Chapter LX.—Opinions of the Jews with regard to Him who appeared in the
bush.
Then Trypho said, “We do not perceive this from the passage quoted by you, but [only
this], that it was an angel who appeared in the flame of fire, but God who conversed with
Moses; so that there were really two persons in company with each other, an angel and God,
that appeared in that vision.”
I again replied, “Even if this were so, my friends, that an angel and God were together
in the vision seen by Moses, yet, as has already been proved to you by the passages previously
quoted, it will not be the Creator of all things that is the God that said to Moses that He was
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, but it will be He who has
been proved to you to have appeared to Abraham, ministering to the will of the Maker of
all things, and likewise carrying into execution His counsel in the judgment of Sodom; so
that, even though it be as you say, that there were two—an angel and God—he who has but
the smallest intelligence will not venture to assert that the Maker and Father of all things,
having left all supercelestial matters, was visible on a little portion of the earth.”
And Trypho said, “Since it has been previously proved that He who is called God and
Lord, and appeared to Abraham, received from the Lord, who is in the heavens, that which
He inflicted on the land of Sodom, even although an angel had accompanied the God who
appeared to Moses, we shall perceive that the God who communed with Moses from the
bush was not the Maker of all things, but He who has been shown to have manifested
Himself to Abraham and to Isaac and to Jacob; who also is called and is perceived to be the
Angel of God the Maker of all things, because He publishes to men the commands of the
Father and Maker of all things.”
And I replied, “Now assuredly, Trypho, I shall show that, in the vision of Moses, this
same One alone who is called an Angel, and who is God, appeared to and communed with
Moses. For the Scripture says thus: ‘The Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of
fire from the bush; and he sees that the bush burns with fire, but the bush was not consumed.
And Moses said, I will turn aside and see this great sight, for the bush is not burnt. And
when the Lord saw that he is turning aside to behold, the Lord called to him out of the
bush.’400 In the same manner, therefore, in which the Scripture calls Him who appeared to
Jacob in the dream an Angel, then [says] that the same Angel who appeared in the dream
spoke to him,401 saying, ‘I am the God that appeared to thee when thou didst flee from the
face of Esau thy brother;’ and [again] says that, in the judgment which befell Sodom in the
days of Abraham, the Lord had inflicted the punishment402 of the Lord who [dwells] in the
400 Ex. iii. 2–4.
401 Gen. xxxv. 7.
402 Literally, “judgment.”
Chapter LX.—Opinions of the Jews with regard to Him who appeared in the bush.
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Chapter LX.—Opinions of the Jews with regard to Him who appeared in the…