Genesis 16:7 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

And the angel of the Lord, &c.— Hagar was treated so harshly by her mistress, that she resolved to fly from her, and seek a retreat in her own country: as she journeyed towards which, she found in the wilderness of Shur (probably that part of Arabia Petraea which lay next AEgypt) a fountain, and there she sat down to refresh herself; when THE ANGEL of the LORD appeared to her. This is the first place, where mention is made of an angel. Expositors vary in their sentiments concerning it. It is universally agreed, that the word מלאךֶ malac, signifies a messenger, a person sent, as αγγελος in Greek, from αγγελλω, to tell, to bear a message: and consequently the context only can determine of what sort the messenger is; for the word is not only applied to human messengers, but to celestial ones, as well as to the second Divine Person in the Trinity. See Cruden's Concordance on the word angel. That this Second Person is here spoken of and appeared to Hagar, is the opinion of very many Christian interpreters, which seems the more probable from Genesis 16:13 where he is spoken to as the Jehovah himself, and from Genesis 16:10 where he speaks in the person of Jehovah: and I cannot help delivering it as my opinion, that all appearances of this kind, where the melac Jehovah, the messenger of Jehovah, the angel of the covenant so speaks and acts, were appearances of the Logos, of him, who was sent into the world to save us from our sins. The angel which appeared in the bush, and conducted the Israelites, I conceive to be the same with this, namely, the Word of God, the Redeemer. See Malachi 3:1.Exodus 14:19; Exodus 23:20-21; Exodus 23:33.Isaiah 63:9.