The statement (Phases, p. 134) that "there is a double promise of a guardian angel" can have weight only with those who do not give themselves the trouble to read the passages. In Ex. 23 the Lord says, "Behold, I send an Angel before thee to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him and obey his voice; provoke him not, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my name is in him." God goes before them by angelic power, by what He calls (ver. 23) "mine Angel." That is, an intervention of God in that way which was really Himself, only in the way of angelic power. Thus Jacob says (Gen. 48), "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." So where God, as I AM, manifested Himself in a flame of fire in the bush, He is called "the Angel" in the bush. Where Jacob declares at Peniel (i.e., the face of God) that he had seen God face to face, and lived, Hosea says "he had power over the angel and prevailed." So in the case of Manoah it is said "the angel of Jehovah did wondrously," and Manoah says "we have seen God," and the words are received as Jehovah's, telling them such and such things. He is called all through the passage the Angel Jehovah, as many translate it. Subsequently to what is spoken of in Ex. 23 Israel made the golden calf, and the Lord would have refused to go with them, as, if present, He must consume them, and declared He would send an angel with Moses. Moses intercedes, and the Lord says His presence shall go with him. To make of this general promise and the special dealing in reference to their guilt and God's prolonged mercy a double promise, is mere trifling.