Jesus was the angel of his presence

JESUS WAS THE ANGEL OF HIS PRESENCE
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
In all their afflictionhe was afflicted, and the angel of
his presence saved them.—Isaiah63:9.
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
God's Suffering Sympathy
Isaiah63:9
R. Tuck
There is a verbal difficulty connectedwith the first clause of this verse. A little
Hebrew word that is employed, if pronounced in one way, means "to him;"
but, if pronounced in another way, it means "not." According to the one mode
the clause wilt read, "In all their affliction there was affliction to him;" or, as
in our English version, "He was afflicted." According to the other mode the
clause will read, "In all their affliction there was no affliction;" that is,
nothing worth calling affliction, because his presence and help were so near to
them in their time of need. Both give goodmeanings, but the spirit of the
passageleads us, with Luther and other expositors, to prefer the former one.
I. GOD CAN FEEL. It may be said that this needs no proof. But the God
sometimes presentedin theologicalsystems, preachedfrom our pulpits, and
addressedin our prayers, does not really feel as we do. It is saidthat "he is
complete in himself, infinitely full, infinitely happy, infinitely satisfied.
Nothing can add one jot to his happiness, nothing can diminish his bliss. He,
as a King, recognizes andpunishes sin and rebellion, but he does not feel hurt

by it himself. No waves heave and toss on the quiet oceanofGod." But is the
impression left on our minds by all this concerning God quite true? And is
that the God we are askedto love - that immovable statue? We want a God
whose bosomheaves with feeling, whose face beams with smiles, who can pity
us as a father pities. Too often the impression left on us is, that it is only Christ
who can suffer, since he was a man. God cannot feel; Christ feels. Christ is in
self-sacrifice,notGod. But we must be far from the truth when we divide our
vision, and with one eye see Christ, and with the other see God. Look with
both eyes, and we shall see Christ in God, and God in Christ. This is true -
God cannot be physically affected. We must not think of him as a body,
capable of feeling bodily pain. He cannot be struck. He cannot be subject to
disease. Godis a Spirit. But he is a realBeing. He is what we understand by a
moral being - a moral being who can sustainrelations to other beings, and can
be affectedby the conditions and doings of other beings. Our deepestfeelings -
joys or sorrows - do not come from our bodies, but from our minds. And when
we say that God canfeel, we mean that his moral being can be affected, and
that his precise glory lies in this - he does feel rightly, suitably, adequately,
divinely, in every case.
1. God must feelif he canbe said to have a perfect character. We should take
no impressions from the wrongs or the goodnessesaroundus if we bad no
powerof feeling, and so there could be no culture of character. If God cannot
feel it is no longer intelligible to us to say that he is "good." thathe is "love."
2. That God canfeel is taught by the imagery of Old TestamentScriptures.
Constantly he is representedas though he were a man. We read of his feet, his
breath, his hand, his arm, etc. "He is representedas blessedaccording to the
merit and beauty of whateveris done that is right. He smelleda sweetsavour
in Noah's sacrifice. He has pleasure in them that hope in his mercy. He is
affectedwith joy over his people, as a prophet represents, even to singing in
the day of their restoredpeace. He is tender in his feeling to the obedient,
pitying them that fearhim as a father pitieth his children. His very love is
partly passive;that is, it is a Being affectedwith compassionby the bitter and
hard lot of those under sin. On the other hand, by how many unpleasant
varieties or pains of feeling does he profess to suffer in his relation to scenes of
human wrong and ingratitude! The sighing of the prisoner comes before him

to command his sympathy. He calls after his people as a woman forsakenand
grieved in spirit. He testifies, 'I am pressedunder you as a cart is pressedthat
is full of sheaves.'His repentings are kindled togetherin view of the sins of his
people. He is said to be exercisedby all manner of disagreeable and
unpleasant sentiments in relation to all manner of evil doings: displeased;sore
displeased;wroth; angry; loathing; abhorring; despising; hating; weary; filled
with abomination; wounded; hurt; grieved; and he even protests, like one
sorrowing, that he could do nothing more to his vineyard than he had done for
it" (Dr. H. Bushnell). There must be deep moral meanings in these
anthropomorphic expressions.
3. Rightly regarding the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, it becomes a proof that
God can feel. It is said that Christ felt because he was human; the feeling was
part of the humanity. But if there had been no human nature, would not he
have felt and borne our sorrows and our sins just the same? 'The great thing
about Christ is that he manifests Godto us in these our human spheres, and
under these our human conditions. And in him we see not only the glory of
God's holiness and claims, but the glory also of his pitying feeling. When God
makes himself most evident to us - as he does in the person of his Son - then
we behold a loving, pitying, suffering God.
II. GOD DOES FEELIN THE PARTICULAR WAY OF SYMPATHY WITH
THE SUFFERING. "Inall their affliction he is afflicted." The prophet is
reviewing the Divine dealings with his forefathers;recalling more especially
that deliverance from Egypt, and guidance to the promised land, which was
the dearestof memories to every Jew. God's interest, he declares, had been
bound up with that of his people. He suffered in their suffering. Sorrows came
upon that people from outward circumstances;and worse sorrows came
through their wilfulness and sin. We are to understand that God sympathized
with them under both kinds of sorrow. The text is as true for us as for Israel
of old. Our human troubles are so overwhelming because we persistin.
bearing them alone;we will not let God bearthem with us, much less will we
let him bear them for us. We even try to persuade ourselves that he does not
feel for us under certain of our sorrows, becausethe sin whence they come is
so abhorrent to him. Yes, the sin is, but the sinner is not - especiallythe
stricken, suffering sinner is not.

III. WE ARE GOD-LIKE ONLY AS WE ARE AFFLICTED IN OTHERS'
AFFLICTIONS. Pity for the suffering is a natural emotion. Some of us cannot
bear to see even the meanestcreature suffering pain. There is much of this
"milk of human kindness" left in the sinful, sorrowful world, where man is
"horn to trouble as the sparks fly upward." But we can only be rightly
"afflictedwith others' afflictions" when:
1. Like God, we cansee sin at the root of the affliction, and yet feel drawn to
the afflicted. Mere human feeling is not strong enough to draw us to the
sinner.
2. When we candiscern God working out through them his purposes of grace.
As mere sufferings they must be borne alone. We cannot share the feeling of
pain; but as chastisements, as discipline, we may bear troubles with others;
and it is in these religious aspects ofhuman suffering that a God-like
sympathy becomes possible.
3. As we ourselves are led through experiences oftrouble, as life passes on, it
ought to make the brotherhood of souls perfect. Nothing brings hearts
togetherlike a common trouble. Send a woman who has a child in heaven to
comfort the mother who looks into a newly emptied cradle. Godtouches us all
- touches us to the quick sometimes - and helps us thus to feel for others'
infirmities. God's poweron us is his fellow-feeling ofour infirmities. Our
poweron eachother must be just this - in closeness ofsympathy we bearone
another's burdens. - R.T.
Biblical Illustrator
In all their affliction He was afflicted.
Isaiah63:9
God
F. Delitzsch, D. D.

not impassive.. — Just as a man may feelpain, whilst in his own person he is
raisedabove it, so God feels pain without His blessednesssuffering hurt; and
so He felt His people's suffering; it did not remain unreflectedin His own life;
it moved Him inwardly.
(F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
"The Angel of His presence
Prof. J. Skinner, D. D., A. B. Davidson, D. D., F. Delitzsch, D. D.
1. The "Presence" (lit. "Face")ofJehovahis used elsewhere ofHis self-
manifestation. The fundamental passage is Exodus 33:14, 15. But compare
also Deuteronomy4:37; Lamentations 4:16.
2. An "angelof the Presence,"onthe other hand, is a figure elsewhere
unknown to the Old Testament:the phrase would seemto be "a confusionof
two forms of expression, incident to a midway stage ofrevelation" (Cheyne).
3. The "Face" ofJehovah, however, is not (as the LXX inferred) just the same
as JehovahHimself in person. It is rather a name for His highest sensible
manifestation, and hardly differs from what is in other places calledthe
Mal'ak Yahveh (Angel of Jehovah). This is shown by the comparisonof
Exodus 33:14 f. with Exodus 23:20-23. The verse, therefore, means that it was
no ordinary angelic messenger, but the supreme embodiment of Jehovah's
presence that accompaniedIsraelin the early days.
(Prof. J. Skinner, D. D.)The Angel in whom Jehovahwas seen;who was
JehovahHimself in manifestation.
(A. B. Davidson, D. D.)Notsome one of the "ministering spirits," nor some
one of the angel-princes standing in God's immediate presence (archangels),
but the one whom God makes the medium of His presence in the world for
affecting the revelationof Himself in sacredhistory.
(F. Delitzsch, D. D.)

The Angel of His presence
R. Thomas, D. D.
The greatmajority of men dread affliction more than they dread sin. And yet
the two things are related — sometimes as cause and effectand sometimes by
more distant connections.
I. AFFLICTIONS MAY BE DIVIDED INTO THREE CLASSES — the
physical, the mental, and the emotional. Not that we can ever totally separate
these three, but for purposes of considerationit may be practicable to do so.
1. It is very hard to resista plea from physical disability. It is well that it
should be so, for callous indifference to the causes ofsorrow and pain found in
the lives of others is surely a most unpromising state. Anything which will
draw us out of ourselves, and keepus from being self-contained, must surely
be, in some sort, a servant of God. Our Lord recognizedthe physical
afflictions of men and entered sympathetically into them.
2. But physical afflictions, though more impressive, are oftentimes more
endurable than mental afflictions. Indeed, when we come to the last analysis
of the case, we find that the mental regionis the regionwhere pain reports
itself. If we could totally separate the physical and mental, and keepthe mind
clearand calm while the body suffered its pains and penalties, affliction would
be a very different matter from what it now is. Only that then physical
affliction would lose its meaning and purpose, for everything physical is for
the sake ofthe mental. But there are mental sufferings which do not report
themselves in physical manifestations. The mind is often so tried with doubt
and debate — so castdown by its own inability and decrepitude — that it is in
a constantstate of unrest, and no report thereof is made in the physical frame
— no report anyway of such a nature that all can read it.
3. But back of the intellectual department of the mind is that other
profounder realm coveredby the word "emotional." This emotional regionis
the strangestand strongestofall. It is the realm of love, of joy, of peace — or
of hatred, joylessness,discord. Without our emotions we should be not men
and women, but stones, orat best animals. Our emotions gather around

