John Kesler

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

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:

Likewise, psalms which speak of this event say nothing about an "angel of death" or "destroyer" doing the killing:

Even the book of Jubilees says nothing about an "angel of death"/"destroyer":

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.

spin

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.


spin

John Kesler

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: