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Old 02-25-2007, 06:22 PM   #1
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Default The "Angel of Death"

I am starting this thread based on a comment made in another thread.

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Originally Posted by Jayrok View Post
The passover lamb's blood was to seal the Israelites in safety from the angel of death.
I don't know if you are aware of this, but the term "angel of death" appears nowhere in the Passover narrative. The idea that an "angel of death" was responsible for killing Egyptian firstborn comes from part of one verse in Exodus 12, which speaks of "the destroyer." Most of the narrative reads as if Yahweh himself did the killing:

Quote:
Exodus 11:4-7:
4 Moses said, "Thus says Yahweh: About midnight I will go out through Egypt. 5 Every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne to the firstborn of the female slave who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the livestock. 6 Then there will be a loud cry throughout the whole land of Egypt, such as has never been or will ever be again. 7 But not a dog shall growl at any of the Israelites--not at people, not at animals--so that you may know that Yahweh makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.

Exodus 12:7, 12-13; 21-23, 29:
7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 12 For I {Yahweh} will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both human beings and animals; on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am Yahweh. 13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

21 Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go, select lambs for your families, and slaughter the passover lamb. 22 Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and touch the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood in the basin. None of you shall go outside the door of your house until morning. 23 For Yahweh will pass through to strike down the Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over that door and will not allow the destroyer to enter your houses to strike you down.
29 At midnight Yahweh struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the prisoner who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.

Exodus 13:15:
15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, Yahweh killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human firstborn to the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the LORD every male that first opens the womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem.'
Likewise, psalms which speak of this event say nothing about an "angel of death" or "destroyer" doing the killing:

Quote:
Psalm 78:51:
51 He {God} struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the first issue of their strength in the tents of Ham.

Psalm 105:36:
36 He {Yahweh} struck down all the firstborn in their land, the first issue of all their strength.

Psalm 135:8:
8 He {Yahweh} it was who struck down the firstborn of Egypt, both human beings and animals;

Psalm 136:10:
10 {Yahweh} who struck Egypt through their firstborn, for his steadfast love endures forever;
Even the book of Jubilees says nothing about an "angel of death"/"destroyer":

Quote:
Jubilees 48:5b-6a:
5...And the Lord executed a great vengeance on them for Israel's sake, and smote them through (the plagues of) blood and frogs, lice and dog-flies, and malignant boils breaking forth in blains; and their cattle by death; and by hail-stones, thereby He destroyed everything that grew for them; and by locusts which devoured the residue which had been left by the hail, and by darkness; and (by the death) of the first-born of 6 men and animals...
There is one Apocryphal text that I'm aware of, Wisdom of Solomon 48:5-19, which assigns responsibility to someone other than Yahweh directly, and this text clams that Yahweh's "word" was responsible. (See this thread for more on the "word" of God.)

So what's going on? Notice that in the first passage quoted, Exodus 11:4-7, not only does Yahweh say that he will do the killing of firstborn himself, there are also no requirements for blood to be applied to doorposts--Yahweh will administer the plague to the Egyptians only, just as he had with all the other plagues. In the next chapter comes the requirement for blood, and as we saw, all indications are--save for part of v:23--that Yahweh would be the agent of destruction who would "pass over" any door with blood on it. It appears that an ancient ritual, perhaps originally intended to ward off a demon know as "the destroyer," has been integrated into the Passover story, resulting in some tension in the narrative.
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Old 02-25-2007, 11:02 PM   #2
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I don't know if this will be helpful, but there is a biblical tradition of angels given tasks of destruction, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. The most famous example is the angel of the lord sent to kill people of Israel because David carried out his census in 2 Sam 24 (see v16).
"and when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the lord repented of the evil and said to the angel that destroyed the people: it is enough"
Back in v12 god says,
"I offer you three (things); choose one of them that I may do to you."
Despite the fact that it is god doing the dirty deed, he uses an angel as his instrument to destroy the people.

It's not the phrase "angel of death", as I think that phrase is a later formulation.

It could be, of course that we are looking at two separate developments in the religion, one which depicts god as intervening directly in the world and a later idea in which god intervenes in the world through other means, such as angels. It's very hard though to conclude that it must have been the Hebrew god who physically and directly carried out the last plague, though it would with just as much difficulty be hard to conclude that he didn't. The agency of others may easily be implicit in the statement.

When someone says "I will come and kill you," then hires a hitman to do the actual job, the person probably doesn't see that there is a linguistic problem here.


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Old 02-26-2007, 07:24 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spin View Post
I don't know if this will be helpful, but there is a biblical tradition of angels given tasks of destruction, as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah. The most famous example is the angel of the lord sent to kill people of Israel because David carried out his census in 2 Sam 24 (see v16).
One source that I consulted mentioned the conflation of the "Destroyer" with angels who carry out destruction for God, and Paul, in 1 Corinthians 10:10, speaks of those who "murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer," apparently a reference to Numbers 16:41ff, even though the latter reference attributes the plague to Yahweh, with no mention of an intermediary. Other sources that I consulted, such as The Anchor Bible Dictionary, The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, and Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible all state that the destroyer is an angel--"the manifestation of Yahweh's power as the angel of death" as Eerdmans puts it--but I found them all, along with other resources, to be frustratingly lacking in detail. At any rate, yes, eventually the "destroyer" came to be identified as an angel under Yahweh's command, though I am not convinced that this interpretation speaks to the true provenance of the term and attendant rituals.

I actually was able to go to a library this morning, hoping to find a more in-depth explanation, and Peake's Commentary on the Bible, which I now quote with my emphasis, didn't disappoint:

Quote:
7. The original purpose of the sprinkling of the blood on the doorposts and the lintel, a usuage found in ancient Babylon and in Palestine of the present day, and which may go back to paleolithic times, was to ward off the attacks of spirits and demons...21-28...the pre-Mosaic feast was transformed and adapted to the Yahweh faith. Originally the feast had been done to propitiate a destructive demon, the 'destroyer' (24). Yahweh is not substituted for the demon...it is expressly stated that Yahweh shall deliver Israel from its fear of the destroyer...The character of the rite was changed precisely because the character of the deity who was recognized in it had become different. Certain obstinate features of the old ritual were continued...The daubing of door-post and lintel with the protective blood had its significance as long as the destroyer was central in the thought of the people, but it was hopelessly incongruent with the thought of the advent of Him who came to redeem Israel from Egypt. So it was supplied with the lame interpretation that when Yahweh went abroad through the land of Egypt, He should by its presence be able to distinguish the homes of the Israelites...
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