What Does Exodus 23:20 Mean?

The angel-guardian promise inaugurates the covenant's next phase: the conquest provision. After the Covenant Code's legal instruction (chapters 21-23), YHWH promises the covenant community an angelic emissary who will guard them on the wilderness road and bring them to the place YHWH has prepared. The "angel" (Hebrew: mal'akh, messenger/envoy) is YHWH's commissioned representative carrying YHWH's own authority: "my name is in him." The divine name embedded in the angel makes his authority equivalent to YHWH's own: disobedience to the angel is disobedience to YHWH.

The "place I have prepared" is the land of promise, but more immediately the Sinai sanctuary space where the covenant-ratification ceremony of chapter 24 will occur and where the tabernacle instructions of chapters 25-31 will be given. The angel guards the road toward the covenant encounter that is about to happen. The promise of the angelic guardian at the close of the Covenant Code section is the covenant's transitional assurance: having given Israel its social and worship law, YHWH commits to providing the supernatural guidance that will bring the covenant community to the place where all this law can be lived.

The New Testament wrestles with the identity of the Sinai-guiding angel throughout: Paul identifies the spiritual rock in the wilderness as Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4); the Shekinah and the angel of the LORD in the wilderness may be the pre-incarnate Son. Hebrews 2:2 treats the Sinai law as "declared by Angels while also affirming that "the salvation declared by the Lord" is superior. The angelic guardian of Exodus 23:20 is the covenant's most theologically tantalizing figure: the messenger in whom YHWH's name dwells, who guards the road to the divine dwelling that the tabernacle will create.