Back to BSN: ANGELS
In the Bible, the word “angel” means “messenger.”
This meaning of “messenger” holds in both Hebrew (the original language of the Old Testament) and Greek (the original language of the New Testament). In both languages, the messenger can be either heavenly or earthly. The Hebrew word for messenger is “mal’akh.” The Greek word is “angelos.”
You can see from this that we get the English word “angel” from the Greek.
English, however, operates differently from Hebrew and Greek. English typically uses the word “angel” if the messenger is heavenly and “messenger” if the messenger is earthly. This is because in English, the word angel has come to mean “heavenly being” (other than God) rather than “messenger.”
To see how English translations handle the Hebrew word, here’s an example from the Old Testament.
Genesis 19:1 Now the two angels came to Sodom in the evening as Lot was sitting in the gate of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
Genesis 32:3 Then Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom.
The underlying Hebrew word is the same for both words in bold. The English translators had an option unavailable to the original Hebrew authors – so they exercised it.
Here’s a similar example from the New Testament.
Luke 2:10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people;”
Luke 7:24 When the messengers of John had left, He began to speak to the crowds about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind?
Same thing. The underlying Greek word is identical in both verses, but the English reads differently because the translators have a way to tell the readers whether the messengers are angels or men.
Ancient Hebrew and Greek readers could know whether the messenger was heavenly or earthly by the context. Modern English readers find out from the word “angel” itself that the messenger is a heavenly being…but they have to remind themselves that the original word meant “messenger.”
So, for example, if we want to understand what the word “angel” means in the phrase “the angel of the Lord,” we have to recognize that it means “heavenly messenger.”
If there is a messenger, there must also be a sender, a receiver, and a message.
The sender of the angel of the Lord would obviously be the Lord.
The receiver would vary depending on the Lord’s choice.
The message could be anything – even a task to be performed rather than simply words to be communicated. For example:
Psalm 34:7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.
So, “the angel of the Lord” means “the heavenly messenger of the Lord.”
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