persons, places, objects,and these become to us of such transcendentworth
that all the world seems poorin comparisonwith them.
II. When we think of these things, HOW WONDROUS, HOW TERRIBLE
DOES THIS NATURE OF OURS SEEM!We become afraid of ourselves. To
be owners of ourselves seems too greata responsibility. Does it not seemto us
that the Creator, in giving us this nature, has takenupon Himself a
responsibility so greatand so fearful that none but Himself could bear it? We
ask ourselves, in amazement, what must His own nature be?
III. Is not this the revelation made by the prophet, that WE ARE NOT
ALONE IN OUR AFFLICTIONS.
IV. As it was with the Israelites, so is it with all the Spiritual Israel; for they
and we are not unlike. "In all their affliction He was afflicted." He! Who? The
Deliverer. The One who identified Himself with them. And His nature has not
changed. We assume that Deity cannot suffer, but we do not know it. We
suppose that Deity means perfection — impassive perfection. But is
impassivity perfection? May there not be suffering which has in it more of
perfection than imperfection, suffering which does not arise from sin, or from
weakness,orfrom anything outside perfection
V. Anyway, Jesus Christhas come betweenus and naked, unknowable Deity;
He has united in some way the human and the Divine. And He is, in some
mysterious manner, identified with us; and in all our afflictions He is afflicted,
and inside all the affliction is "the Angel of His presence"to save us. I can't
tell you what this Angel of the presence means. But cherish faith in these
unseen forces and powers — ay, in unseen personalministries.
(R. Thomas, D. D.)
The spheres of compassion
W. M. Clow, B. D.
I. GOD'S COMPASSION IN THE SPHERE OF HUMAN SORROW. We
must not make too much of human sorrow. There is much else in the life of

man. There is the joy of youth and the soberdelights of age. Doesany man
really think that God looks down on all this welter and does not care — and,
because He does not care, does not prevent it? God would not prevent it if He
could, and He could not if He would. A world such as ours, and without
suffering, is not possible to God. It is His sovereignwill which has made every
law under which we suffer, and His holiness which enforces everypenalty.
This compassionin the sphere of sorrow has been from the "days of old" long
before men had eyes to see it. But it reaches its highest manifestation in the
life of Jesus our Lord. God's compassionis still working in the sphere of
human sorrow, in the heart of the ascendedChrist. Even now in all your
affliction He is afflicted, and the angelof His presence is saving you, not from
suffering, but from fall and shame.
II. GOD'S COMPASSIONIN THE SPHERE OF SIN. The compassionof
God has a greaterwork to do than to transform suffering, by grace, into
nobility and strength. It has to go down into the depths of sin. Though the sin
of the world lies behind all our suffering, there is much sorrow that is wholly
pure. But when we come to sin, to the bondage of evil habit, the riot of wicked
passion, to the indulgence of sloth and vanity and pride, ending in defiance of
the Almighty and rebellion againstHis law, then compassionmight well be
exhausted. And then, indeed, holiness cannot but condemn, and sovereignty
cannot but execute the decree;but compassionfinds a way even in the sphere
of,, sin, and so the prophet continues," "m" His" love and in His pity He
redeemedthem. But the compassionneeds no words to make itself known. In
the thorns on His brow, in the nails in His hands, in the prayer for human
forgiveness, compassionproclaims its victory. This cross ofChrist, just
because it is so unlike man and is so like God, is the greatestmystery in the
world. Whatever be your sin, whateverbe your shame, whatevermay have
been your past lack of faith, come to-day again to the Cross, to find that
sovereignty, holiness, and compassionhave redeemed you.
III. GOD'S COMPASSION IN THE SPHERE OF HUMAN WEAKNESS.
Our human needs are not all supplied when our sufferings are borne with us,
and our sins are pardoned. Though we cross our Red Sea, we have still the
years of pilgrimage: though we lose our burdens at the Cross, we have still our
cross to carry. Though we surrender ourselves to Christ, we have our warfare

to accomplish. And who is there among us who knows the frailty of his past,
the slips and falls of poor human nature, who does not feelthe inspiration of
the Word when it completes the revelation: "He bare them and He carried
them all the days of old." There is no one so helpless as a disciple of Christ.
Before we came to Christ, we could gird ourselves, and walk whither we
would. Now we cannottake a step alone. Only by continually casting ourselves
upon Him in our prayers, being led, guided, instructed, strengthenedby HIS
Spirit; only by clinging to Him in faith does our safetylie.
(W. M. Clow, B. D.)
Christ with His people in trouble
We remember an old tale of our boyhood, how poor RobinsonCrusoe,
wreckedona foreign strand, rejoicedwhen he saw the print of a man's foot.
So is it with the Christian in his trouble; he shall not despair in a desolate
land, because there is the foot-print of Christ Jesus onall our temptations and
troubles. Go on rejoicing, Christian; thou art in an inhabited country; thy
Jesus is with thee in all thy afflictions and in all thy woes.
( C. H. Spurgeon.)
In His love and in His pity He redeemedthem
Discipline by chastisement
J. D. Jones, B. D.
"In His love and His pity He redeemedthem," says Isaiah. These sharp and
tragic punishments where with God visited His people were part of His
redemptive work. God punished in order to redeem. He used the sword in
order to deliver His people from the curse and doom of sin. It was "love and
pity" that prompted evenHis terrible judgments. God still sometimes inflicts
upon His people great and sore troubles, so that we are tempted to think He
has forgottento be gracious. Butin reality it is love that sends the trouble; it is

pity that prompts the punishment. "God's wrath," somebody has said, "is but
His love on fire." A God who never punished sin would not be a loving God.
(J. D. Jones, B. D.)
Divine discipline
N. H. Schenck, D. D.
There can be no government, there canbe no Church, save there be discipline.
In the natural world we find this law. In the animal kingdom there is ruling
and serving. In the vegetable kingdom superior vitality makes the weaker
plants give room. Among men we witness this not alone where brute force is
displayed and secures mastery. We see it in the intellectualand moral world.
Eachman has his sphere, his proper position. He must be held in that
position, else there is chaos and utter waste — worse than utter waste, ofall
his power. The work of discipline is to restore and hold man to his proper
sphere. We now behold man as fallen. See him in his pristine glory. See him as
he falls. Even in his prostration he is not wholly without compensation, for he
has gaineda knowledge ofgoodand evil. But now the tendency in man, which
before was toward God, is downward. We see in fallen man attempts to
recoverhimself a recognitionof the necessityof Divine help. In Scripture,
more especially, do we find it set forth that God is the Source of that help
which can restore man. Here is sovereigntymanifestedin mercy. Observe the
characteristicsofthis discipline.
I. IT IS JUST.
II. IT IS EQUITABLE (Psalm 85:10).
III. IT IS REMEDIAL— designed, like a righteous, law, for good, not for
punishment. -It is paternal, for it brings the wandererhome.
IV. IT IS SPECIAL. It is adapted to eachcase.
V. IT IS EXHAUSTIVE OF DIVINE HELP. You cannotthink of any one
thing which God has neglectedto do that man might be saved.

VI. IT EXHAUSTS THE GREATEST EFFORTSOF THE HUMAN SOUL.
Take awaythe beneficialeffectof this Divine discipline, and the human soul
sinks in anarchy and woe for evermore. Rightly improved, it lifts man to more
than his pristine glory.
(N. H. Schenck, D. D.)
GreatTexts of the Bible
The Angel of His Presence
In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angelof his presence saved
them.—Isaiah63:9.
These words occurin the course of a most affecting and pathetic prayer which
the prophet utters. In the course of his prayer he recalls the wonderful love of
Jehovahfor His people during their early afflictions, His patience with their
waywardness, andHis surpassing gentlenessand care while on their way to
Palestine. He is the same mighty Helper as of old, and His mercy is not
restrained.
It is an argument from God’s own past, an argument which never fails to
sustain His suffering saints, and it is no less cheering to us than to the captive
Jews;nay, more so, all the records of His dealings with His ancient people are
still witnessesto us, and from them we cangather with what manner of
Saviour we have to do. We have had the clearerlight of the Cross to
illuminate the Christian story. We can make the use of the New Testament
doubly precious when we can trace the connectionbetweenthe God of the Old
and New Testament. The mediatorial office of Christ did not begin in the
manger. It travels back to the door of history, before the birth of human souls.
It is one Personall along the line, one characterof patient lovingkindness and

mercy that is revealedto us in both Testaments—more obscurelyin the
prophecies of the Old, more abundantly in the fulfilment of the New.
I
His Sympathy
“In all their affliction he was afflicted.” Wonderful are those words. The more
carefully they are studied, the more surprising do they appear. It is only
gradually that their meaning grows upon the mind, either filling it with
increasing wonderor, where faith is strong enoughto receive it, awakening
overpowering feelings of gratitude and adoration. It must be understood at
the outsetthat God’s suffering is sympathetic. He shares in our afflictions,
inasmuch as He has sympathy with us therein. We are so dear to Him as His
children that He feels both with and for us.
1. An afflicted God.—There is no ground for the objectionthat suffering is
impossible to God, because ofthe perfection of His nature. To be
unsympathetic is no proof of perfectionin any being. The most perfect father
is by no means he who is most heedless ofthe feelings, and unaffected by the
sufferings, of his children; nor the most perfectking he who is indifferent to,
and unmoved by, the state of his subjects. And certainly it is a most arbitrary
and groundless view of the perfection of the Divine Being, which pronounces it
impossible for Him to be painfully affectedby the sufferings of His own. So
far as we know anything of moral perfection, we see that it is sympathetic just
in proportion as it rises in degree. Love is the glory of God, as it is the
goodness ofman, and love is essentiallysympathetic.

May it not be that this suffering is essentialto the very highest blessedness?Is
it not manifestly far more consistentwith it, to say the least, than indifference
or insensibility? With Bushnell, we cannot help thinking that such suffering
must be joy itself, the fullest, and profoundest, and sublimest joy conceivable.
There was never a being on earth so deep in His peace and so essentially
blessedas Jesus Christ. Even His agony itself is scarcelyanexception. There is
no joy so grand as that which has a form of tragedy. We are never so happy,
so essentiallyblessed, as when we suffer well, wearing out our life in
sympathies spent on the evil and undeserving, burdened heavily in our
prayers, struggling on through secretGethsemanes,and groaning before God,
in groans audible to God alone, for those who have no mercy on themselves.
What man of the race ever finds that in such love as this he has been made
unhappy? Therefore, whenwe say that God suffers in sympathy with His
people, we do not deny that He is the ever-blessedGod;we do rather by
implication affirm His infinite blessedness.
2. Afflicted in all our afflictions.—“Inall their affliction he was afflicted.”
Considerhow many there are who suffer—and how varied their sufferings
are. Think of the long processionofZion’s pilgrims who have wateredtheir
course with tears, and left on the flinty rock or the burning sand the marks of
their bleeding feet. Think of the sighing and groaning of the prisoners, the
victims of human oppression, which have reachedthe Divine ear. Think of the
noble army of martyrs, who after suffering inhuman tortures have sealed
their testimony with their blood. Think of the sufferers in less public spheres
who have had wearisome nights and troublesome days appointed to them.
Think of the Christian homes which have been darkenedby poverty and
suffering and bereavement, and of the myriads of Christian hearts on which
from time to time dark shadows have fallen. Think of the many afflictions of
the righteous, and of God as sharing in them all. And then say what individual
sufferer can know anything of the extent of His, who has shared in the
aggregatedsufferings of His people throughout all generations, taking upon
Himself the individual sorrows ofevery one, so that, “In all their affliction he
was afflicted.”

