Abstract
The mal’āk Yhwh, the Angel of the Lord, the Divine Messenger of the Old Testament who often appears in theophanic biblical texts and is described as the pledge of God’s proximity to His people, is one of the most mysterious figures of all Scriptures and, consequently, a truly intriguing case study. In his monumental work, Paolo Rocca submits to attentive analysis, both exegetical and theological, not only to those parts of the Bible in which this crucial character is featured but, more in general, all the pages in which the pattern of God’s proceeding with Israel on the way occurs. Considering the inner relation among all of God’s ways of manifestation and, more radically, the gradual assumption of a more and more anthropomorphic form, R. describes the character of the mal’āk as a true narrative engine that drives the entire exodus story and beyond. Due precisely to its inscrutable nature, it is feasible somehow that this figure influences the development of the entire scene involving the main characters in their dynamics of action. Not less importantly, it enthralls the readers who are actually questioned about his identity: someone whom one could identify with God or at least recognize as His ultimate manifestation but who, at the same time, remains distinguished from Him.
R. builds a powerful inquiry about the theme of God’s path and His proceeding with His people in both the Old and the New Testaments with a special focus on Mark’s Gospel. Starting from the book of Exodus and pausing on some fundamental sections of both Numbers and Joshua, R. comes to consider also those pages of the second Gospel in which a similar pattern seems to surface. As a matter of fact, in entering Mark’s narration, one is immediately caught by a problematic dilemma: Who is the messenger that is referred to in the incipit? Is it perhaps John the Baptist, who has been called by the Lord to prepare His way, or is the disciple—the reader included—appealed to here? Compared to the corresponding narrative versions of this section in the other synoptic Gospels where the messenger can be easily identified with the Forerunner, here, Mark seems intentionally to discourage any effortless inference. By composing a clever medley of prophetic citations from Isaiah and Malachi and, at the same time, hinting at the promise in Exodus 23:20–23, he appears to be willing to continue the readers’ challenge, which we see in the Old Testament about the identity of God’s messenger, to the point that one is once more stimulated to intervene with his or her interpretative cooperation to disambiguate the enigma. Thus, although initially driven to identify the mal’āk with Moses, whose face reflected the glory of the Lord, only after the latter’s death do readers receive the crucial clue for the solution of the conundrum: in accordance with what Exodus 23:21 already prefigured, the mal’āk Yhwh can be initially recognized in Joshua, the one in whom “God’s name resides.” However, Isaiah’s and Malachi’s prophecies, which Mark echoes, somehow reopen the case.
What Mark is doing in his introduction is not simply hinting at a well-known biblical pattern to introduce Jesus as his main character and God’s final manifestation; nor is he just generically using a typological discourse. Rather, he intends to offer the final answer about the identity of God’s messenger, which even Joshua’s fortune did not provide definitively, as the prophets witnessed. Perhaps, R. should have spent more time reflecting on this crucial point. However, Jesus is described by Mark as the one who precedes his followers as the Angel of the Lord guided the Israelites in their peregrination toward the Promised Land. The reader is thus led to identify Jesus’ walking not only as the natural continuation of the divine proceeding in Exodus but as the ultimate manifestation of God’s proximity to his dear ones and, through them, to all humanity. In Jesus’ name (Iēsous is the Greek transposition of the Hebrew Joshua), which means “Yhwh saves,” therefore, is concealed the secret of the Angel’s true identity. Thanks to a rigorous narrative analysis that, wisely, does not disdain some reference to some important diachronic contributions and to an extensive bibliographical apparatus, R. offers a brilliant solution to his very engaging, exegetical, and theological case study. Not only does his work open new paths in the field of intratestamental research but it should also be considered essential for today’s Jewish–Christian dialogue in which the Christian claim of the “accomplishment of Scriptures” still receives some stereotypical representations on both sides.