Genesis 48 records one of the most heartfelt moments in Scripture: the aging Jacob blessing Joseph’s sons and invoking divine protection over them. In his prayer he says:

13 Then Joseph took them both — with his right hand Ephraim toward Israel’s left, and with his left hand Manasseh toward Israel’s right — and brought them to Israel. 14 But Israel stretched out his right hand and put it on the head of Ephraim, the younger, and crossing his hands, put his left on Manasseh’s head, although Manasseh was the firstborn. 15 Then he blessed Joseph and said: “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, 16 the Angel who has redeemed me from all harm —may He bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow to be numerous within the land.” (HCSB)

To modern readers—especially those unfamiliar with ancient Near Eastern concepts of agency (Hebrew shaliach)—the shift from “God” to “the Angel” can sound confusing. Trinitarian interpreters have sometimes appealed to this verse (and similar passages) to argue that “the Angel” (aka, “the angel of the Lord”) is a pre-incarnate appearance of the Son of God. Yet a closer look at the text, its broader context, and other biblical examples of divine agency reveals a sounder doctrine.

What Jacob expresses here is not a proto-Trinitarian hint but a classic example of the biblical principle of agency: a duly authorized messenger (malʾak) functions as “the one sent,” speaking and acting with the full authority of the sender. In Hebrew thought, the malak is never a second Yahweh or one of the Persons of a triune God. The Angel is God’s commissioned agent who may speak in the first person with divine authority. The distinction between sender and sent remains intact, even as their identification in speech and action runs closely in parallel. This explains why Jacob can move seamlessly from “the God who…” to “the Angel who redeemed me…” without implying two distinct Persons who are both equally God.

We may also detect here an echo of a Bethel tradition—perhaps not preserved in Genesis—in which Jacob attributed his lifelong protection to a special angelic guardian (cf. Hos 12:4–5 [Heb. 12:5–6]). Whether or not such a tradition lies in the background, the theological point is unchanged: Jacob’s redeemer is Yahweh, the one God of Israel, acting through His appointed malak, not the pre-incarnate Son of God.

The JPS Torah Commentary (Nahum Sarna) explains why other translations (NIV, Holman, KJV) capitalize “Angel” because the tight poetic parallelism in vv. 15–16 strongly suggests the term serves as an epithet or title for God Himself. In other words, Jacob is not praying to the angel as if he were God Himself; his prayer is to God by the principle of agency, i.e., the redeeming “Angel” stands in for God. This reading is reinforced by the fact that nowhere in Scripture does anyone direct prayer or blessing to an angel as God. Whenever Jacob faces mortal danger, he prays directly to God (Gen 32:9–12), and it is always God—not an angel—who promises to protect and deliver him (Gen 28:15; 31:3; 35:3; 46:4). Even in Jacob’s angelic encounters, no angel is ever credited with redeeming him from harm. And though calling God “the Angel who redeemed me” is indeed striking, biblical literature frequently allows the line between God and His angels to blur precisely because of the agency principle (e.g., Gen 31:11–13; Exod 3:2–6; Judg 6:11–24).

A striking parallel appears in Exodus 23, where Yahweh declares:

20 Behold, I am sending an angel before you to protect you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not defy him, for he will not forgive rebellion, since My Name is in him. 22 But if you will listen carefully to his voice and do everything I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. 23 For My angel will go before you and bring you into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will annihilate them.

Here Yahweh places His own Name—His authority, power, and presence—within this angel. As a result, Israel must obey the angel as they would obey God Himself, and the angel can even forgive rebellion (a prerogative elsewhere reserved for God alone; Mic 7:18–19; cf. Mark 2:7). Yet the text never implies that the angel is the Son of God before His incarnation. Rather, it is one of Scripture’s clearest expressions of the agency principle: because the Name of Yahweh is in His messenger, to hear or defy this angel is to hear or defy Yahweh Himself (vv. 21–22). The angel protects, leads, and judges with divine authority precisely because he carries the covenantal identity of the One who sent him.

Far from supporting later Trinitarian interpretations, these texts beautifully illustrate Scripture’s consistent pattern of agency: the one God, Yahweh alone, shepherds, protects, and redeems His people through His angels, who bear His Name and act on His behalf.