3. The fulfilment in Christ.—Here we have one of the tenderest conceptions of
God that the Old Testamentcangive us: the conceptionof God suffering for
and with His people. It would not be correctto say that this was a prediction
of Christ; but it would be true to saythat, here as elsewhere,Christ came not
to destroy, but to fulfil; that, in His person, He did fulfil the highest and
deepestconceptions ofGod as, shall we say, capable of feeling with men, of
descending, as it were, to their level, of bearing their burdens, of fighting their
battles—andin this sense is not this picture an anticipation, an unconscious
anticipation, of the Incarnation and the PassionofGod as exhibited in the
person of Jesus Christ our Lord?
When Jesus came and lived among us the heart of Godwas laid bare, and
every one can see in the Gospelthat patient wistful love which inhabits the
secretplace of the universe. As the father sits upon the housetop, and watches
the crestof the hill, that he may catchthe first glimpse of the returning
prodigal; as the householdermakes ready his feastand sends for his
ungrateful guests;as the vine master appeals to his disloyal tenants by his own
son, we learn the expectationof God. As Jesus takesinto His arms little
children whom superior people have despised, and casts His charity over
penitent women whom Pharisees cannotforgive, and mourns at the tomb of
Lazarus over a friend whom He cannot afford to lose, one learns the
graciousness ofGod. As Jesus turns sadly from Nazareth, the city of his youth,
which had refused Him, and reproaches Capernaum, the city of His choice,
which did not believe in Him, and weeps openly over Jerusalem, which knew
not the day of her visitation, one learns the regret of God. And as Jesus
appeals to the disciples, “Will ye also go away?” and prophesies with a sad
heart that every one of His friends will forsake Him, and is castinto a deep
gloomby the betrayal of Judas, we learn what is almostincredible, but most
comfortable, the dependence of God. The Cross is not only in the heart of
human life, it is also in the heart of God. He is the chief of all sufferers,
because He is the chief of all lovers.

There are two greatafflictions in which our Saviour may be said to have been
afflicted.
(1) There is, in the first place, the affliction of sin. It is a wonderful and
overwhelming truth that God in the person of Christ chose to learn by a
personalexperience the power of evil. This, surely, is the meaning of the
temptation, and, perhaps, of the agony and the bloody sweat. It was not that
Christ for one moment yielded in deed or thought to the PowerofDarkness,
to the temptations of evil, but, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says,
“He suffered being tempted.” It was not a mere dramatic representation, the
contestof Christ with Satan. It was real. The victory was real, but it was a
victory gainednot without pain and effort. Nor was it only by the forces of evil
combined againstHis own life that Christ was afflictedin our affliction. He
saw all around Him the evidence of the sin of man. When He beheld the city
He wept overit. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered
thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye
would not!” “He was afflicted in their affliction!” And so evermore and more
He, the sinless One, bears the sins of men upon His own heart, feels them even
as if they were His own, until at lastthey seemeven to obscure the Father’s
face.… Whatelse is the meaning of the cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou
forsakenme!” … What does it mean except that, in that darkesthour, the Son
of God had so completely identified Himself with His sinful brethren that “in
all their affliction he was afflicted”?
It is this that gives Him His powerto-day; the fact that He stoopedto learn by
a personalexperience all the strength of evil, that He descendedto enter into
the common human struggle, and in issuing victorious to be the leader against
the forces ofevil everywhere. “Forwe have not a high priest that cannotbe
touched with the feeling of our infirmities,” says the writer of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, “but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let

us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, thatwe may obtain mercy,
and find grace to help in time of need.”
(2) The other great affliction is the affliction of suffering. Sin and suffering—
of one kind and another—do not these two words comprehend and coverthe
whole range of human ills? Do we not feel the suffering of the world to be one
of our greatdifficulties in the wayof believing in the goodnessofGod—the
undeserved suffering of the world? Are we not impatient at the pious
commonplaces that are hurled at us, that “all is for the best,” that “God
knows what is goodfor us”? “It is all very well,” we canimagine men
saying—“itis all very well to say that God knows whatis bestfor us, but what
does God know of suffering? Is He not high above the suffering of the
universe, incapable of feeling it? what canHis perfectionknow of all this
anguish? That is a natural thought. The mystery of pain is one which baffles
us, but at leastthe great and awful truth of Passiontide savesus from
supposing that God is above or beyond the sphere of our suffering. “In all
their affliction He was afflicted.”
Bright February days have a strongercharm of hope about them than any
other days in the year. One likes to pause in the mild rays of the sun, and look
over the gates at the patient plough-horses turning at the end of the furrow,
and think that the beautiful year is all before one. The birds seemto feel just
the same;their notes are as clearas the clearair. There are no leaves on the
trees and hedgerows, but how greenall the grassyfields are!and the dark
purplish brown of the ploughed earth and of the bare branches is beautiful
too. What a gladworld this looks like as one drives or rides along the valleys
or over the hills! I have often thought so when, in foreign countries, where the
fields and woods have lookedto me like our English Loam shire—the rich
land tilled with just as much care, the woods rolling down the gentle slopes to
the greenmeadows—Ihave come on something by the roadside which has
reminded me that I am not in Loamshire: an image of a greatagony—the
agonyof the Cross. It has stoodperhaps by the clustering apple blossoms, or

in the broad sunshine by the cornfield, or at a turning by the woodwhere a
clearbrook was gurgling below; and surely, if there came a traveller to this
world who knew nothing of the story of man’s life upon it, this image of agony
would seem to him strangelyout of place in the midst of this joyous nature. He
would not know that hidden behind the apple-blossoms, oramong the golden
corn, or under the shrouding boughs of the woods, there might be a human
heart beating heavily with anguish; perhaps a young blooming girl, not
knowing where to turn for refuge from swift-advancing shame.… Such things
are sometimes hidden among the sunny fields, and behind the blossoming
orchards, and the sound of the gurgling brook, if you came close to one spot
behind a small bush, would be mingled for your ear with a despairing human
sob. No wonder man’s religion has much sorrow in it; no wonderhe needs a
suffering God.1 [Note: George Eliot, Adam Bede.]
Believing in Jesus, we cantravel on, through one wild parish after another,
upon English soil, and see, as I have done, the labourer who tills the land
worse housedthan the horse he drives, worse clothedthan the sheephe
shears, worse nourishedthan the hog he feeds—andyet not despair; for the
Prince of sufferers is the labourer’s Saviour; He has tastedhunger, and thirst,
and weariness,poverty, oppression, and neglect;the very tramp who wanders
houseless onthe moorside is His brother; in his sufferings the Saviour of the
world has shared, when the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests,
while the Son of God had not where to lay His head.
Think not thou canstsigh a sigh,
And thy Makeris not by:
Think not thou canstweepa tear,

And thy Makeris not near.
Oh, He gives to us His joy,
That our grief He may destroy:
Till our grief is fled and gone
He doth sit by us and moan.1 [Note:W. Blake, On Another’s Sorrow.]
Outside holy Scripture there has not been a more intimate apprehensionof
the fellow-suffering of God than these words of Blake—
He doth sit by us and moan.
He might have built a palace at a word,
Who sometime had not where to lay His head.
Time was, and He who nourished crowds with bread,
Would not one meal unto Himself afford;

Twelve legions girded with angelic sword
Were at His beck—the scorned, the buffeted.
He healed another’s scratch, His ownside bled,
Side, feet, and hands with cruel piercings gored!
Oh! wonderful the wonders left undone!
And scarce lesswonderful than those He wrought!
Oh! self-restraint, passing all human thought
To have all powerand He as having none!
Oh! self-denying love, which felt alone
For needs of others—neverfor its own.2 [Note:R. C. Trench.]
II
His PersonalPresence

“And the angelof his presence savedthem.” This must be understood, not as
an angel of the Presence, who wentout from the Presence to save the people,
but, as it is in other Scriptures, God’s own Presence, GodHimself; and so
interpreted, the phrase falls into line with the restof the verse, which is one of
the most vivid expressions that the Bible contains of the personality of God.3
[Note:G. A. Smith, The Book ofIsaiah, ii. p. 450.]
The Semites had a horror of painting the Deity in any form. But when God
had to be imagined or described, they chose the form of a man and attributed
to Him human features. Chiefly they thought of His face. To see His face, to
come into the light of His countenance, was the waytheir hearts expressed
longing for the living God. (Exodus 33:14;Psalm 31:16;Psalm 34:16;Psalm
80:7). But among the heathen Semites, God’s face was separatedfrom God
Himself, and worshipped as a separate god. In heathenSemitic religions there
are a number of deities who are the faces of others. But the Hebrew writers,
with every temptation to do the same, maintained their monotheism, and went
no further than to speak of the angel of God’s face. And in all the beautiful
narratives of Genesis, Exodus, and Judges, aboutthe glorious Presencethat
led Israelagainsttheir enemies, the angelof God’s face is the equivalent of
God Himself. Jacobsaid, the “Godwhich hath fed me, and the angelwhich
hath redeemedme, bless the lads.” In Judges this angel’s word is God’s Word.
1. The angel of His Presence.—This singularlybeautiful expressioncarries
with it associationswhich must be dear to every heart. “The angel of his
presence”—how the mind loves to linger on the music of those words, and
how near they seemto bring us to high and holy things, things unspeakably
precious and helpful to our souls!No one can stand in much doubt as to what
they mean, strange and unaccustomedthough the phrase may be. The “angel
of the Lord” is an expressionoften used in the Old Testamentto denote a
specialmanifestationof God Himself; it does not denote a messengercoming
from God; it frequently signifies a coming of God into human affairs. The still

strongerphrase, “the angelof his presence” certainlydenotes any form under
which God chooses to make His immediate presence felt by His children. The
form chosenmay, or may not, be that of an angelic being or a human
instrument, but it is always a means whereby God Himself comes right into
human experience to help and heal and save.
Scarcelyhas God made a new covenantthan Jehovah, in the guise of a man, is
found in Abraham’s tent, and the Judge of all the earth was there. From that
day we grow familiar, as we read, with a form which seems, as it were, to
haunt the world, and a form like unto the Son of Man—a form which comes
and goes in fitful glimpses, speaks in Jehovah’s name, expects the worship due
to the MostHigh, and yet calls Himself the angel of the presence of God.
Especiallyduring the Exodus this mysterious messengerappears to keepclose
company with His chosenflock as they march onward to their rest under His
guidance. It was the “messengerof God” who went before Israel in the Red
Sea, and spoke to Mosesface to face. This was the visible Presence which
commanded Moses to bring up the people, and to whom Moses said, “Ifthy
presence 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
goestwith us?” And of whom we read, “Behold, I send an angelbefore thee, to
keepthee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware ofhim, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon
your transgressions:for my name is in him.” In these wonderful words, which
might have been obscure at the time, but the meaning of which it is not now
difficult to see, it is not hard to discover Jesus Christ, who was faithful, like
Moses,though not like a servant of Moses, but as the Son of God. In His life
and body He redeemed His people, and He guided them and helped them in
the days of old. Well might St. Paul see in the Church in the wilderness a
parallel of the Church of the New Testament. Well might he see in the manna
and the water of refreshment a symbol of the Messiah. Thatrock from
whence the water sprung was Christ, the same greatpatient Saviour.

