In Judges 6, is the Lord and the angel of the Lord the same figure?

Question

In Judges 6:16-23 (NASB)

16 Yet the Lord said to him, “I will certainly be with you, and you will defeat Midian as one man.” 17 So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then perform for me a sign that it is You speaking with me. 18 Please do not depart from here until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You.” And He said, “I will remain until you return.”

19 Then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. 20 And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. 21 Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire came up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. 22 When Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, “Oh, Lord God! For I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!” 23 But the Lord said to him, “Peace to you, do not be afraid; you shall not die.”

Is the Lord and the angel of the Lord the same here in this passage?

Answer 1

Yes, the angel of the Lord and the Lord are one and the same God yet they are not the same person. First of all it should be noted that the Father has no separate manifestation from the Son. The Son is the ONLY manifestation and revelation of the Father. What is know of the Father is revealed through the Son. To see the Son is to see the essence of the Father.

This is especially brought out at numerous places in the Old Testament by a person known as the angel of the Lord who first appears as the angel of the Lord at Genesis 16:7.

Now, here at Judges 6 you were asking about verses 16-23, which is fine but let's get some context. At vs1 the sons of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord gave them into the hands of Midian seven years."

So right at the start it is the Lord who is dealing with Israel. At vs7 Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian. Then at vs-8-10, the Lord sends a prophet to the sons of Israel and says to them, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, It was I who brought you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of slavery etc."

Vs10, "And I said to you, I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed Me."

Now, here is what Judges 2:1 says, "Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, And he said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I HAVE SWORN TO YOUR FATHERS, and I said, I will never break My covenant with you."

You can read about this at Genesis 22 as to who swore the oath to Abraham. Hebrews 6:13-14 backs this up. So to sum up Judges 6:22, "When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, "Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face."

As a side note please read the Keil And Kelitzch OT Commentary. https://bibleapps.com/kad/judges/6.htm Scroll down to where you will see, "Judges 6:11-24 which further addresses your question.

Answer 2

OK - I will comment via my answer ...

As mentioned in another response, prior to this exchange here in Judges, the angel of the Lord has been interacting with Gods people right from the times of Moses. And, we can use these previous encounters to help answer your query “Is the Lord and the angel of the Lord the same here”.

EXODUS 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

How many ‘entities’ are present here? It clearly differentiates between 2 entities. And, we know this is the same angel that we are seeing in Judges because in that passage in Judges 2 we see ...

JUDGES 2:1 Then the Angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said: “I led you up from Egypt and brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers;

So here we see it was the angel that lead them - BUT - in Judges 6 we see this ..

JUDGES 6:8 [snip] “Thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘I brought you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of bondage;

Here it is the Lord that lead them? Where as earlier it was the angel? Are they the same? And, if so, who are the two entities in Exodus 23?

And look a little further down in Judges 6 ... v21 “And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.” BUT then within the same moment, in v23 “Then the Lord said to him, “Peace be with you;”.

So here we see the angel depart, but the Lord ‘apparently’ is still there?

If you try to reason all of this out, it starts to get conflicting. But, in Hebrew ‘thinking’, it is not. The way early Hebrews both viewed and wrote about ‘representation’ has a valid explanation for this. Let start here - ..

JOHN 1:18 No one has seen God at any time.

This is supported in 1 John 4:12. So God can’t be ‘seen’. But we know He can be ‘seen’ in a representative. John 14:9 includes ‘He who has seen Me has seen the Father;’. So Jesus ‘represents’ God" when we ‘see’ Jesus, we ‘see’ God. Of course' this is easily explained by most via the doctrine of the ‘trinity’.

But, in the Old Testament, this ‘representative’ we meet in Judges(and elsewhere) is called an ‘angel’. Yes there is a supported teaching of ‘Christophonies’ which satisfies many, and I [personally] have no issues with this, but let’s look a little further..

In many ‘angel of Lord’ passages we distinctly see more than one entity, example Exodus 23. Now, because God can’t ‘be seen’, let’s stay with this, so therefore it must be a representative. And, whoever this/these representatives are, they represent God, as if they are ‘one’ with God. So if there are two entities in Judges, or elsewhere, and that is IF?, it doesn’t or wouldn’t change, or alter anything - as they are [seen as] ‘one’.

So the answer to your query is, there is One - they are the same, even if there are two separate ‘entities’. (And the Hebrew structure in some passages where the angel is present with the Lord clearly shows they are two distinct entities), they nevertheless fully, 100% represent God.