In Isaiah 63:7, 8, the prophet delves into the mind of God to show God’s expectations of the Israelites from the beginning of the nation.

⁷ I shall make mention of the lovingkindnesses [checed] of the Lord, the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has granted us, and the great goodness toward the house of Israel, which He has granted them according to His compassion [racham, “compassion; by extension, the womb (as cherishing the fetus)”] and according to the abundance of His lovingkindnesses. ⁸ For He said, “Surely, they are My people, sons who will not deal falsely [shaqar, “deceive, trick, lie, cheat”].” So He became their Savior.

Recall from Exodus 4:22, God told Moses to tell Pharaoh,

²² Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn’.”

God’s motive in saving Israel from Egypt was that He considered Israel to be His firstborn son. Hence, God expected Israel to be loyal to his Father and to the family in general. They were to be “sons who will not deal falsely.”

We see here the true meaning of sonship. To be a son had a dual meaning, one physical and one spiritual. The Hebrew concept of sonship was that a son resembled his father and did the works of his father. For this reason, Jesus said in John 8:39, “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham.” And again, because the religious leaders sought to kill Him, He told them in John 8:44, “You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.”

Paul made faith the requisite for sonship, saying in Gal. 3:26, 29,

²⁶ For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus… ²⁹ And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.

He implies that Abraham was a son of God by faith and that we are his descendants if we have the same quality of New Covenant faith, where we believe that God is able to fulfill that which He has promised (Rom. 4:21, 22).

Knowing God’s definition of a son, we see that God had great expectations of the house of Israel when He delivered them and brought them forth from mother Egypt. God had “compassion” (racham) upon them while they were yet in the womb of Egypt. The word racham is rendered “womb” four times in the KJV.

Being complete, God has all the characteristics of both father and mother. Hence, He was able to have a mother’s love and compassion for her unborn child. Isaiah understood this, for he knew the mind of God. Those today who know the mind of God will take note that an abortionist does not share the same compassion and therefore does not know God at all. They may claim to know God in a religious manner—as did the Pharisees in Jesus’ day—but they are murderers who do the works of their father, the devil.

Short History of Israel’s Deliverance

Isaiah 63:9 says,

⁹ In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence [paniym, “face, presence”] saved them; in His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.

He felt their distress and “affliction,” beginning with the trauma of childbirth and extending into later history.

Even before this time, their father Jacob was delivered from evil by the same “angel of His presence.” After wrestling with the angel, he asked the angel, “Please tell me your name,” but the angel put him off, saying, “What is it that you ask my name?” (Gen, 32:29). Jacob, nonetheless, knew by revelation the name of the angel. So we read in Gen. 32:30,

³⁰ So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

Peniel means “God Face” or “God’s Presence.” Jacob’s heart was thus changed, and he received a new name as a testimony to all. Toward the end of his life, when he passed the birthright to the sons of Joseph, he said in Gen. 48:16,

¹⁶ The angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and may my name [Israel] live on in them…

By granting to them the name Israel, Jacob bequeathed to Joseph’s sons the main essence of the birthright (1 Chron. 5:1, 2). The birthright is “the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

God’s firstborn, the house of Israel, was supposed to hold that birthright. Isaiah wrote, “the angel of His presence saved them,” referring to the angel Peniel. In other words, they were delivered from Egypt by the same angel who had delivered Jacob-Israel “from all evil” (Gen. 48:16). The angel carried the presence of God and, I believe, was the same angel who was seen in the glory of Moses’ face (Exodus 34:30). Hence, also, this angel will manifest in the face of all the sons of God, as Paul writes in 2 Cor. 3:18,

¹⁸ But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

God’s “firstborn son” was the physical nation of Israel that was delivered out of Egypt, and so God had expectations that the people would be like Him and reflect His glory. For this reason, the angel Peniel “saved them” and led them out of Egypt. However, when their faith was tested, they proved to be faithless, not because of their Father but because of their mother (Egypt/Hagar).

Paul tells us in Gal. 4:24 that Hagar represented the Old Covenant. Hagar was an Egyptian. Hence, Israel’s mother was Hagar, and this made them Old Covenant believers, i.e., children of the flesh. Paul links Israel to Mount Sinai, where the Old Covenant was given as the reason for their spiritual “slavery.”

Though they called themselves Israelites and claimed God as their Father, they did not truly meet the expectations of God Himself. No doubt they believed that they had faith, but by failing to follow the example of Abraham, their faith proved to be faulty and limited in value. It is only by having New Covenant faith that we can fulfill God’s expectations as sons of God.

Israel’s Failure

Isaiah 63:10 says,

¹⁰ But they rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit; therefore, He turned Himself to become their enemy; He fought against them.

Israel failed many times, but the golden calf incident was when they lost the presence of God in Peniel. Peniel was replaced by the angel Michael. Moses broke the tablets of the law and then returned to the Mount to intercede for Israel. Exodus 32:32 says,

³² But now, if You will, forgive their sin—and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!”

God refused to punish Moses for Israel’s idolatry. God’s answer to Moses is seen in Exodus 32:33, 34,

³³ The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book. ³⁴ But go now, lead the people where I told you. Behold, My angel shall go before you…”

God again speaks of this angel in Exodus 33:2,

² I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite.

This hints not only of a different angel but also describes his gifting as a warrior angel. We know this angel as Michael, who was to make war with the red dragon (Rev. 12:7). God continues in Exodus 33:3, 4,

³ Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, because you are an obstinate people, and I might destroy you on the way.” ⁴ When the people heard this sad word, they went into mourning…

The “sad word” was that God’s personal presence, represented by Peniel, “God’s face/presence,” would not bring them into the Promised Land. If they had been able to retain the leading of Peniel, they would have entered the Promised Land from the south (Kadesh-barnea). Instead, they were brought into Canaan through the Jordan River, signifying death and resurrection.

Peniel is the angel of transfiguration who leads the overcomers into full sonship by changing them into the image of Christ. Michael is the angel of death and resurrection. Dan. 12:1, 2 says,

¹ Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise… ² Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting [olam] life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting [olam] contempt.

Michael became Israel’s “great prince” when he replaced Peniel, the angel who had led Israel out of Egypt. When Michael arises, or stands up, the people too stand to their feet. Hence, he brings them into the Promised Land through resurrection.

Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 15:51,

⁵¹ Behold, I tell you a mystery [secret]; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.

There are two ways to enter the Promised Land, either by being changed without dying or through death and resurrection. Some will be changed (by Peniel) without dying, while the majority will be raised from the dead (by Michael) in order to receive their immortal and incorruptible bodies.

The Israelites under Moses established this precedent when the angel who led them out of Egypt was replaced by another angel who was to lead them across the Jordan River. Isaiah recognized this change of plan, as it were, when the disobedience and idolatry of most of the Israelites turned God into their “enemy.”

Their status as God’s “enemy” was to reach a culmination point many years later in the prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction in Isaiah 29:6 and in Jer. 19:11. The failure of the earthly city, being fleshly and representing the Old Covenant, meant that it would be replaced by the heavenly city that Abraham sought (Heb. 11:10, 16). “The Jerusalem above,” as Paul called it in Gal. 4:26, is the “mother” of the true inheritors, the children of God who live by their New Covenant faith.