tonishment that she had
seen God, and yet had remained alive.--The opinion that these passages
form the Old Testament foundation for the Proemium of St John's Gospel,
has not remained uncontroverted. From the very times of the
Church-fathers it has been asserted by many, that where the [Pg 117]
Angel of the Lord is spoken of, we must not think of a person connected
with God by unity of nature, but of a lower angel, by whom God executes
His commands, and through whom He acts and speaks. The latest defenders
of the view are _Hofmann_ in "_Weissagung und Erfuellung_" and in the
"_Schriftbeweis_" and _Delitzsch_ in his commentary on Genesis.--Others
are of opinion, that the Angel of Jehovah is identical with Jehovah
Himself,--not denoting a person distinct from Him, but only the form in
which He manifests Himself. We shall not here discuss the question in
its whole extent; we shall, in the meantime, consider only what the
principal passages of the Pentateuch and of the adjacent Book of Joshua
teach upon this point, and how far their teaching coincides with, or is
in opposition to, these various views. For it is only to this extent
that the inquiry belongs to our present object.

In Gen. xvi. 13, these words are of special importance: "_And she
called the name of the Lord who spoke unto her, Thou art a God of
sight: for she said, Do I now_ (properly _here_, in the place where
such a sight was vouchsafed to me) _still see after my seeing?_" "Do I
see" is equivalent to, "Do I live," because death threatened, as it
were, to enter through the eyes. (Compare the expression, "Mine eyes
have seen," in Is. vi.) [Hebrew: rai] is the pausal form for [Hebrew:
rai]; see Job xxxiii. 21, where, however, the accent is on the
penultimate. Then follows ver. 14: _They called the well_, "_Well of
the living sight_;" _i.e._, where a person had a sight of God, and
remained alive.

Hagar must have been convinced that she had seen God without the
mediation of a created angel; for, otherwise, she could not have
wondered that her life was preserved. Man, entangled by the visible
world, is terrified when he comes in contact with the invisible world,
even with angels. (Compare Dan. viii. 17, 18; Luke ii. 9.) But this
terror rises to fear of death only when man comes into contact with the
Lord Himself. (Compare the remarks on Rev. i. 17.) In Gen. xxxii. 31--a
passage which bears the closest resemblance to the one now under
review, and from which it r