Word Of

NOTES:

Heiser, Michael S.. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Lexham Press. Kindle Edition.

The Word here [Genesis 15] is something that can be seen—why else call it a vision?4 In verse 4 we read that the Word “brought him [Abraham] outside” to continue the conversation. This isn’t the kind of language one would expect if Abraham was hearing only a sound. These appearances of the Word of Yahweh are the conceptual backdrop to the apostle John’s language in his gospel that Jesus was the Word. The most familiar instance is John 1:1

In John 8:56, Jesus, the incarnate Word, informs his Jewish antagonists that he appeared to Abraham prior to his incarnation.

Since the Word is clearly equated with and identified as Yahweh in Genesis 12 and 15, when the New Testament has Jesus saying “that was me,” he is claiming to be the Word of the Old Testament, who was the visible Yahweh.

The chapter [1 Samuel 3] opens with the cryptic statement, “The word of Yahweh was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.”

Samuel goes back to bed. The narrative resumes in verse 10: “Then Yahweh came and stood there and called out as before,

That one of these three men is Yahweh is evident from the first verse. That the appearance of Yahweh and his two companions is physical is telegraphed by the request to wash their feet and partake in a meal (Genesis 18:1–5),

dramatic. In Jeremiah 1 the prophet is called to service. He writes that “The word of Yahweh” came to him and said,

“the word of Yahweh.” Genesis 22 marks a shift in the language for a visible Yahweh figure to the “Angel of Yahweh.”