As the God of peace and Father of mercies, You sent to us Your Angel, of Great Counsel, granting us peace. So are we guided to the light of divine knowledge, and keeping vigil from night till morning we glorify You, O Lover of mankind. (Fifth Ode of the Katavasia of the Nativity)
THE PREINCARNATE CHRIST is usually referred to in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord or as the Angel of God. A similar title that appears once in the Septuagint is the Angel of Great Counsel:
For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given and the government will be upon His shoulder. His name will be called the Angel of Great Counsel, for I shall bring peace upon the rulers, peace and health by Him. (Is. 9:5)
The Septuagint (LXX) is the Ancient Greek version of the Old Testament, translated from the Hebrew between the third and second centuries BC. The LXX was the Old Testament used by all Christians until the sixth century AD, and it is still the Old Testament of the Orthodox Church. Nearly all Old Testament quotations in the New Testament are taken from the LXX. There are, however, some significant differences between the Greek and Hebrew texts, including words, passages, and even whole books in the LXX that are not present in the Hebrew canon. The Hebrew canon was not finalized until the second century AD, before which time the LXX was used by the Jews of the Dispersion, who did not know Hebrew.
Most non-Orthodox Christian churches today usually use translations from the Masoretic Text (MT), the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible which was copied and edited between the seventh and tenth centuries AD. However, some of the oldest surviving Hebrew texts of the Old Testament (the Dead Sea Scrolls) agree with the LXX, and not with the MT, which suggests that the original Hebrew Scriptures may have been closer to the Greek Old Testament than to the later Jewish Bible.
THE APPEARANCE OF THE ANGEL of Great Counsel to the prophets of the Old Testament is the subject of the fifth ode of the katavasias of the Nativity. Of all appearances of the Angel of the Lord, or the Angel of Great Counsel, one particular manifestation is given special attention throughout Advent: the appearance of the Angel in the fiery furnace in the Book of Daniel (3:19-92). The three holy youths, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, (1) are thrown into a fiery furnace for refusing to obey King Nebuchadnezzar’s command to worship idols. In the furnace they are miraculously unharmed by the flames. They pray and sing to God, and the Angel of the Lord descends into the fire and, joins the three young men:
But the Angel of the Lord went down into the furnace to join Azariah and his companions, and shook off the fiery flame of the furnace. He made the inside of the furnace to be as though a dew-laden breeze were blowing through it, so the fire did not touch them at all, or cause them pain, or trouble them. Then the three, as if with one mouth, sang, glorified, and blessed God in the furnace, saying, “Blessed are You, O Lord God of our fathers.” (Dan. 3:47-52)
In the manifestation of the Angel of the Lord in the fiery furnace, the Church Fathers see a manifestation of the Word of God, but what is especially interesting about this particular appearance of the Angel of the Lord in comparison to others is the response of Nebuchadnezzar to the sight of the Angel: “I see four men untied and walking in the midst of the fire, yet they are not destroyed and the vision of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Dan. 3:92). (2)
Throughout the Old Testament, the Angel of the Lord is declared as Lord or God, but this is the only time in the Old Testament where He is explicitly referred to as the Son of God. And there can be no doubt that the hymn writers of the Church consider Jesus to be the incarnation of that very same Angel of Great Counsel:
She who is more holy than the angels and all creation now gives birth without seed to the Angel of Great Counsel in the flesh. (Matins Theotokion, third Ode of the Canon of the Forefeast)
A young child has been born from Adam’s substance, a Son has been given to the faithful. He is the Father and Prince of the age to come, and he is called the Angel of great counsel. He is the mighty God who holds in His dominion all creation. (Sixth Ode of the Canon of the Nativity)
~Vassilios Papavassiliou, Meditations for Advent: Preparing for Christ’s Birth
1 Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael are the original Hebrew names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (see Dan. 1:6-7).
2 Some English Bibles read “a son of the gods.” The translators have failed to take into account that the Hebrew word for God, Elohim, is plural (an indication that the Hebrew prophets knew that there is more to God than the Person of the Father), or they have assumed that Nebuchanezzar could not have known of the Son of God, in spite of all the mysteries Daniel revealed to him (see Dan. 2). Moreover, if God could make a donkey speak the truth (see Num. 22:28), there is no reason He cannot inspire a pagan to do the same.