Our theories about God are our theology. It is well to value them, to be careful
of them, to try our best to keep them pure and high. But the deeper question
is, “Whatis our religion? What are our real thoughts of God? In that deep
and secretplace ofour inmost consciousness,where all our desires and
feelings and hopes and aspirations are born, what is God to us?” This is the
greatquestion, the searching question. And on the answerto it our peace, our
happiness, our usefulness depend.
We saythat God is perfect in wisdom. But do we feel that He is wise for us?
Do we trust His wisdom to guide and direct us? Do we think of Him as the
One who always knows whatis best for us?
We saythat God is perfect in righteousness. Butdo we know Him as “the
Lord, our righteousness”?Do we trust assuredlyin Him to cleanse us from
guilt and deliver us from the power of sin? Do we yield ourselves to His will
and purpose to purify and perfect us by the discipline of life?
We saythat God is omnipresent:—
His dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round oceanand the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things.
It is a grand doctrine, an inspiring doctrine, this of the Divine omnipresence.
But do we think of God as present with us personally in all the experiences of
life? Such a thought of Him is infinitely more needful, infinitely more precious
than any theory of His omnipresence.1 [Note:H. van Dyke, The Open Door, p.
127.]
But the angel of His Presence cannotmeananything to us unless we realise
what kind of a presence it is of which the prophet speaks.And surely this
ought not to be hard to discoverand understand. He looks backwardoverthe
tribulations and distresses ofIsrael, this man of God, himself a man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief, and as he surveys the long story of
troubles and suffering he sees God’s presence shining through it all, like the
face of a friend.
(1) A friendly presence.—Itmeans, first of all, a gracious, friendly, loving,
sympathising presence. Godis with us in our troubles, not merely because He
has to be there, since He is everywhere. He is there because He wants to be.
Just as truly as you desire to be near your friends, your children, when they
suffer, just so truly does God desire and choose to be near us in our afflictions.
He would not be awayfrom us even if He could. He is not present as a mere
spectator, looking atus curiously while we suffer. That cold and distant
conceptionof Him as the greatonlooker,—
Who sees with equal eyes as God of all

A hero perish or a sparrow fall,
is not the thought of the Bible. He is with us as one who has the deepest
interest in it all, feels all that happens to us, cares infinitely for us through it
all. Nor is He present merely as the author of our pains and sorrows, who
could have spared us from them if He would, but who insists upon inflicting
them on us, whateverit may costus to bear them. It costs Him as much as it
costs us. “He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men.” There
is a wondrous powerin the precise words in which the prophet voices this
profound truth. They may be translated, “In all their adversity He was no
adversary.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ has become to the world in which we live the angelof
the Presence, the Presencethat saves. In Him God has laid bare His own heart
and shownus the Divine that indwells. Never againcan we think of God
exceptin terms of Jesus. This is really the most tremendous thing that has
ever happened in the long, slow, toilsome, painful unfolding of the spiritual
consciousnessofthe human race. Time was when men could think of God as
strong but not as kind, but they cannot do that now. It is a God of love or
none.
(2) A promised presence.—God’s presence is promised and promised for ever,
for all time and in every experience. The text teaches us this. The angelof His
face is none other than the angelof the covenantin whom God’s pledge to be
with His people for ever is redeemed. Turn back to the ancient Scriptures and
hear Him give this pledge to Jacob:“Behold, I am with thee, and will keep
thee in all places whither thou goest, … for I will not leave thee, until I have
done that which I have spokento thee of.” Hear His promise to Joshua:“I will
not fail thee, nor forsake thee.” HearHis promise through Isaiah: “I the Lord
will hear thee; I the God of Israel will not forsake thee. When thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not

overflow thee. And even to your old age I am He; and even to hoar hairs will I
carry you; I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver
you.” And then hear the pledge of Jesus Christ: “I will not leave you
comfortless:I will come to you. Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of
the world.”
2. The angel of His Presencesavedthem. The powerof such a thought of God
always with us, and most of all in our times of weaknessand trial and trouble,
must be a redeeming delivering, upbearing power.
Some time ago a friend took me to his country house, where, amidst other
interesting things, he showedme the method by which his household and
other households near it were supplied with water. He had locatedan
inexhaustible supply, pure and good, at a greatdepth underground. How far
it extended he did not know, but beyond his property, at any rate. He had
sunk a shaft, and had placed above it an iron reservoirwhich would open for
inspection at any time, a conspicuous objecton his particular piece of
property. It stoodon a raisedplatform so that any one could easilysee it and
gaze upon its contents. From that reservoir pipes were led under the turf to all
the rooms where water was fitted, though there were fields between, and there
it gushed forth freely at any level the moment the taps were turned on. It is
not an inappropriate symbol to me of our relationship to our blessedLord and
Master. The life of God is like that watersupply underlying all our being,
nourishing and sustaining it as the underground springs nourishing my
friend’s fields and gardens, without which they would be neither fields nor
gardens, but only deserts. Without God there would be no humanity to go
wrong; without God not for one moment could you draw your breath in the
thinking of a thought, goodor ill. There it was all the time, only hidden
underground. Jesus Christ has drawn it from the depths and made it
immediate. He is like the visible reservoirfrom which the pipes are laid that
convey the Water of Life to every heart.1 [Note: R. J. Campbell.]

A little boy of mine came home one day bearing the marks of battle. Of course
it was very wrong, but let me tell you fathers and mothers, the boy who does
not sometimes getinto a scrimmage and come out on the right side is not
likely to do much in this world! My boy came home, and, of course, I rebuked
him—only officially. I found he had been in conflict with a boy much bigger
than himself. I said, “Were you frightened, Arthur?” He said, “No.” I said,
“You ought to have been. The boy was biggerthan you.” “I wasn‘t, dad,” he
replied. “You see, Norman(his big brother) was only just round the corner!”
It is a grand thing to have a brother in reserve!Oh, my brothers, reverently I
can tell the poorest, vilest, weakestman in London that if only he will set his
face toward the light, though all the powers of hell give him battle, he has a
big omnipotent redeeming Brother, not round the corner, but in the heart!2
[Note:A. T. Guttery.]
(1) His Presence mustsave us, first of all, from the sense ofmeanness,
littleness, unworthiness which embitters life and makes sorrow doubly hard to
bear. The Presence ofGod must bring a sense of dignity, of elevationinto our
existence. It was a greatking who once said, “Where I sleep, there is the
palace.” The life that has the PresenceofGod in it canbe neither trivial nor
unworthy.
(2) The angelof God’s face saves also from that feeling of reckless
indifference, dumb carelessness,whichsometimes tempts us to let our lives go
blundering and stumbling along on the lower levels. It brings a new
conscienceinto our thoughts, desires, and efforts, awakens a noble
dissatisfactionwith our halfhearted work, quickens within us a longing to be
more fit for the Divine companionship.
It is one mark of a good friend that he makes you wish to be at your best while
you are with him. The blessedpersons who have this influence are made in the
likeness ofthat heavenly Friend whose Presence is at once a stimulus and a

help to purity of heart and nobleness of demeanour. A man’s reputation is
what his fellow-menthink of him. A man’s characteris what God knows of
him. When we feel that the angel of His face is with us, a careless life, a
superficial life no longersatisfies us. We long to be pure in heart, strong in
purpose, cleanin deed, because we know that nothing else will satisfyHim.
(3) The angelof God’s face saves us from the sense ofweakness, ignorance,
incompetence, which overwhelms us in the afflictions of life. We feel not only
that we are powerless to protectourselves againsttrouble, but that we are not
able to get the goodout of it that ought to come to us. We cannotinterpret our
sorrows aright. We cannotsee the real meaning of them. We cannot reachour
hand through the years to catch“the far-off interest of tears.” We sayto
ourselves in despair, “Godonly knows what it means.” And if we do not
believe that God is with us, then that thought shuts us up in the darkness, puts
the interpretation of the mystery far awayfrom us, locks us up in the prison
house of sorrow and leaves the key in heaven. But if we believe that God is
with us, then the word of despair becomes a word of hope.
(4) The angelof God’s face saves us from the sense ofloneliness, which is
unbearable. Companionship is essentialto happiness. A solitary Eden would
have been no Paradise. The deepestof all miseries is the sense of absolute
isolation. There are moments in the experience of most of us when the
mysterious consciousnessofthe law which made all human souls separate, like
islands—
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumb’d, salt, estranging sea,

fills us with heaviness of heart. In this painful solitude the present friendship
of God is the only sure consolation. Nothing candivide us from Him—not
misunderstanding, nor coldness, nor selfishness,nor scorn—fornone of these
things are possible to Him. Nothing can divide us from Him except our own
sin, and that He has forgiven and takenawayand blotted out by His great
mercy in Christ.
A few years ago a man of greattalent, famous for his eloquence, but even
better known for the entire unbelief in God which he proclaimed, was called
to deliver a funeral address overthe grave of his brother. In words of sombre
pathos he comparedthis life to a narrow, green valley betweenthe cold peaks
of two eternities. We walk here for a little while in company with those whom
we love. Then our hands are loosedand our companions vanish. We cansee
but a little way. Beyond the encircling hills all is gloom and nothingness. How
different is the voice of one whose hearthas known and trusted the angelof
the face of God! “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fearno evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they
comfort me.”1 [Note:H. van Dyke, The Open Door, p. 143.]
Strange that men should be savedby a Presence;it is such a quiet thing.
Salvationmight be thought to require something strong, potent, compelling;
we are surprised at an influence so gentle. Yet, I think, the most potent thing
in the world is just a Presence.Whatis it that determines the rank in society?
It is the answerto the question, “Who are there?” What is it that brings
condolence to an hour of bereavement? It is just the saying of one to another,
“I am with you.” It is not what is spoken;it is not what is done; it is the sense
that some one is there. So is it with my Father. I am not anxious to know the
why, but only the where, of God. It matters little to me for what purpose He
walks upon the storm, nor is it of deadly consequencewhetheror not He shall
say, “Peace, be still.” The all-important thing is that the feetupon the sea
should be His feet—His, and not another’s. Tell me that, and I ask no more.
There is all the difference in the world betweena silent room and an empty

