Joshua 5:13-15--The Commander of the LORD's Army

Joshua 5:13-15
English Standard Version
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The Commander of the Lord's Army
13 When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” 14 And he said, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” 15 And the commander of the LORD's army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

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Last time, we saw this new generation of Israelites celebrate the Passover in the new Land and they began to eat of the spoils of the Land, and the manna from heaven that had been their daily bread ceased.  They are now making ready for battle, and Joshua sees a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand.  Joshua rightly wants to know if this strong warrior is on their side or is allied with their enemies, but Joshua gets a strange response from this man, “No; but I am the commander of the army of the LORD. Now I have come.”

​​What kind of greeting is this?  What does that even mean that this man is "commander of the army of the LORD"?  Wouldn't that title be fitting for Joshua?  Was he not the commander of the LORD's people Israel?  Were not they "the LORD's army"?  As much as this might be confusing to us, it was not confusing at all to Joshua, for Joshua recognized that this person that he was seeing was God in a human form that we would call a Theophany or more precisely since this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, we would call this a Christophany.  You may be wondering where I am getting that from, so let me explain.


No angel of heaven that is a created being is going to accept worship that belongs only to the LORD.  Angels may speak on the LORD's behalf, but they never accept worship on the LORD's behalf.  They always stop the worshiper and tell them not to worship them, but to worship God alone, and often times add that they too are but His humble servants and created beings that are not to be worshiped.  If an angelic creature accepts or even demands worship, then that creature is a demon or Lucifer himself because we see that was Lucifer's sin--wanting not just the throne of heaven, but the worship of all creation that went along with being God.

Now there is a special "angel" in the Bible that we've talked about before called the angel of the LORD (notice the definite article "the").  This is different from when we see "an angel of the LORD" which is just a regular messenger, but the angel of the LORD would be the Word of God Himself, that is the second person of the Trinity that we call the Son of God, or at the time of His incarnation, we called Him Jesus the Christ (the Messiah).  The angel of the LORD speaks for God in the first person, for being God Himself, the message of the Father is the message of the Son.  He also accepts worship when others do not and cannot.  So this figure that we see is not Michael or Gabriel of the other princes among the angels, but instead is the one who is the Lord of Host (Lord Sabaoth).

I'll throw out a technical term here and say that I believe that most commentators agree that this is a Christophany.  That is, this is a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ, the second person of the Trinity (for all the reasons just stated above). Just keep that term tucked away in your vocabulary and understand that we sometimes see God show up in a Theophany, but it's only when God the Son shows up specifically that it is called a Christophany.

One last note on this topic before moving on.  The angel of the LORD had been with the people their entire time of the Exodus and wandering in the wilderness.  We may have missed it, but take a look at passages like these:

Exodus 14:19-20
English Standard Version
19 Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, 20 coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

Exodus 23:23-24
English Standard Version
23 “When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, 24 you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.

Exodus 32:34
English Standard Version
34 But now go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit, I will visit their sin upon them.”

There are some other passages that not only show the angel of the LORD as the one who makes battle for the LORD and His people, but also the one that brings judgment on the people of God when they entered into rebellion and made themselves just like the enemies of God.  So, it is clear why the Commander of the LORD's Army answered with "No" because Joshua asked the wrong question.  It is not about if the Lord is on your side, but are you on the Lord's side?

Joshua having fallen on his face in worship asks, "What does my Lord command?"  (I'm going to capitalize Lord even though the text does not because I think it's clear that Joshua recognizes this man as the God-Man).  Notice that this "man" doesn't discourage the worship and He commands Joshua to do exactly the same thing that He commanded Moses to do at the burning bush (another place where the angel of the LORD appeared).  There is no mistaking that this "man" just claimed to be the I AM that Moses spoke to in Exodus 3 (see Exodus 3:5 if you want to see the identical words and Exodus 3:2 identifies the one Moses saw and the one speaking to him as the angel of the LORD).