Angels and the Law of Sinai

Several nt writers indicate that angels dispensed the law at Mount Sinai. However, none of the ot passages associated with the events at Mount Sinai clearly say this happened. This means that a tradition probably developed over time regarding this aspect of the biblical narrative. Two factors help explain how this tradition developed: the nt writers’ use of the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the ot, and the link between the portrayal of the embodied Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh in the ot.

The following nt passages clearly suggest that angels delivered the law:

Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand about the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become, you who received the law by directions of angels and have not observed it (Acts 7:52–53)!

Because of this, it is all the more necessary that we pay attention to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels was binding and every transgression and act of disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation (Heb 2:1–3)?

Why then the law? It was added on account of transgressions, until the descendant should come to whom it had been promised, having been ordered through angels by the hand of a mediator (Gal 3:19).

Where did the idea that angels were present at Sinai come from? Two ot passages seem to have most contributed to this idea:

The chariots of God are twice ten thousand, with thousands doubled. The Lord is among them at Sinai, distinctive in victory (Psa 68:17).

Now this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before his death. Then he said, “Yahweh came from Sinai, and he dawned upon them from Seir; he shone forth from Mount Paran, and he came with myriads of holy ones, at his right hand a fiery law for them. Moreover, he loves his people, all the holy ones were in your hand, and they bowed down to your feet, each one accepted directions from you. A law Moses instructed for us, as a possession for the assembly of Jacob (Deut 33:1–4).

Psalm 68:17 implies that a multitude of angelic beings accompanied Yahweh at Sinai, but it says nothing about the law. Deuteronomy 33:1–4 clearly mentions the law (Deut 33:4), but without a clear description of angels. The “holy ones” (qedoshim in Hebrew) of Deut 33:3 may refer to angels, but this phrase is elsewhere used of people (see Psa 34:9; Dan 7:21–22). Also, since it directly follows “people,” its reference is ambiguous. However, the Septuagint version of Deut 33:1–4 uses the word “angels” in distinction from “people”; this could be where the nt writers got this idea. Note the difference between the two texts in English translation:

The Septuagint not only distinguishes between people and angels but also implies that “his people” and “all the holy ones” are two different groups. Consequently, this passage may very well refer to the presence of angels at the giving of the law at Sinai. However, while the nt writers clearly say that God gave the law through angels, Deut 33:1–4 only implies the presence of angels at Sinai; it does not actually say the law came to Israel through them.

Angelic Mediation of the Law

Galatians 3:19 provides a detail about angels and the law that the other nt texts do not:

Why then the law? It was added on account of transgressions, until the descendant should come to whom it had been promised, having been ordered through angels by the hand of a mediator.

The Greek text of this verse can either mean that the angels handed the law to an intermediary (i.e., Moses) who then gave it to the Israelites, or an intermediary among the angels handed the law to Moses. In the former case (in which Moses is the intermediary), the text does not actually say that angels gave the law to him. If Moses was the intermediary, then, it is still unclear whether angels, or an angelic figure, mediated the law. According to the latter case, an angelic figure was the intermediary. The very next verse provides some direction regarding these options:

Now the mediator is not for one, but God is one. (Gal 3:20).

Here, Paul seems to be clarifying that the presence of this intermediary does not violate God’s oneness, as articulated in the shema—Deut 6:4. If Moses was the intermediary, Paul would not need to reaffirm God’s oneness. But if the intermediary was an angel—even an angel giving the law—this qualification would make sense. In the ot, the Angel of Yahweh is at times fused—even equated—with Yahweh (e.g., Gen 18). In Gal 3:19–20, Paul seems to have in mind the Angel of Yahweh—the visible and, at times, embodied Yahweh—as the angelic intermediary at Sinai.

Moreover, in Gal 3:19, the law is given literally “by the hand of” an intermediary. While this phrase can be a mere figure of speech, it nevertheless gives new significance to Moses’ words in Deut 9:9–10:

When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that Yahweh made with you, and remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights, I did not eat food and I did not drink water. And Yahweh gave me the two tablets of stone written with the finger of God, and on them was writing according to all the words that Yahweh spoke with you at the mountain, from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly

This language suggests divine embodiment, an idea typically associated with the Angel of Yahweh motif. This further suggests that the Angel of Yahweh was responsible for the angelic mediation of the law on Mount Sinai—providing the remainder of the conceptual framework of the nt writers.

Michael S. Heiser

Further Reading

Old Testament Godhead Language

Angel CLBD

Route of the Exodus