The efforts to impart correct instruction and revive the ancient faith by means of the Chaldee expositions, doubtless had effect upon more or less of those who frequented the synagogues and the temple services; but to the great mass, so far as can be judged from history, or from their sentiments and condition, at the period of the advent, they were of no avail. How natural, then, that the successors of this party of Sadducean and Pharasaic infidelity, with the stimulus added by the conversion or, as they regarded it, the apostasy of many to the Christian faith, and the further stimulus of Mohammedan and pseudo-Christian intolerance and persecution, should do their utmost to conceal or extirpate from the Hebrew text all traces of the Christian doctrine! With reference to the subject now specially in hand, it may suffice to refer to a single instance of concealment and perversion which, though of earlier origin, as appears from the Septuagint and the Vulgate, for aught that is perceived, was fastened upon the Hebrew text by the Masoretic punctuation, and was derived thence by our translators; namely, that of the formula, _Melach Jehovah_, which, by the examples formerly adduced, the connections in which it occurs, the use of the terms interchangeably, and the testimony of the Evangelists, is shown to be a clear, unequivocal, and emphatic designation of the official Person, Messiah, the Legate of the Father. But the school of Jews above referred to, of whom Kimchi may be taken as a representative, consider the person designated _Melach_ in this formula "as nothing more than one of the many angels to whom he supposes that the governance and guidance of this lower world is committed." They did not regard the term _Melach_, when employed in this formula, as a name of office, signifying Messenger, but as a personal designation, signifying Angel, an angel, one of the angels. The points accordingly are so adjusted as to require the rendering to be, _an_ angel _of_ the Lord, or _the_ angel, understood as one of _the angels of_ the Lord. To gloss over the apparent identity, in some passages, of that angel with Jehovah, and the ascription of the same acts to each separately, they represent the angel as personating, and speaking in the name of, Jehovah; and explain his calling himself the God of Beth-El as signifying no more than Jacob's calling a place El-Beth-El.