room. There is a companionship where there is no voice. Is it not written, “In
thy presence is fulness of joy”? In the very sense that my Father is there,
though He speak not, though He whisper not, though He write not His
messagein a book, there comes to my heart a greatcalm.1 [Note:G.
Matheson, Searchingsin the Silence, p. 132.]
In his book calledThe Kingdom of Heaven, which is a detailed statementof
the writer’s own personal faith, PeterRoseggertells us of a Styrian farmer
who was knownto his neighbours by the nickname of “The Pair.” He was
always engagedin converse with some unseen friend. If he came to a part of
the road where there was a rough path and a smooth, he took the rough path
and left the other for his unseen companion. When he came to an inn he
always ordered two glassesofwine, one for himself and one for his friend who
was with him, and the friend’s glass of wine had always to be servedon the
best utensil the inn could provide. And when paying his bill he would give
directions that the friend’s glass ofwine, left behind, should be given to the
first poor man who came that way. In his own home, at every meal, he always
reservedthe seatof honour at his right hand for this unseenfriend, and before
this vacantchair there was placedthe best that his home could provide. And
so he lived a most peacefuland cheerful life. At last he came to lie down on
what proved to be the bed of his last sickness;and while lying there he had a
vacant chair placedby him, and kept his right hand out, holding the hand of
his unseenfriend, and maintained with him low-tonedconverse. Menasked
him who was there, and he said, “Don‘t you know? He is there;” and they
came to understand that he believed, that he knew, that Jesus Christ was
there. And so he died; and on the day of his funeral, Roseggertells us, in his
own beautiful and touching way, the grave was opened near a large marble
figure of the GoodShepherd. It was a lovely day; the sun was shining brightly
upon the marble figure, and a white shaft of light shot from the marble figure
into the heart of the grave, and this Styrian farmer, who had lived this life of
faith in the unseen, but very real, Son of God, was laid in that grave with the
white light of heaven illuminating his darkness, a fitting termination to a life
so pure and trustful.2 [Note:G. Hanson in The Free Church Year Book for
1908, p. 137.]

The Angel of His Presence
COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
(9) In all their affliction . . .—Literally, there was affliction to Him. So taken,
the words speak of a compassionlike that of Judges 10:16. The Hebrew text
gives, In all their affliction there was no affliction: i.e., it was as nothing
compared with the salvationwhich came from Jehovah. The Authorised
Version follows the Kĕri, or marginal reading of the Hebrew. It may be
inferred, from the strange rendering of both clauses in the LXX. (“neither a
messenger, noran angel, but He himself savedthem “), that the variation in
the text existed at an early date, and was a source of perplexity, and therefore
of conjecturalemendation.
The angelof his presence . . .—Literally, the angel of His face. As in Exodus
23:20-23;Exodus 32:34; Exodus 33:2, so here, Jehovahis thought of as
working out His purpose of deliverance for Israelthrough the mediation of an
angel, who is thus describedeither as revealing the highestattributes of God,
of which the “face” is the anthropomorphic symbol, or as standing ever in the
immediate presence ofthe King of kings, ready for any mission.
He bare them . . .—The same image of fatherly care meets us in Isaiah46:3,
Exodus 19:4, Deuteronomy 1:31; Deuteronomy 32:11.
MacLaren's Expositions
Isaiah

THE SYMPATHY OF GOD
Isaiah63:9.
I. The wonderful glimpse opened here into the heart of God.
It is not necessaryto touch upon the difference betweenthe text and margin of
the RevisedVersion, or to enter on the reasonfor preferring the former. And
what a deep and wonderful thought that is, of divine sympathy with human
sorrow!We feelthat this transcends the prevalent tone of the Old Testament.
It is made the more striking by reasonofthe other sides of the divine nature
which the Old Testamentgives so strongly; as, for instance, the
unapproachable elevation and absolute sovereigntyof God, and the
retributive righteousness ofGod.
Affliction is His chastisement, and is ever righteously inflicted. But here is
something more, tender and strange. Sympathy is a necessarypart of love.
There is no true affectionwhich does not put itself in the place and share the
sorrows ofits objects. And His sympathy is none the less because He inflicts
the sorrow. These afflictions whereinHe too was afflicted, were sent by Him.
Like an earthly father who suffers more than the child whom he chastises, the
Heavenly Father feels the strokes that He inflicts.
That sympathy is consistentwith the blessednessofGod. Even in the pain of
our human sympathy there is a kind of joy, and we may be sure that in His
nature there is nothing else.
Contrastwith other thoughts about God.

The vague agnosticismofthe present day, which knows only a dim Something
of which we can predicate nothing.
The God of the philosophers-whomwe are bidden to think of as passionless
and unemotional. No wave of feeling ever ripples that tideless sea. The
attribute of infinitude or sovereigncompletenessis dwelt on with such
emphasis as to obscure all the rest.
The gods of men’s own creationare carelessin their happiness, and cruel in
their vengeance. Buthere is a God for all the weary and the sorrowful. What a
thought for us in our own burdened days!
II. The mystery of the divine salvation.
Of course the salvationhere spokenof is the deliverance from Egyptian
bondage. This is a summary of the Exodus. But we must mark well that
significant expression, ‘the angelof His face’or ‘presence.’We can only
attempt a partial and bald enumeration of some of the very remarkable
references to that mysterious person, ‘the angelof the Lord ‘or ‘of the
presence.’The dying Jacobascribedhis being ‘redeemed from all evil’ to ‘the
Angel,’ and invoked his blessing on ‘the lads.’‘The angel of the Lord’
appearedto Mosesout of the midst of the burning bush. On Sinai, Jehovah
promised to send an ‘angel’ in whom was His own name, before the people.
The promise was renewedafter Israel’s sin and repentance, and was then
given in the form, ‘My presence shallgo with thee.’ Joshua saw a man with a
drawn swordin his hand, who declared himself to be the Captain of the
Lord’s host. ‘The angelof the Lord’ appearedto Manoahand his wife,
withheld his name from them because it was ‘wonderful’ or ‘secret,’accepted
their sacrifice, and went up to heaven in its flame. Wherefore Manoahsaid,

‘We have seenGod.’ Long after these early visions, a psalmist knows himself
safe because ‘the angel of the Lord encampethround about them that fear
Him.’ Hosea, looking back onthe story of Jacob’s wrestling at Peniel, says,
first, that ‘he had powerwith God, yea, he had power over the angel,’and
then goes onto say that ‘there He spake with us, even Jehovah.’And Malachi,
on the last verge of Old Testamentprophecy, goes furthestof all in seeming to
run togetherthe conceptions of Jehovahand the Angel of Jehovah, for he
says, ‘The Lord whom ye seek shallsuddenly come to His temple; and the
angelof the covenant. . . behold, he cometh.’ From this imperfect resume, we
see that there appears in the earliestas in the latestbooks of the Old
Testament, a person distinguished from the hosts of angels, identified in a
very remarkable manner with Jehovah, by alternation of names, in attributes
and offices, and in receiving worship, and being the organof His revelation.
That specialrelation to the divine revelationis expressedby both the
representationthat ‘Jehovah’s name is in him,’ and by the designationin our
text, ‘the angelof His presence,’or literally, ‘of His face.’For ‘name’ and
‘face’are in so far synonymous that they mean the side of the divine nature
which is turned to the world.
For the present I go no further than this. It is clear, then, that our text is at all
events remarkable, in that it ascribes to this ‘angel of His presence’the praise
of Jehovah’s saving work. The loving heart, afflicted in all their afflictions,
sends forth the messengerofHis face, and by Him is salvationwrought. The
whole sum of the deliverance of Israel in the past is attributed to Him. Surely
this must have been felt by a devout Jew to concealsome greatmystery.
III. The crowning revelation both of the heart of God and of His saving
power.
{a} Jesus Christis the true ‘angelof the face.’

I do not need to enter on the question of whether in the Old Testamentthe
angelof the Covenantwas indeed a pre-manifestation of the eternal Son. I am
disposedto answerit in the affirmative. But be that as it may, all that was
spokenof the angelis true of Him. God’s name is in Him, and that not in
fragments or half-syllables but complete. The face of God looks lovingly on
men in Him, so that Jesus coulddeclare, ‘He that hath seenMe hath seenthe
Father.’His presence brings God’s presence, and He can venture to say, ‘We
will come and make our abode with Him.’ He is the agentof the divine
salvation.
The identity and the difference are here in their highest form.
{b} The mystery of God’s sharing our sorrows is explained in Him.
We may find a difficulty in the thought of a suffering and sympathising God.
But if we believe that ‘My name is in Him,’ then the sympathy and gentleness
of Jesus is the compassionofGod. This is a true revelation. So tears at the
grave sighs in healing, and all the sorrows whichHe bore are an unveiling of
the heart of God.
That sharing our sorrows is the very heart of His work. We might almost say
that He became man in order to increase His power of sympathy, as a prince
might temporarily become a pauper. But certainly He became man that He
might bear our burdens. ‘Himself took our infirmities.’ ‘Forasmuchas the
children are partakers offlesh and blood, He himself also likewise took part of
the same.’
The atoning death is the climax of Christ’s being afflicted with our afflictions.
His priestly sympathy flows out now and for ever to us all.

So complete is His unity with God, that He works the salvation which is
God’s, and that God’s name is in Him. So complete is His union with us, that
our sorrows touchHim and His life becomes ours. ‘Ye have done it unto Me.’
‘Saul, Saul, why persecutestthou Me?’
For us in all our troubles there are no darker rooms than Christ has been in
before us. We are like prisoners put in the same cell as some great martyr. He
drank the cup, and we canput the rim to our lips at the place that His lips
have touched. But not only may we have our sufferings lightened by the
thought that He has borne the same, and that we know the ‘fellowshipof
Christ’s sufferings,’but we have the further alleviation of being sure that He
makes our afflictions His by perfectsympathy, and, still more wonderful and
blessed, that there is such unity of life and sensationbetweenthe Head and the
members that our afflictions are His, and are not merely made so.
‘Think not thou canstsigh a sigh,
And thy Saviouris not by;
Think not thou canstshed a tear
And thy Saviouris not near.’
Do not front the world alone. In all our afflictions He is with us; out of them
all He saves.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

