After Israel had contracted guilt by the worship of the golden calf. He who had hitherto led them--Jehovah = the Angel of Jehovah--says, in Exod. xxxii. 34, that He would no more lead them Himself, but send before them His Angel, מלאכי: "_For I_ (myself) _will not go up in the midst of thee, for thou art a stiff-necked people, lest I consume thee in the way_;" xxxiii. 3, compared with xxiii. 21. The people are quite inconsolable on account of this sad intelligence, ver. 4. The threatening of the Lord becomes unintelligible, and the grief of the people incomprehensible, if by the Angel in chap. xxiii. an ordinary angel be understood. But everything becomes clear and intelligible, if we admit that in chap. xxiii. there is an allusion to the Angel of the Lord κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν, who is connected with Him by oneness of nature, and who, because the name of God is in Him, is as zealous as Himself in inflicting punishment as well as in bestowing salvation; whilst in chap. xxxii. 34, the allusion is to an inferior angel, who is added to the highest revealer of God as His companion and messenger, and who appears in the Book of Daniel under the name of Gabriel, while the Angel of the Lord appears under the name of Michael. On account of the sincere repentance of the people, and the intercession of Moses, the Lord revokes the threatening, and says in xxxiii. 14, "My face shall go." But Moses said unto Him, "If Thy face go not, carry us not up hence." That פנים, _face_, signifies here the _person_, is granted by _Gesenius_: "The face of some one means often his personal presence,--himself in his own person." A similar use of the word occurs in 2 Sam. xvii. 11: "Thy face go to battle" (_Michaelis_: "Thou thyself be present, not some commander only"); and in Deut. iv. 37, where בפניו means _in_, or _with_, _his personal presence_: "He [Pg 128] brought them out with His face, with His mighty power out of Egypt." The state of things has in xxxiii. 14, 15, evidently become again what it was in xxiii. 20, 21. The face of the Lord in the former passage, is the Angel of the Lord in the latter. Hence, we cannot here admit the idea of some inferior angel; we can think only of that Angel who is connected with the Lord by oneness of nature.