See, I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared… You shall serve the LORD, your God; then he will bless your food and drink, and I will remove sickness from your midst; no woman in your land will be barren or miscarry; and I will give you a full span of life. Exodus 23:20, 25f.
Creation and its seven days dominates the Hebrew calendar. We have already discussed the importance of the Hebrew Sabbath under the Ten Commandments above. It is the Sabbath that makes concrete in time and space the idea of transcendence that permeates of the first two commandments of idolatry and the divine name. We see here toward the conclusion of the Covenant Code the Sabbath law restated, but what is added, the law of the seventh year with regard to the land. One may not work the soil on the seventh year, but leave it fallow, both to give the land a rest, and also to provide for the poor and the wild beasts (Ex. 23:10ff.). This makes emphatic to the Hebrews that their land, which they were about to enter, was, in fact, a return to Eden, a step of re-creation, a return to lost origins.
But how do they get there and how do they possess the land? Here in the epilogue of the Covenant Code (23:20-33) we are introduced to a very mysterious supernatural being who will lead them into the land and defeat all their enemies before them. The Hebrew word is mal′āk, and can be translated “angel,” or more generally “messenger.” The difference is not readily apparent, however, since the word “angel” is derived from the Greek angelos meaning “sent one,” and a messenger, by definition, is someone sent to communicate something. As such, this mal′āk could be a human messenger like Moses or Joshua, an angelic spirit being, or an actual manifestation of God (theophany). Here we see that God’s “name is in him” (v. 21). “Name” indicates identification, perhaps with theophanic implications, picking up on the mal′āk YHWH at the burning bush who revealed His name YHWH to Moses.
The issue of who will indeed lead the people into this promised land, whether YHWH Himself or merely an angel, will be of great consequence later in the narrative. Given the overall context, it seems to me that this mal′āk is indeed YHWH Himself, since the people have not yet rebelled.
We are now confronted with the great moral problem of this covenant. It has to do with the original inhabitants of this land. They are depicted here as evil and unfit to dwell in it. The mal′āk was to annihilate the nations whose “iniquity was complete” at this time, justifying the slaughter (cf. Gen. 15:17), thus opening up to His people the land. Holy war is a major architype in Scripture, and we have seen it already in Egypt where YHWH battles against Pharaoh and his gods. The big difference here is that YHWH demands total destruction of these inhabitants.
The problem of holy war, specifically called ḥerem, where the enemy and his goods are consecrated to YHWH for destruction, and forbidden for Israel’s use, will be discussed later. Here it is enough to say that YHWH is always depicted, here as elsewhere, as the one great holy warrior who, though He makes use of Israel and her armies, alone brings the victory, and so to Him alone belongs the spoils of war. The list of enemies given here, the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites (23:23) are, in fact, not Israel’s enemies per se, but YHWH’s enemies on YHWH’s land. Israel does not fight for YHWH, but YHWH fights for Israel for His own purposes.
These enemies of YHWH, since they are inseparably wedded to their false gods and pagan ways, must be driven out of His holy land. If they are not, they will contaminate Israel, and then YHWH will drive out Israel from His land just as He did the former inhabitants. Behind all this is the ancient belief of autochthony, that people are indigenous to the land and therefore by right are bonded to it. However, the Canaanites lost their rights to the land on the grounds of symbiosis; the moral connection between the land and its inhabitants. The land cannot tolerate human evil, and as we shall see in Leviticus, will vomit them out.
Here the process of holy war is described as incremental “lest the land become desolate and wild animals multiply against you” (v. 29). We see how YHWH is concerned about the land; it must not become “formless earth” overrun by wild and dangerous beasts, a tōhû wābōhû (i.e. chaos, Gen. 1:2). The boundaries are given here, but are notoriously unclear. It is presented to us as two flanks, one a western flank and the other an eastern flank. The western flank on the south evidently reaches to border of Egypt (yam sûp, the “sea of Reeds” or the Red Sea?), following north along the Mediterranean coast. The eastern flank begins in the southern desert and goes on up northward to the Euphrates river. Though these boundaries are not presented in a precise way, they were, to a significant degree, attained during David and Solomon’s reign.
The land is YHWH’s in a special way and therefore holy, set apart as a “platform,” or “home base,” to accomplish His broader purposes in the world at large in fulfillment of the promises to Abraham. It is a “Edenic” in that YHWH “will bless your bread and your water,” and take “sickness away from the midst of you,” with no mischarges or barrenness, and everyone living to a ripe old age (23:25f.). However, it must be purged and won by war. Though YHWH is the holy warrior who will go before His people, they must be prepared to fight, and keep themselves pure from corruption, not making covenants with the inhabitants, but driving them out of the land.
Takeaway: The land promised to Israel is holy, a return to Eden, but it must be won through war led by a champion, YHWH Himself, annihilating the wicked inhabitants, and maintained by holiness of life.
Questions: 1) How do you react to the image of YHWH being a “man of war” (cf. Ex. 15:3) on a mission to exterminate whole populations of Canaanites, after reading the above? 2) Can you apply this metaphorically to us in our day in the Church?
Resources Used:
De Vaux, Roland. Ancient Israel vol. Chapter 5 on Holy War.
Durham, J. Exodus, pp. 335ff.