63:7-14 The latter part of this chapter, and the whole of the next, seemto
express the prayers of the Jews ontheir conversation. Theyacknowledge
God's great mercies and favours to their nation. They confess their
wickednessand hardness of heart; they entreathis forgiveness, anddeplore
the miserable condition under which they have so long suffered. The only-
begottenSon of the Fatherbecame the Angel or Messengerofhis love; thus he
redeemedand bare them with tenderness. Yet they murmured, and resisted
his Holy Spirit, despising and persecuting his prophets, rejecting and
crucifying the promised Messiah. All our comforts and hopes spring from the
loving-kindness of the Lord, and all our miseries and fears from our sins. But
he is the Saviour, and when sinners seek afterhim, who in other ages glorified
himself by saving and feeding his purchasedflock, and leading them safely
through dangers, and has given his Holy Spirit to prosper the labours of his
ministers, there is goodground to hope they are discovering the way of peace.
Barnes'Notes on the Bible
In all their affliction he was afflicted - This is a most beautiful sentiment,
meaning that God sympathized with them in all their trials, and that he was
ever ready to aid them. This sentiment accords wellwith the connection;but
there has been some doubt whether this is the meaning of the Hebrew. Lowth
renders it, as has been alreadyremarked, 'It was not an envoy, nor an angelof
his presence thatsaved him.' Noyes, 'In all their straits they had no distress.'
TheSeptuagintrenders it, 'It was not an ambassador (ου ̓ πρέσβυς ou
presbus), nor an angel (οὐδὲ ἄγγελος oude angelos), but he himself saved
them.' Instead of the presentHebrew word (‫רצ‬ tsâr, 'affliction'), they
evidently read it, ‫ציר‬ tsiyr, 'a messenger.'The Chaldee renders it, 'Every time
when they sinned againsthim, so that he might have brought upon them
tribulation, he did not afflict them.' The Syriac, 'In all their calamities he did
not afflict them.' This variety of translation has arisen from an uncertainty or
ambiguity in the Hebrew text.
Instead of the presentreading (‫אל‬ lo', 'not') about an equal number of
manuscripts read ‫אל‬ lô, 'to him,' by the change of a single letter. According to
the former reading, the sense would be, 'in all their affliction, there was no
distress,'that is, they were so comfortedand supported by God, that they did

not feelthe force of the burden. According to the other mode of reading it, the
sense would be, 'in all their affliction, there was affliction to him;' that is, he
sympathized with them, and upheld them. Either reading makes goodsense,
and it is impossible now to ascertainwhichis correct. Gesenius supposes it to
mean, 'In all their afflictions there would be actually no trouble to them. God
sustainedthem, and the angelof of his presence supportedand delivered
them.' For a fuller view of the passage, seeRosenmuller. In the uncertainty
and doubt in regard to the true reading of the Hebrew, the proper way is not
to attempt to change the translationin our common version. It expresses an
exceedinglyinteresting truth, and one that is suited to comfort the people of
God; - that he is never unmindful of their sufferings;that he feels deeply when
they are afflicted; and that he hastens to their relief. It is an idea which occurs
everywhere in the Bible, that God is not a cold, distant, abstractbeing; but
that he takes the deepestinterest in human affairs, and especiallythat he has a
tender solicitude in all the trials of his people.
And the angel of his presence savedthem - This angel, called'the angelof the
presence ofGod,' is frequently mentioned as having conductedthe children of
Israelthrough the wilderness, and as having interposed to save them Exodus
23:20, Exodus 23:31;Exodus 32:34; Exodus 33:2; Numbers 20:16. The phrase,
'the angelof his presence,'(Hebrew, ‫פ‬ ‫מאלי‬‫יל‬ ‫פ‬ male'âk pânâyv, 'angelof his
face,'or 'countenance'), means an angel that stands in his presence, andthat
enjoys his favor, as a man does who stands before a prince, or who is admitted
constantly to his presence (compare Proverbs 22:29). Evidently there is
reference here to an angelof superior order or rank, but to whom has been a
matter of doubt with interpreters. Jarchisupposes that it was Michael,
mentioned in Daniel 10:13-21. The Chaldee renders it, 'The angelsent (‫חאיׁש‬
shelı̂yach) from his presence.'MostChristian interpreters have supposedthat
the reference is to the Messiah, as the manifested guide and defender of the
children of Israel during their long journey in the desert. This is not the place
to go into a theologicalexaminationof that question. The sense ofthe Hebrew
here is, that it was a messengersentfrom the immediate presence of God, and
therefore of elevatedrank. The opinion that it was the Son of God is one that
can be sustainedby arguments that are not easilyrefuted. On the subject of

angels, according to the Scripture doctrine, the reader may consultwith
advantage an article by Dr. Lewis Mayer, in the Bib. Rep., Oct. 1388.
He redeemed them - (See the notes at Isaiah43:1).
And he bare them - As a shepherd carries the lambs of the flock, or as a nurse
carries her children; or still more probably, as an eagle bears her young on
her wings Deuteronomy 32:11-12. The idea is, that he conducted them
through all their trials in the wilderness, and led them in safety to the
promised land (compare the notes at Isaiah40:11).
All the days of old - In all their former history. He has been with them and
protectedthem in all their trials.
Jamieson-Fausset-BrownBible Commentary
9. he was afflicted—EnglishVersion reads the Hebrew as the Keri (Margin),
does, "There was afflictionto Him." But the Chetib (text) reads, "There was
no affliction" (the change in Hebrew being only of one letter); that is, "In all
their affliction there was no (utterly overwhelming) affliction" [Gesenius];or,
for "Hardly had an affliction befallen them, when the angelof His presence
savedthem" [Maurer]; or, as bestsuits the parallelism, "In all their straits
there was no straitness in His goodnessto them" [Houbigant], (Jud 10:16; Mic
2:7; 2Co 6:12).
angelof his presence—literally, "ofHis face," that is, who stands before Him
continually; Messiah(Ex 14:19;23:20, 21; Pr 8:30), language applicable to no
creature (Ex 32:34;33:2, 14;Nu 20:16;Mal 3:1).
bare them—(Isa 46:3, 4; 40:11;Ex 19:4; De 32:11, 12).
Matthew Poole's Commentary
In all their affliction he was afflicted; because ofall the afflictions they
endured in Egypt: this notes the sympathy that is in Christ, he having the
same Spirit in him that the church hath, and her Head and Father. Or, In all
their afflictions no affliction; so the words may be read; their afflictions were
rather favors than afflictions; all that befell them from the Red Sea through
the wilderness;and then tzar is takenactively, he afflicted not: this may note

his clemency, their sting was takenout; either way it may be read according to
the different spelling of lo, whether by aleph or vau. The first seems the more
genuine; they that list to drive this notion further may consultthe Latin
Synopsis, and the English Annotations. The angelof his presence;the same
that conductedthem through the wilderness, calledan angel, Exodus 33:2,
and his presence, Isaiah63:14, and Jehovah, Exodus 13:21;so that it must be
the Lord Jesus Christ, who appearedto Mosesin the bush, as Stephen doth
interpret it, Acts 7:35, &c. Other angels are in his presence, but they were not
always;he was ever so, therefore so called by way of eminency; hence the
LXX. express it not a legate, or angel, but himself. Savedthem from the house
of bondage; brought them through the Red Sea, the wilderness, &c. Their
Rock was Christ, 1 Corinthians 10:4.
In his love and in his pity: this shows the ground of his kindness; they were a
stubborn, superstitious, idolatrous people, yet Christ’s love and pity saved
them for all that; it was because he loved them.
He bare them, and carried them; he left them not to shift for themselves, but
bare them as a father his child, or an eagle her young ones;he carried them in
the arms of his power; see Isaiah46:4; and on the wings of his providence: see
Deu 32:10-12;and See Poole "Deu1:31". And he is said to do it
of old, to remember his ancient kindness for many generations past;elam
signifies an eternity, or a long time past, as well as to come; from the clays of
Abraham or Moses,from their bondage in Egypt, to the time of Isaiah; and it
is used as an argument to move him to do so still; he will carry her till he
bring her unto his Father.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
In all their affliction he was afflicted,.... That is, God, who said the above
words; not properly speaking;for to be afflicted is not consistentwith his

nature and perfections, being a spirit, and impassible; nor with his infinite
and complete happiness; but this is said after the manner of men, and is
expressive of the sympathy of God with his afflicted people, and his tender
care of them, and concernfor them under affliction, as one friend may have
for another: afflictions belong to the people of God; they come to them, not by
chance, but according to the will of God; and are not in wrath, but in love;
they are many and various; there is an "all" of them, yet not one too many,
and in everyone of them God is afflicted, or sympathizes with them: as he
lookedupon the affliction of the people of Israel, in Egypt, at the Red sea, and
in the wilderness, and had compassionupon them, and savedthem, so he visits
all his people when afflicted, and pities them, and speaks comfortablyto them;
knows and owns their souls in adversity; makes known himself to them;
grants them his gracious presence;puts underneath them his everlasting
arms; makes their bed in their affliction, and supplies their wants;and this
sympathy arises from their union to him, from his relationto them as a
Father, and from his greatlove to them. There is a double reading of these
words; the marginal reading is, "in all their affliction there is affliction to
him" (t); or, "he was afflicted"; which our version follows:the textual reading
is, "there is no affliction"; or, "he was not afflicted" (u); he seemedto take no
notice of their affliction, or be concernedat it, that he might the soonerbring
them to a sense of themselves and their sins, Hosea 5:15. The Targum follows
this reading, and renders it actively, "and he afflicted them not" (w): they
were indeed in affliction, but they, and not he, brought it upon them, and by
their sins. Some render it, "he was no enemy" (x); though he afflicted them,
yet not in wrath, but love; or, "in all their straits there was no strait" (y); the
Israelites were in straits when Pharaoh's army pursued them behind, the
rocks were on both sides them, and the sea before them, and yet there was no
strait as it were, they were so soondelivered out of it; and so it may be read,
"in all their afflictions there was no affliction"; there is so much love in the
afflictions of God's people, and they work so much for their good, and they
are so soondelivered out of them, that they scarcedeserve the name of
afflictions; and so both readings may be takenin, "in all their afflictions there
was no affliction to him"; or to them, to Israel, to the people of God:

and the Angel of his presence savedthem; not Michael, as Jarchi;but the
Messiahis here meant; the Angel of the covenant, the Angel which went
before the Israelites in the wilderness, Exodus 23:20 not a createdangel, or an
angelby nature, but by office;being sentof God, as the word signifies, on the
errand and business of salvation;called "the Angel of God's presence", or
"face", becausehis face was seenin him; his name, and nature, and
perfections were in him; he is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the
express image of his person besides, the presence ofGod was always with him;
he is the "Ithiel", the Word that was with God, and with whom God always
was;who lay in the bosom of his Father, and was everwith him; and who also,
as Mediator, introduces his people into the presence of God, and always
appears in it for them as their advocate and intercessor:now to him salvation
is ascribed;he savedIsraelout of Egypt, and out of the hands of all their
enemies in the wilderness;and which salvationwas typical of the spiritual,
eternal, and complete salvation, which is only by Christ, and issues in eternal
glory:
in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; Israelout of Egyptian bondage,
and from all their enemies, which was owing to his greatlove to them, which
operatedin a way of mercy, pity, and compassion, Hosea11:1, and it is he who
has redeemedthe spiritual Israelof God, not by poweronly, but by price,
from sin, Satan, and the law, death, and hell, with a spiritual and eternal
redemption, and which flows from his love to those persons;hence he
undertook to be their Redeemer;came in their nature to redeem them; and
gave himself for them for that purpose; which love is wonderful and
matchless, and showeditself in pity and compassion;he became a merciful as
well as a faithful high priest; he saw them in their low estate, pitied them, and
delivered them out of it:
and he bare them, and carriedthem all the days of old; he bore them in his
bosom, and in his arms, as a nursing father his child; he carried them, as on
eagles'wings, from the time of their coming out of Egypt, to their settlement
in Canaan's land, Numbers 11:12 he bore with their manners for forty years,
and carried them through all their trials and difficulties, and supported them
under them, and brought them out of them all, Acts 13:18 and so he bears all
his people on his heart, and in his hands, and bears them up under all their

