Hosea 12:5 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

The Lord is his memorial— The person, of whom it is here said, that the name Lord or JEHOVAH is his memorial, is no other than he whom the patriarch found at Beth-el, who there spake with the Israelites in the loins of their progenitor. He, whom the patriarch found at Beth-el, who there, in that manner, spake with the Israelites, was, by the tenor of the context, the antagonist with whom Jacob was afterwards matched at Peniel. The antagonist, with whom he was matched at Peniel, wrestled with the patriarch, as we read in the book of Genesis, (chap. Genesis 32:24.) in the human form. The conflict was no sooner ended, than the patriarch acknowledged his antagonist as God, Genesis 32:30. The holy prophet first calls him angel, מלאךֶ malaak, Hosea 12:4 and after mention of the wrestling or colluctation, and of the meeting and conference at Beth-el, says, (Hosea 12:5.) that he, whom he had called angel, was JEHOVAH God of Hosts. And to make the assertion of this person's godhead, if possible, still more unequivocal, he adds, that to him belonged, as his appropriate memorial, that name, which is declarative of the very essence of the godhead. This Man therefore of the book of Genesis, this Angel of Hosea, who wrestled with Jacob, could be no other than the JEHOVAH-ANGEL, of whom we so often read in the English Bible, under the name of the Angel of the Lord: a phrase of an unfortunate structure, and so ill-conformed to the original, that it is to be feared, it has led many into the error of conceiving of the Lord as one person, and of the Angel as another. The word of the Hebrew, ill rendered, the Lord, is not, like the English word, an appellative, expressing rank, or condition; but it is the proper name JEHOVAH. And this proper name Jehovah is not, in the Hebrew, a genitive after the noun substantive Angel, as the English represents it; but the words Jehovah and Angel, are two nouns substantive in apposition, both speaking of the same person; the one, by the appropriate name of the essence; the other, by a title of office. Jehovah-Angel would be a better rendering. The JEHOVAH-ANGEL of the Old Testament is no other than He, who, in the fulness of time, "was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary."