Page:02.BCOT.KD.HistoricalBooks.A.vol.2.EarlyProphets.djvu/75

 When Joshua was by Jericho, בּיריחו, lit., in Jericho (בּ expressing immediate proximity, the entrance as it were into some other object, vid., Ewald, §217), - that is to say, inside it in thought, meditating upon the conquest of it-he saw, on lifting up his eyes, a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand; and on going up to him, and asking, “Dost thou belong to us or to our enemies?” he received this reply: “Nay (לא is not to be altered into לו, which is the reading adopted in the Sept., Syr., and a few MSS), but I am the prince of the army of Jehovah; now I am come.” The person who had appeared neither belonged to the Israelites nor to their enemies, but was the prince of the army of Jehovah, i.e., of the angels. “The Lord's host” does not mean “the people of Israel, who were just at the commencement of their warlike enterprise,” as v. Hofmann supposes; for although the host of Israel who came out of Egypt are called “the hosts of the Lord” in Exo 12:41, the Israelites are never called the host or army of Jehovah (in the singular). “The host of Jehovah” is synonymous with “the host of heaven” (1Ki 22:19), and signifies the angels, as in Psa 148:2 and Psa 103:21. With the words “now I am come,” the prince of the angels is about to enter upon an explanation of the object of his coming; but he is interrupted in his address by Joshua, who falls down before him, and says, “What saith my lord to his servant?” so that now he first of all commands Joshua to take off his shoes, as the place on which he stands is holy. It by no means follows that because Joshua fell down upon the ground and ישׁתּחוּ (Eng. Ver. “did worship”), he must have recognised him at once as the angel of the Lord who was equal with God; for the word השׁתּחוה, which is connected with the falling down, does not always mean divine worship, but very frequently means nothing more than the deep Oriental reverence paid by a dependant to his superior or king (e.g., 2Sa 9:6; 2Sa 14:33), and Joshua did not address the person who appeared to him by the name of God, אדני, but simply as אדני, “My lord.” In any case, however, Joshua regarded him at once as a superior being, i.e., an angel. And he must have recognised him as something more than a created angel of superior rank, that is to say, as the angel of Jehovah who is essentially equal with God, the visible revealer of the invisible God, as soon as he gave him the command to take off his shoes, etc. - a command which would remind him of the appearance of God to Moses in the burning bush, and which implied