temptations and afflictions; and, from the time of their conversion, carries on
his work in them, and carries them safe to heaven, as the great Captain of
their salvation, and never leaves them, nor forsakesthem; see Isaiah46:3.
(t) "angustia ipsi fuit", Calvin, Grotius; "ipse fuit contribulatus", Munster;
"ipsi fuit angustum", Vitringa. (u) "non angustia, Montanus; non afflictus
est", Tigurine version. (w) "Nonaffeciteos angustia", Junius & Tremellius,
Piscator;"non coarctaviteos, sub. Deus, vel angustia", Forerius, (x) "Nonfuit
hostis", Gataker;so Gussetius, Ebr. Comment. p. 423. (y) "In omni angustia
eorum non augustia", Montanus.
Geneva Study Bible
In all their affliction he was {i} afflicted, and the angel{k} of his presence
savedthem: in his love and in his pity he redeemedthem; and he bore them,
and carried them all the days of old.
(i) He bore their afflictions and griefs as though they had been his own.
(k) Which was a witness of God's presence, and this may be referred to
Christ, to whom belongs the office of salvation.
EXEGETICAL(ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Cambridge Bible for Schools andColleges
9. In all their affliction he was afflicted] (lit. “there was affliction to Him”).
This is the sense ofthe Qĕrê, which substitutes lô (to him) for the lô’ (not) of
the Kĕthîb (see on ch. Isaiah 9:3). It is impossible to obtain a goodsense from
the consonantaltext; and it is accordinglyrejectedin favour of the Qĕrê by
nearly all commentators. There is, however, no equally strong expressionof
Jehovah’s sympathy with His people in the O.T.;both Jdg 10:16, and Psalm
106:44 fall far short of it. The LXX. (joining “in all their affliction” to the
previous verse) continues: οὐ πρέσβυς οὐδὲ ἄγγελος, ἀλλʼ αὐτὸς ἔσωσεν
αὐτούς;i.e. Not a messengeror an angel(but) His Presence savedthem. The
only textual difference here is that ‫יצ‬ ‫י‬‫ר‬ (“messenger” or “ambassador”)is read
instead of ‫צ‬ ָ‫ר‬ (“affliction”). It is true that ‫יצ‬ ‫י‬‫ר‬ is not elsewhere usedof an
angelic representative of Jehovah;but the metaphor is a natural one, and

otherwise the translation has much to recommend it. (a) The “Presence”(lit.
“Face”)ofJehovahis used elsewhere ofHis self-manifestation. The
fundamental passage is Exodus 33:14-15 : “My presence shallgo … If thy
presence go not, &c.” But comp. also Deuteronomy4:37; Lamentations 4:16,
and see on ch. Isaiah59:2. (b) An “angelof the Presence”onthe other hand is
a figure elsewhere unknownto the O.T.;the phrase would seemto be “a
confusionof two forms of expression, incident to a midway stage of
revelation” (Cheyne). (c) The “Face”ofJehovah, however, is not (as the LXX.
inferred) just the same as JehovahHimself in person. It is rather a name for
His highestsensible manifestation, and hardly differs from what is in other
places calledthe Mal’ak Yahveh (Angel of Jehovah). This is shewnby a
comparisonof Exodus 33:14 f., with Exodus 23:20-23. The verse therefore
means that it was no ordinary angelic messenger, but the supreme
embodiment of Jehovah’s presence that accompaniedIsraelin the early days.
The idea has its analogiesin Semitic heathenism, as when at Carthage the
goddess Tanitwas worshipped as the “Face ofBaal,” althoughthis has been
otherwise explained (Euting, Punische Steine, p. 8).
and he bare them] Better, took them up, as in ch. Isaiah 40:15. Cf.
Deuteronomy 32:11.
Pulpit Commentary
Verse 9. - In all their affliction he was afflicted. The "affliction" of Israel
beganin Egypt (Genesis 15:13), probably not long after the death of Joseph. It
became an intense oppression, when the king "arose who knew not Joseph"
(Exodus 1:8). God's sympathy with Israel's sufferings at this time is strongly
marked in the narrative of Exodus (Exodus 2:23, 24;Exodus 3:7, 17). An
alternative reading of the Hebrew text gives the sense, "Inall their affliction
he was not an adversary;" i.e. he did not afflict them for their hurt, but for
their benefit. But the reading followedby our translators, and most moderns,
is to be preferred. The angelof his presence savedthem. "The angelof his
presence" occurs nowhere but in this place. It is probably equivalent to "the
angelof God" (Exodus 14:19;Judges 15:6; Acts 27:23), or "the angel of the

Lord" (Genesis 16:7;Numbers 22:23; Judges 13:3, etc.), and designates either
the SecondPersonofthe Trinity, or the highest of the angelic company, who
seems to be the archangelMichael(see Pussy's 'Daniel,'pp. 525, 526). (Forthe
angelic interpositions which "saved" Israel, see Exodus 14:19;Judges 6:11-23;
Judges 13:3-21;2 Kings 19:35, etc.)In his love and in his pity he redeemed
them. The "redemption" of this passage is probably that from the bondage of
Egypt (Exodus 6:6; Exodus 15:13; Deuteronomy7:8, etc.), which belongedto
"the days of old" - not the spiritual redemption from the bondage of sin,
which was reservedfor the time of the Messiah. Having "redeemed" them, i.e.
delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and thereby, as it were,
purchased them to be his own, he bare them - "Carriedthem on eagles'
wings" (Exodus 19:4), and brought them safely through the wilderness to
Palestine (comp. Deuteronomy 32:10-12).
Keil and DelitzschBiblical Commentary on the Old Testament
The personreplies: "I have trodden the wine-trough alone, and of the nations
no one was with me: and I trode them in my wrath, and trampled them down
in my fury; and their life-sap spirted upon my clothes, and all my raiment was
stained. For a day of vengeance was in my heart, and the year of my
redemption was come. And I lookedround, and there was no helper; and I
wondered there was no supporter: then mine ownarm helped me; and my
fury, it became my support. And I trode down nations in my wrath, and made
them drunk in my fury, and made their life-blood run down to the earth." He
had indeed trodden the wine-press (pūrâh equals gath, or, if distinct from this,
the pressing-troughas distinguished from the pressing-house or pressing-
place;according to Frst, something hollowed out; but according to the
traditional interpretation from pūr equals pârar, to crush, press, both
different from yeqebh: see at Isaiah5:2), and he alone;so that the juice of the
grapes had saturated and colouredhis clothes, and his only. When he adds,
that of the nations no one was with him, it follows that the press which he
trode was so great, that he might have neededthe assistance ofwhole nations.
And when he continues thus: And I trod them in my wrath, etc., the enigma is
at once explained. It was to the nations themselves that the knife was applied.
They were cut off like grapes and put into the wine-press (Joel3:13); and this
heroic figure, of which there was no longer any doubt that it was Jehovah

Himself, had trodden them down in the impulse and strength of His wrath.
The red upon the clothes was the life-blood of the nations, which had spirted
upon them, and with which, as He trode this wine-press, He had soiledall His
garments. Nētsach, according to the more recently acceptedderivation from
nâtsach, signifies, according to the traditional idea, which is favoured by
Lamentations 3:18, vigor, the vital strength and life-blood, regarded as the
sap of life. ‫זיל‬ (compare the historicaltense ‫לּיז‬ in 2 Kings 9:33) is the future
used as an imperfect, and it spirted, from nâzâh (see at Isaiah 52:15). ‫לּתלאגי‬
(from ‫ללא‬ equals ‫,לעא‬ Isaiah 59:3) is the perfect hiphil with an Aramaean
inflexion (compare the same Aramaism in Psalm 76:6; 2 Chronicles 20:35;
and ‫י‬ ‫,יאל‬ which is half like it, in Job 16:7); the Hebrew form would be ‫.יּתלאגי‬
(Note:The Babylonian MSS have ‫יתאלּתל‬ with chirek, since the Babylonian
(Assyrian) systemof punctuation has no seghol.)
AE and A regardthe form as a mixture of the perfectand future, but this is a
mistake. This work of wrath had been executedby Jehovah, because He had
in His heart a day of vengeance, whichcould not be delayed, and because the
year (see at Isaiah61:2) of His promised redemption had arrived. ‫ללאי‬ (this is
the proper reading, not ‫,ללּואי‬ as some codd. have it; and this was the reading
which Rashi had before him in his comm. on Lamentations 1:6) is the plural
of the passive participle used as an abstractnoun (compare ‫יּייה‬ vivi, vitales,
or rather viva, vitalia equals vita). And He only had accomplishedthis work of
wrath. Isaiah 63:5 is the expansion of ‫,אּדבי‬ and almost a verbal repetition of
Isaiah59:16. The meaning is, that no one joined Him with conscious free-will,
to render help to the Godof judgment and salvationin His purposes. The
church that was devotedto Him was itself the objectof the redemption, and
the greatmass of those who were estrangedfrom Him the object of the
judgment. Thus He found Himself alone, neither human co-operationnor the
natural course of events helping the accomplishment of His purposes. And
consequentlyHe renounced all human help, and broke through the steady
course of development by a marvellous act of His own. He trode down nations
in His wrath, and intoxicated them in His fury, and causedtheir life-blood to
flow down to the ground. The Targum adopts the rendering "ettriturabo
eos," as if the reading were ‫,ללחׁשצה‬ which we find in Sonc. 1488, andcertain
other editions, as well as in some codd. Many agree with Cappellus in

