him to address him, - a fact which would be perfectly incompatible with an inward vision.