Note 311 — Chapter III · MORE MORALISING, INTERRUPTED BY PROVERBIAL MAXIMS.

There is a touch of humour here; comp. the wretch in the fable who called Death to his aid, but refused him when he came. Klostermann has done well in reviving this interpretation, which, in Germany at least, had been generally abandoned. (Delitzsch thinks the ‘angel’ is the priest whom the man who has vowed approaches with a request to be released from his vow. This is supported by Mal. ii. 7, where the priest is called ‘the messenger of Jehovah Sabáoth;’ but see the notes of Ginsburg and Kingsbury. Renan renders, à l’envoyé des prêtres.) The angel is the destroying angel, whose action is discerned by faith in the judicial calamities which, sometimes at least, overtake the wrong-doer. (So the Targum, but postponing the appearance of the angel to the future judgment.)