The word _Melach_ first occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures, Gen. xvi., where it is employed in its primary signification, and occurs four times in the formula _Melach Jehovah_, clearly designating the official Person, Jehovah, in his delegated character--the Anointed and Sent of the Father, _The Messenger Jehovah_. In the original there is uniformity, consistency, and perfect freedom from ambiguity and uncertainty in the use of this term as an official designation, here and wherever it occurs throughout the Scriptures. There is no mistaking it if regarded in its grammatical relation with the Divine names, and its connection with the context, independently of the points and of the hereditary Jewish construction; and had the translators so regarded it, and in their version employed the term _Messenger_ instead of _Angel_, it would have been as clearly understood to designate the official Person as if they had substituted or added the term _Messiah_. Subsequently, this name of office was applied to created angels and to men employed, and because they were employed, as messengers; and it finally came to be used as a personal appellative. The first instance of this occurs Gen. xix. 1: "There came two _angels_ to Sodom," that is, two messengers; two who were _sent_ by Jehovah while he was present with Abraham in the visible form of man. And chap. xxxii. 3, 6: "Jacob _sent messengers_ before him to Esau.... And _the messengers_ returned to Jacob;" that is, he _sent_ two of his servants with a message. But in the original, the word translated angels in chap. xix., and messengers in chap. xxxii., is the same, and differs from that in chap. xvi. and all the parallel passages translated _angel_, only by being in the plural form. This term _Melach_, as an official designation of Jehovah, including the instances in which it is coupled with the name Elohim, occurs more than twenty times in the books of Moses, and more than twice that number of times in the later Hebrew Scriptures; and considering that it is often employed interchangeably with the names Jehovah and Elohim; that the same acts, revelations, promises, covenants, and predictions, are in the same or in different passages ascribed indifferently to Jehovah, Elohim, and the Messenger Jehovah; and that in the New Testament, both in references to the Old and in original revelations and announcements, the same acts, promises, &c., are ascribed to the Logos or personal Word under that and other designations; it is manifest that, had our translators rightly apprehended the import and reference of the designation, and represented it in their version by a term as guarded, unequivocal, and distinctive as the original, their readers would be at no loss as to how or in what relations Moses wrote of Christ.