Исход, Глава 23, стих 21. Толкования стиха

Ангел, имеющий идти перед Израилем, не простой Ангел. Таинственное существо, имеющее право прощать, и на котором покоится Имя Иеговы, есть сам Господь во Второй Ипостаси св. Троицы. Так понимают все комментаторы значение этого места, которым определяется значение Израиля посреди других народов. Мы опять напоминаем выражение ХХХIII главы Исхода (ст. 2–3), когда Господь в гневе на Израиля говорит, что пошлет Ангела ввести Израиль в обетованную землю, но сам не пойдет с ними, «чтобы не погубить на пути народ жестоковыйный». Пока Господь с Израилем, то народ этот есть народ закона и обетования; с предоставлением его Ангелу, он ни чем не отличался от других языческих народов, и священная его миссия прекращалась. Последнее вполне совершилось, когда потомки Израиля отреклись «от Святаго и Праведнаго», прося даровать им человека убийцу (Деян. 3, 14 речь Петра); Ангел, здесь упомянутый, тот же Господь, который вывел под именем Ангела же Израиль из Египта (Числа 20, 16); это Ангел Присутствия прор. Исаии (LXIII, 9); Ангел Завета прор. Малахии (3, 16).

And he added, “She shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He shall save his people from their sins” Matt 1:21. But this name of the Lord by which Jesus is called from the virgin’s womb is not new to him but old. For Jesus translates from Hebrew into Latin as “Savior.” This name is uniquely fitting to God because he says through the prophet, “There is no just one and Savior besides me” see Isa 43:11; Hos 13:4. Lastly, when the Lord himself spoke through Isaiah about the bodily origin of this nativity, he said the following: “He called me by my name from the womb of my mother” Isa 49:1; by his own name, surely, not that of another, since he was called Jesus according to the flesh, that is, Savior, who was Savior according to his divinity. For Jesus, as we said, is expressed as “Savior.” This is what he says by the prophet: “He called me by my name from the womb of my mother.” And that he might more fully show us the mystery of his incarnation, he went on to say, “He made my mouth like a sharp sword and as a choice arrow in his quiver he hid me” Isa 49:2. By the arrow he signified his divinity; by the quiver the body he assumed from the virgin in which his divinity was covered up with a veil of flesh. Even in the Book of Exodus the Lord shows that this name of his by which he is called Jesus is an old one to him, when he says the following to Moses about Jesus (Iesu) the son of Nun, who had received this same name as a type: “I am sending my angel before your face that you may obey him and not despise him. For he does not draw himself back, for my name is on him” Exod 23:20–21. For Hoshea (Uses), son of Nun, who was the leader after Moses, began to be called Jesus, as a type of the Lord who was going to come in the flesh see Num 13:8, 16; Deut 32:44. Therefore when the angel says of the Lord in the present passage, “She will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus,” he shows the mystery of his incarnation, since Jesus is one, Word and flesh, Son of God and Son of Man, not two separate things (non alius et alius) but one and the same, he who was born of the Father and who was begotten from a virgin. Therefore, “he has saved,” and daily “saves his people” whom he draws away from idols, the people he redeemed by his holy blood and to whom he promises eternal salvation.