Ephraim ben Shimshon, interpreting the reference to the angel who redeems (ha-mal’akh ha-go’el) mentioned in Gen. 48:16
Thus it is [established] in the secret of the chariot (sod ha-merkavah) that the Holy One, blessed be He, is mentioned as an angel in the secret of the angels, [a sphere] in the secret of the spheres, and that is the throne. All of these are emanations that emanate from the splendor of His great unfathomable and limitless light. Thus it is written in Exodus (3-2), “An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire out of a bush,” and immediately after it is written, “God called to him out of the bush” (ibid., 4), and it is written, “for he was afraid to look at God” (ibid., 6). Therefore the word mal’akh [angel] numerically equals ha-’elohim [the divine].
Cited from Rabeinu Ephraim- A Twelfth-Century Biblical Commentary, ed. E. Korach and Z. Leitner, with consultation of C. Konyevsky (Jerusalem, 1992), 1-154 (Hebrew).
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