Commentaries:
Adam Clarke
Behold, I send an Angel before thee - Some have thought that this was Moses, others Joshua, because the word malach signifies an angel or messenger; but as it is said, Exodus 23:21, My name is in him, ( bekirbo , intimately, essentially in him), it is more likely that the great Angel of the Covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, is meant, in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. We have had already much reason to believe that this glorious personage often appeared in a human form to the patriarchs, etc.; and of him Joshua was a very expressive type, the names Joshua and Jesus, in Hebrew and Greek, being of exactly the same signification, because radically the same, from yasha , he saved, delivered, preserved, or kept safe. Nor does it appear that the description given of the Angel in the text can belong to any other person.
Calmet has referred to a very wonderful comment on these words given by Philo Judaeus De Agricultura, which I shall produce here at full length as it stands in Dr. Mangey' s edition, vol. 1., p. 308: ̔ ̔ , ̔, ̔ ̔ , ̔ ̔, . · , , ͅ ̔ͅ "God, as the Shepherd and King, conducts all things according to law and righteousness, having established over them his right Word, his Only-Begotten Son, who, as the Viceroy of the Great King, takes care of and ministers to this sacred flock. For it is somewhere said, (Exodus 23:20), Behold, I Am, and I will send my Angel before thy face, to keep thee in the way."
This is a testimony liable to no suspicion, coming from a person who cannot be supposed to be even friendly to Christianity, nor at all acquainted with that particular doctrine to which his words seem so pointedly to refer.
Other commentary entries containing this verse:
Exodus 23:20
Exodus 33:2
Exodus 33:2
Luke 1:25
Luke 9:62
Hebrews 2:5
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