Texts in Conversation
1 Samuel 29 compares David to the angel of God in that he is “good to the eyes,” using an idiom based on Genesis 3:6 where Eve sees that the fruit is similarly good to the eyes. 1 Samuel may have also originally referred to God directly, but was changed to the “angel of God” to harmonize with later traditions.
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Genesis 3:6
Hebrew Bible
5 for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Date: 5th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Samuel 29:9
Hebrew Bible
8 But David said to Achish, “What have I done? What have you found in your servant from the day that I first came into your presence until the present time, that I shouldn’t go and fight the enemies of my lord the king?” 9 Achish replied to David, “I am convinced that you are as good in my eyes16 as the angel of God! However, the leaders of the Philistines have said, ‘He must not go up with us in the battle.’ 10 So get up early in the morning along with the servants of your lord who have come with you. When you get up early in the morning, as soon as it is light enough to see, leave.”
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (Final composition) (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Two forms, mal’akh and mal’akh Yahveh are not only the most numerous but also the most evenly distributed within the HB. Together they constitute over 80% of all the “angel”-juxtapositions. The rest of the constructions is scarce in numbers and appears irregularly. In addition, the word mal’akh never appears in plural when juxtaposed with the tetragrammaton, what seems to be in accord with the interpolation theory: due to the grammatical decorum, the “angelic” addendum simply had to be in singular form. However, this does not apply to the word elohim, characterized by its polysemy. Although plural from the morphological perspective, it might very well denote the name of the one of the biblical deities or designate a group of divine beings ... This seems to be the case in Genesis 32:12 where Jacob sees mal’akhey elohim ‘olim ve-yordim. If to interpret the sullam not as a mere ladder but a form of ziggurat or a staircase connecting the heavenly abode with the (under)world, then the hypothesis that the narration had previously described the polytheistic pantheon seems more justifiable. Accordingly, only at a certain stage of transmission the numerous elohim wandering up and down had been preceded by mal’akhey and thus “degraded” from their hypothetical initial divine status to that of a mere servants. Of somewhat similar nature seems to be the expression ke-mal’akh (ha)elohim applied towards the king David in 1 Samuel 29:9, 2 Samuel 14:17; 19:28. It cannot be excluded that the phrase initially accommodated the direct reference to the deity but at a certain moment had been updated to suit the theology of a more transcendent god ..."
Kosior, Wojciech
The Angel in the Hebrew Bible from the Statistic and Hermeneutic Perspectives, Some Remarks on the Interpolation Theory
(pp. 55-70) The Polish Journal of Biblical Research, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2013
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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