An Angel Before You
20 “Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him. 22 But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries. 23 For my angel shall go before you, and bring you in to the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Canaanite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; and I will cut them off. 24 You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor follow their practices, but you shall utterly overthrow them and demolish their pillars. 25 You shall serve Yahweh your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you. 26 No one will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. 27 I will send my terror before you, and will confuse all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. 28 I will send the hornet before you, which will drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before you. 29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land. 31 I will set your border from the Red Sea even to the sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the River; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. 32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
A messenger is promised who carries God's own name, and the conquest is described as slow on purpose.
“Behold, I send an angel before you, to keep you by the way, and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
The covenant document closes with promises, and the first of them is an escort. What follows is the strangest description of a messenger in the Old Testament.
Pay attention to him, and listen to his voice. Don’t provoke him, for he will not pardon your disobedience, for my name is in him.
Three things are said of this figure that are not said of created messengers anywhere in Scripture. He is to be obeyed as a matter of course. He does not pardon rebellion — a prerogative that belongs to God alone, and the withholding of it here implies the possession of it. And God's name is in him, which in this book means his disclosed character and authority, not a label attached to a servant.
The same alternation seen at the burning bush is at work, where the one who speaks is called Yahweh's angel in one verse and God in the next Exodus 3:2–4. The passage does not identify him further and neither should a reader, but it is not possible to read it as describing an ordinary angel, and the New Testament's account of one who is sent, bears the divine name, and forgives sins is the natural completion of the pattern.
But if you indeed listen to his voice, and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.
The promises that follow are extensive — health, fertility, long life, and terror before the advancing nation Exodus 23:25–27 — and they are conditional throughout. Nothing here is owed to Israel by right of descent.
29 I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the animals of the field multiply against you. 30 Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and inherit the land.
The slowness is explained, and the explanation is practical. A land emptied faster than it can be occupied reverts to wilderness, and the incoming population is not yet large enough to hold it. What looks from inside like delay is a schedule matched to capacity, and the principle has wider application than the conquest: the gap between promise and possession is often the time required to grow into what has been promised.
32 You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. 33 They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me, for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”
The reason given for the separation is stated plainly and is not ethnic. It is stated in terms of a danger to Israel's loyalty, and the whole of the book of Judges is the record of what happened when the instruction was ignored. The word chosen is snare — something that catches an animal that walked into it without noticing, which is exactly how the next chapters describe the failure at the foot of the mountain.
held with reason What this mark means