preferring this reading; and in itself it is not inadmissible (see Lamentations
1:15). But the lxx and all the other ancientversions, the Masora (which
distinguishes ‫ללחׁשצה‬ with ‫,ׁש‬ as only met with once, from ‫ללחּד‬ ‫ּד‬ htiw , from‫צה‬
in Deuteronomy 9:17), and the greatmajority of the MSS, support the
traditional reading. There is nothing surprising in the transition to the figure
of the cup of wrath, which is a very common one with Isaiah. Moreover, all
that is intended is, that Jehovahcausedthe nations to feel the full force of this
His fury, by trampling them down in His fury.
Even in this short ad highly poeticalpassagewe see a desire to emblematize,
just as in the emblematic cycle of prophetical night-visions in Isaiah21:1-
22:14. For not only is the name of Edom made covertly into an emblem of its
future fate, ‫הדל‬ becoming ‫הדל‬ upon the apparel of Jehovahthe avenger, when
the blood of the people, stained with blood-guiltiness towards the people of
God, is spirted out, but the name of Bozrah also;for bâtsarmeans to cut off
bunches of grapes (vindemiare), and botsrâh becomes bâtsı̄r, i.e., a vintage,
which Jehovahtreads in His wrath, when He punishes the Edomitish nation as
well as all the rest of the nations, which in their hostility towards Him and His
people have takenpleasure in the carrying awayof Israel and the destruction
of Jerusalem, and have lent their assistancein accomplishing them. Knobel
supposes that the judgment referred to is the defeatwhich Cyrus inflicted
upon the nations under Croesus and their allies;but it can neither be shown
that this defeataffectedthe Edomites, nor can we understand why Jehovah
should appearas if coming from Edom-Bozrah, after inflicting this judgment,
to which Isaiah41:2. refers. Knobel himself also observes, that Edom was still
an independent kingdom, and hostile to the Persians (Diod. xv 2) not only
under the reign of Cambyses (Herod. iii. 5ff.), but even later than that (Diod.
xiii. 46). But at the time of Malachi, who lived under Artaxerxes Longimanus,
if not under his successorDarius Nothus, a judgment of devastationwas
inflicted upon Edom (Malachi1:3-5), from which it never recovered. The
Chaldeans, as Casparihas shown (Obad. p. 142), cannothave executedit,
since the Edomites appear throughout as their accomplices, and as still
maintaining their independence even under the first Persiankings;nor can
any historicalsupport be found to the conjecture, that it occurredin the wars
betweenthe Persians andthe Egyptians (Hitzig and Khler, Mal. p. 35). What

the prophet's eye really saw was fulfilled in the time of the Maccabaeans,
when Judas inflicted a total defeatupon them, John Hyrcanus compelled
them to become Jews, and Alexander Jannai completed their subjection;and
in the time of the destructionof Jerusalemby the Romans, when Simon of
Gerasa avengedtheir cruel conduct in Jerusalemin combination with the
Zelots, by ruthlessly turning their well-cultivated land into a horrible desert,
just as it would have been left by a swarmof locusts (Jos. Wars of the Jews, iv
9, 7).
The New Testamentcounterpart of this passage in Isaiahis the destruction of
Antichrist and his army (Revelation19:11.). He who effects this destruction is
calledthe Faithful and True, the Logos of God; and the seerbeholds Him
sitting upon a white horse, with eyes of flaming fire, and many diadems upon
His head, wearing a blood-stained garment, like the person seenby the
prophet here. The vision of John is evidently formed upon the basis of that of
Isaiah; for when it is saidof the Logos that He rules the nations with a staff of
iron, this points to Psalm2:1-12; and when it is still further said that He
treads the wine-press of the wrath of Almighty God, this points back to Isaiah
63. The reference throughout is not to the first coming of the Lord, when He
laid the foundation of His kingdom by suffering and dying, but to His final
coming, when He will bring His regalswayto a victorious issue. Nevertheless
Isaiah63:1-6 has always beena favourite passage forreading in Passionweek.
It is no doubt true that the Christian cannotread this prophecy without
thinking of the Saviour streaming with blood, who trode the wine-press of
wrath for us without the help of angels and men, i.e., who conqueredwrath
for us. But the prophecy does not relate to this. The blood upon the garment
of the divine Hero is not His own, but that of His enemies;and His treading of
the wine-press is not the conquestof wrath, but the manifestation of wrath.
This sectioncanonly be properly used as a lessonfor Passionweekso far as
this, that Jehovah, who here appears to the Old Testamentseer, was certainly
He who became man in His Christ, in the historicalfulfilment of His
purposes;and behind the first advent to bring salvationthere stoodwith
warning form the final coming to judgment, which will take vengeance upon
that Edom, to whom the red lentil-judgment of worldly lust and powerwas

dearer than the red life-blood of that loving Servant of Jehovahwho offered
Himself for the sin of the whole world.
There follows now in Isaiah 63:7-64:11 a prayer commencing with the
thanksgiving as it looks back to the past, and closing with a prayer for help as
it turns to the present. Hitzig and Knobel connectthis closelywith Isaiah63:1-
6, assuming that through the great event which had occurred, viz., the
overthrow of Edom, and of the nations hostile to the people of God as such, by
which the exiles were brought one step nearerto freedom, the prophet was led
to praise Jehovahfor all His previous goodness to Israel. There is nothing,
however, to indicate this connection, which is in itself a very loose one. The
prayer which follows is chiefly an entreaty, and an entreaty appended to
Isaiah63:1-6, but without any retrospective allusionto it: it is rather a prayer
in generalfor the realization of the redemption alreadypromised. Ewald is
right in regarding Isaiah63:7-66:24 as an appendix to this whole book of
consolation, since the traces of the same prophet are unmistakeable;but the
whole style of the description is obviously different, and the historical
circumstances must have been still further developed in the meantime.
The three prophecies which follow are the finale of the whole. The
announcement of the prophet, which has reachedits highestpoint in the
majestic vision in Isaiah63:1-6, is now drawing to an end. It is standing close
upon the threshold of all that has been promised, and nothing remains but the
fulfilment of the promise, which he has held up like a jewel on every side. And
now, just as in the finale of a poeticalcomposition, all the melodies and
movements that have been struck before are gathered up into one effective
close;and first of all, as in Hab, into a prayer, which forms, as it were, the
lyrical echo of the preaching that has gone before.
PRECEPTAUSTIN RESOURCES

MACLAREN
THE SYMPATHY OF GOD
‘In all their afflictions He was afflicted, and the angelof His presence saved
them’—ISAIAH lxiii. 9.
I. The wonderful glimpse opened here into the heart of God.
It is not necessaryto touch upon the difference betweenthe text and margin of
the RevisedVersion, or to enter on the reasonfor preferring the former. And
what a deep and wonderful thought that is, of divine sympathy with human
sorrow!We feelthat this transcends the prevalent tone of the Old Testament.
It is made the more striking by reasonofthe other sides of the divine nature
which the Old Testamentgives so strongly; as, for instance, the
unapproachable elevation and absolute sovereigntyof God, and the
retributive righteousness ofGod.
Affliction is His chastisement, and is ever righteously inflicted. But here is
something more, tender and strange. Sympathy is a necessarypart of love.
There is no true affectionwhich does not put itself in the place and share the
sorrows ofits objects. And His sympathy is none the less because He inflicts
the sorrow. These afflictions whereinHe too was afflicted, were sent by Him.
Like an earthly father who suffers more than the child whom he chastises, the
Heavenly Father feels the strokes that He inflicts.
That sympathy is consistentwith the blessednessofGod. Even in the pain of
our human sympathy there is a kind of joy, and we may be sure that in His
nature there is nothing else.
Contrastwith other thoughts about God.
The vague agnosticismofthe present day, which knows only a dim Something
of which we can predicate nothing.
The God of the philosophers—whomwe are bidden to think of as passionless
and unemotional. No wave of feeling ever ripples that tideless sea. The
attribute of infinitude or sovereigncompletenessis dwelt on with such
emphasis as to obscure all the rest.

The gods of men’s own creationare carelessin their happiness, and cruel in
their vengeance. Buthere is a God for all the weary and the sorrowful. What a
thought for us in our own burdened days!
II. The mystery of the divine salvation.
Of course the salvationhere spokenof is the deliverance from Egyptian
bondage. This is a summary of the Exodus. But we must mark well that
significant expression, ‘the angelof His face’or ‘presence.’We can only
attempt a partial and bald enumeration of some of the very remarkable
references to that mysterious person, ‘the angelof the Lord ‘or ‘of the
presence.’The dying Jacobascribedhis being ‘redeemed from all evil’ to ‘the
Angel,’ and invoked his blessing on ‘the lads.’‘The angel of the Lord’
appearedto Mosesout of the midst of the burning bush. On Sinai, Jehovah
promised to send an ‘angel’ in whom was His own name, before the people.
The promise was renewedafter Israel’s sin and repentance, and was then
given in the form, ‘My presence shallgo with thee.’ Joshua saw a man with a
drawn swordin his hand, who declared himself to be the Captain of the
Lord’s host. ‘The angelof the Lord’ appearedto Manoahand his wife,
withheld his name from them because it was ‘wonderful’ or ‘secret,’accepted
their sacrifice, and went up to heaven in its flame. Wherefore Manoahsaid,
‘We have seenGod.’ Long after these early visions, a psalmist knows himself
safe because ‘the angel of the Lord encampethround about them that fear
Him.’ Hosea, looking back onthe story of Jacob’s wrestling at Peniel, says,
first, that ‘he had powerwith God, yea, he had power over the angel,’and
then goes onto say that ‘there He spake with us, even Jehovah.’And Malachi,
on the last verge of Old Testamentprophecy, goes furthestof all in seeming to
run togetherthe conceptions of Jehovahand the Angel of Jehovah, for he
says, ‘The Lord whom ye seek shallsuddenly come to His temple; and the
angelof the covenant. . . behold, he cometh.’ From this imperfect resume, we
see that there appears in the earliestas in the latestbooks of the Old
Testament, a person distinguished from the hosts of angels, identified in a
very remarkable manner with Jehovah, by alternation of names, in attributes
and offices, and in receiving worship, and being the organof His revelation.
That specialrelation to the divine revelationis expressedby both the
representationthat ‘Jehovah’s name is in him,’ and by the designationin our

text, ‘the angelof His presence,’or literally, ‘of His face.’For ‘name’ and
‘face’are in so far synonymous that they mean the side of the divine nature
which is turned to the world.
For the present I go no further than this. It is clear, then, that our text is at all
events remarkable, in that it ascribes to this ‘angel of His presence’the praise
of Jehovah’s saving work. The loving heart, afflicted in all their afflictions,
sends forth the messengerofHis face, and by Him is salvationwrought. The
whole sum of the deliverance of Israel in the past is attributed to Him. Surely
this must have been felt by a devout Jew to concealsome greatmystery.
III. The crowning revelation both of the heart of God and of His saving
power.
(a) Jesus Christ is the true ‘angelof the face.’
I do not need to enter on the question of whether in the Old Testamentthe
angelof the Covenantwas indeed a pre-manifestation of the eternal Son. I am
disposedto answerit in the affirmative. But be that as it may, all that was
spokenof the angelis true of Him. God’s name is in Him, and that not in
fragments or half-syllables but complete. The face of God looks lovingly on
men in Him, so that Jesus coulddeclare, ‘He that hath seenMe hath seenthe
Father.’His presence brings God’s presence, and He can venture to say, ‘We
will come and make our abode with Him.’ He is the agentof the divine
salvation.
The identity and the difference are here in their highest form.
(b) The mystery of God’s sharing our sorrows is explained in Him.
We may find a difficulty in the thought of a suffering and sympathising God.
But if we believe that ‘My name is in Him,’ then the sympathy and gentleness
of Jesus is the compassionofGod. This is a true revelation. So tears at the
grave sighs in healing, and all the sorrows whichHe bore are an unveiling of
the heart of God.
That sharing our sorrows is the very heart of His work. We might almost say
that He became man in order to increase His power of sympathy, as a prince

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