"But to return to the Targums, where the text reads: _Let not God speak with us, lest we die_, the interpretation of Onkelos runs, _Let not the Word from before the Lord speak with us_. So likewise where the text reads, _She called the name of Jehovah that spake unto her, Thou God seest me_, the Targum of Jonathan runs, _She confessed before the Lord Jehovah, whose Word had spoken unto her_. And the Targum of Jerusalem, _She confessed and prayed to the Word of the Lord who had appeared to her_. Now the person who appeared to Hagar was the angel of Jehovah. The paraphrasts therefore identify _the Word and the Angel_. Hence it is plain that by the Word of God they do not mean a speech uttered by God, but that they use the term to express a real person. By this personal Word they understood the Messiah; as is evident from Jonathan's interpretation of the text, _Jehovah said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand_. He explains its purport to be, _Jehovah said unto his Word_. But it is manifest from our Saviour's conversation with the Pharisees relative to the nature and parentage of the Messiah, that they acknowledge this text to relate to him; and it appears from the Midrash Tillim that such an application is fully recognized by the Jewish Rabbins. Hence the inference is inevitable, that the Hebrew doctors confess the Messiah to be the Word of God or the angel of Jehovah. And hence we shall at once perceive why St. John so pointedly bestows the title upon his divine Master. He did but employ the usual phraseology of his countrymen respecting the promised Messiah; yet, by applying the name of Jesus of Nazareth, he at once declared him to be the Messiah, and that angel of Jehovah who was confessedly the God both of the Patriarchal and of the Levitical Church. "Agreeably to this obvious conclusion, the Targums exhibit the Word with all the characteristics of the expected Messiah. "They describe him as the Mediator between God and man. "Thus, in paraphrasing a text from Deuteronomy iv. 7, Jonathan writes: _God is near in the name of the Word of Jehovah_; in paraphrasing a text of Hosea iv. 9, _God will receive the prayer of Israel by his Word, and have mercy upon them, and will make them by his Word like a beautiful fig tree_. And in paraphrasing a text of Jeremiah xxix. 14: _I will be sought by you in my Word, and I will be inquired of by you through my Word._ Thus likewise where Abraham is said by Moses to have _called on the name of Jehovah the everlasting God_, he is described by the Targum of Jerusalem as _praying in the name of the Word of Jehovah, the God of the world_. "They speak of him as making atonement for sin. "Thus, in paraphrasing a text of Deuteronomy, (xxxii. 43,) Jonathan writes: _God will atone by his Word for his land and for his people, even a people saved by the Word of Jehovah._ "They exhibit him as a Redeemer.