The Angel of Yahweh did not always look the same when people saw Him. Although, at certain times, He appeared looking like a man, there were also times when He appeared to people looking different to a man. For example, when He appeared to Moses in the burning bush He looked like flames of fire. When He appeared to Manoah and his wife and went up in the fire, He must have undergone a transformation from looking like a man to turning into fire on front of Manoah and his wife:
20 As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground.
Judges 13:20
In Ezekiel 1 He is seen by Ezekiel as a man Who is burning with fire:
26 Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. 27 I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him.
Ezekiel 1:26-27 NIV
The reason that the Angel of Yahweh could transform into fire is because He is an Angel. Hebrews 1:7 confirms that angels, the servants of God, can become flames of fire:
7 In speaking of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels spirits,
Hebrews 1:7 NIV
and his servants flames of fire.”[a]
The fact that the Angel of Yahweh can transform into flames of fire, is key to helping us understand Who the Angel of Yahweh really is. The Angel of Yahweh is the Holy Spirit, Who descended onto Mount Sinai as fire and Who appeared as tongues of fire on the disciples who were gathered together in the upper room on the Day of Pentecost.
In Isaiah 63 we are told that the Holy Spirit is an Angel:
8 He said, “Surely they are my people,
Isaiah 63:8-10 NIV
children who will be true to me”;
and so he became their Savior.
9 In all their distress he too was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.[a]
In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.
10 Yet they rebelled
and grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he turned and became their enemy
and he himself fought against them.
We see from Isaiah 63 that the Holy Spirit is a very special Angel called the Angel of His presence. He was called the Angel of His presence because Yahweh the Father lived in Him and spoke through Him.
In Exodus 6: 2-3 we are told by Yahweh the Father what the specific name of this Angel is and that the Father is present within Him:
2 And God said to Moses, “I am Yahweh—‘the Lord.’ 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob in El-Shaddai but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.
Exodus 6:2-3
Although commonly translated as God telling Moses that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as El Shaddai, this is not what the verse actually says. The correct translation of the verse says that He appeared to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in El Shaddai. I have corrected the Interlinear translation above to read ‘in’ El Shaddai because the preposition on the word ‘el’ is בְּ which is the preposition ‘in’ in ancient Hebrew.
In Exodus 6:2-3 the preposition בְּ is attached to the beginning of the word אֵ֣ל forming the word בְּאֵ֣ל. The word אֵ֣ל is the ‘El’ of El Shaddai. If you look at the blue parts of speech under the original Hebrew text the preposition is listed as Prep-b. Prep-b, according to the Hebrew parsing, means ‘in’ (https://biblehub.com/hebrewparse.htm). It does not mean ‘as’ because כְּ is the preposition which means ‘as’ (8af3842462324e4d5443b28852f9368b3e9aa672.html). Therefore, the verse does not read:
….. I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai…
Rather, the verse reads as:
….I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob in El Shaddai…
Therefore, the Angel of Yahweh, Who appeared as flames of fire in the burning bush, is the Holy Spirit and the name of the Holy Spirit is El Shaddai, which means God of the Mountains. In Moses’ blessing to the tribes of Israel he described the Holy Spirit, the visible Yahweh, in relation to three of these mountains, Sinai, Seir and Paran:
33 This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death. 2 He said:
“The Lord came from Sinai
Deuteronomy 33:1-2 NIV
and dawned over them from Seir;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.
He came with[a] myriads of holy ones
from the south, from his mountain slopes.[b]
