Destroyer
Destroyer
()PM , mashchith’, Exo 12:23; , 1Co 10:10), an exterminator (see Bromel, De angelo exterminatore, Jen. 1685; also in the Thesaur. Theol. philolog. V. T. 1:301 sq.). SEE DEATH. The Hebrews were accustomed by a figure to speak of any superhuman agency as that of an angel (see Bush, Note on Exo 3:2); and whenever this had a providential aspect it was attributed to a divine messenger (2Ki 19:35; 2Sa 24:15,16; Psa 78:49; Act 12:23). SEE ANGEL. Even Satan’s malignity is represented as thus employed (Job 2:6-7). SEE ABADDON.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Destroyer
(Ex. 12:23), the agent employed in the killing of the first-born; the destroying angel or messenger of God. (Comp. 2 Kings 19:35; 2 Sam. 24:15, 16; Ps. 78:49; Acts 12:23.)
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Destroyer
de-stroier: In several passages the word designates a supernatural agent of destruction, or destroying angel, executing Divine judgment. (1) In Exo 12:23, of the destroyer who smote the first-born in Egypt, again referred to under the same title in Heb 11:28 the Revised Version (British and American) (the King James Version he that destroyed). (2) In Job 33:22, the destroyers (literally, they that cause to die) = the angels of death that are ready to take away a man’s life during severe illness. No exact parallel to this is found in the Old Testament. The nearest approach is the angel that destroyed the people by pestilence (2Sa 24:16, 2Sa 24:17 parallel 1Ch 21:15, 1Ch 21:16); the angel that smote the Assyrians (2Ki 19:35 = Isa 37:36 parallel 2Ch 32:21); angels of evil (Psa 78:49). (3) In the Apocrypha, the destroyer is once referred to as the minister of punishment (Revised Version; literally, him who was punishing), who brought death into the world (The Wisdom of Solomon 18:22-25). (4) In 1Co 10:10, the destroyer is the angelic agent to whose instrumentality Paul attributes the plague of Num 16:46-49.
In later Jewish theology (the Targums and Midrash), the destroyer or angel of death appears under the name Sammael (i.e. the poison of God), who was once an arch-angel before the throne of God, and who caused the serpent to tempt Eve. According to Weber, he is not to be distinguished from Satan. The chief distinction between the destroyer of early thought and the Sammael of later Judaism is that the former was regarded as the emissary of Yahweh, and subservient to His will, and sometimes was not clearly distinguished from Yahweh Himself, whereas the latter was regarded as a perfectly distinct individuality, acting in independence or semi-independence, and from purely malicious and evil motives. The change was largely due to the influence of Persian dualism, which made good and evil to be independent powers.