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The Angel Wept When Joshua Asked Whose Side

Moses rejected an angel and demanded God walk among Israel. When Joshua later asked the captain whose side he took, the angel wept from his feet.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Only You, Not a Messenger
  2. Joshua Falls on His Face
  3. Hornets Ahead of the March
  4. Abraham's Escort Paid Forward
  5. Two Leaders, One Captain, Different Hunger
The Angel Wept When Joshua Asked Whose Side Click for full size

Only You, Not a Messenger

"Behold, I send an angel before thee" (Exodus 23:20). God offered Moses a guardian on the road. Moses refused the gift if it meant distance. "If You send it before me alone, I do not desire it." He wanted the verse he would later force into being: "Let the Lord, I pray Thee, go in the midst of us" (Exodus 34:9).

Early generations, the midrash says, knew how to bargain upward. Moses would take no substitute for Presence. An angel can guard. An angel cannot forgive. "He will not pardon your transgressions," Scripture warns, because a messenger only does what he is sent to do. Pardon stays with the One who lifts countenances.

Moses had seen what happens when the people sin under a mountain. He would not march them under a sinless guard who had no authority to lift a fallen face. Better the danger of nearness to God than the safety of a perfect deputy.

Joshua Falls on His Face

Years later Joshua met a figure with a drawn sword and asked the soldier's question: "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?" (Joshua 5:13-14). The angel began to cry out from the nails of his feet, weeping as if from the ground up. "Nay, I am captain of the hosts of the Lord; I am now come."

Then the wound in the story opens. "Twice I have come to lead Israel. I am he who came in the days of Moses your master, and he rejected me because he did not wish me to accompany him, and now I have come once again." Joshua hit the earth and asked what his lord would say to his servant. The same captain Moses had waved away now stood over the conquest.

The tears are the detail no general expects. A captain of hosts weeping from his feet because a human asked about sides. The question was too small for the history he carried. Moses had wanted God. Joshua wanted alignment. The angel remembered both meetings in one sob.

Hornets Ahead of the March

Even after Moses' refusal, God promised other forerunners. Hornets would go before Israel. Rabbi Levi taught that two hornets clung to each angel, pouring poison into Amorite eyes until men fell. Others say bodies trembled, faces blackened like furnace soot, and Israel finished what fear began. Og and his kind were not small. Their height was like cedars, yet fruit above and roots beneath were destroyed, guardian angel and nation alike.

So Moses' demand for God Himself did not leave Israel naked. It left them under a stricter intimacy, with secondary forces still clearing the road when Presence ordered it.

Giant men still fell. Poison still found eyes. The conquest did not wait for a softer theology. It waited for a people who had been taught, by Moses' hunger, that messengers are tools and not replacements.

Abraham's Escort Paid Forward

Why does God walk before Israel at all? Another Tanchuma answers with Abraham. Because Abraham escorted the three ministering angels from his tent, walking them on their way (Genesis 18:16), God repaid the measure by going before Abraham's children forty years in cloud and fire. Because Abraham said, "Let now a little water be fetched" (Genesis 18:4), the well moved with Israel in the desert.

Escort for escort. Water for water. The patriarch's small courtesies became national infrastructure. Moses, standing inside that inheritance, refused to cash it out as mere angelic management. He wanted the Host who had already chosen to walk.

A bowl of water in Mamre becomes a traveling well. A walk to the road becomes a pillar of cloud. Measure for measure is not always punishment. Sometimes it is hospitality scaled to a nation.

Two Leaders, One Captain, Different Hunger

Moses heard "I send an angel" and answered with hunger for God in the camp. Joshua saw the captain and asked about sides like a general checking alliances. The angel wept at the downgrade of the question, then served the conquest anyway. Israel lives between those postures: the demand for Presence, and the need to recognize the messenger when he returns.

David would later cry that if God marked iniquities no one could stand, and that forgiveness itself teaches fear. Moses had already lived that theology by rejecting a sinless guard who cannot pardon. The road into the land still needed captains. The heart of the camp still needed the Name that forgives.

When the cloud moved, it was Abraham's old hospitality coming due. When the angel wept before Joshua, it was Moses' old refusal still echoing. Between them Israel learned that heaven keeps both the escort and the argument.

Stand at Jericho's edge with dust on your tongue and you can feel the whole chain: a patriarch walking guests to the road, a prophet refusing a substitute, a captain crying from his feet, hornets finding Amorite eyes, a nation stepping onto ground prepared by more than swords. The question "whose side?" is too thin for that chain. The better question is Moses': will You go in the midst of us?

MosesJoshuaAngelSinaiAmoritesAbraham
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From the tradition

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The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Midrash Tanchuma, Mishpatim 18Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

Behold, I sent an angel before thee (Exod. 23:20). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: I will send an angel before you but not before them. Whereupon Moses replied: If you send it before me alone, I do not desire it. Rather Let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us (Exod. 34:9). Observe the difference between the early generations and the later ones. When the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses: Behold, I will send an angel before you, he replied: I desire no one but You, whereas, when Joshua the son of Nun beheld an angel, he prostrated himself on the ground, as it is said: And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down. And he said to him: “Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?” (Josh. 5:13–14).

R. Isaac queried: What did the angel do when he heard the question: Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? He began to cry out from the nails of his feet (i.e., to weep uncontrollably), and he said to him: Nay, I am captain of the hosts of the Lord; I am now come (ibid.). Twice I have come to lead Israel, I am he who came in the days of Moses your master, and he rejected me because he did not wish me to accompany him, and now I have come once again. Forthwith Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said unto him: What saith my lord unto his servant? (ibid., v. 14). However, though Moses rejected him, the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: I send an angel before thee to keep thee by the way (Exod. 23:20), and, as well, before everyone who observes the law.

R. Simeon the son of Lakish stated: It is written: He will cover thee with His pinions, and under His wings shalt thou take refuge; His truth is a shield and a buckler (Ps. 91:4). He said to him: We will make a shield for you and for all who observe the law, since His truth is a shield and a buckler. Therefore to keep thee indicates that He will guard you by means of the law.

To keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared (Exod. 23:20). This one verse from Scripture makes it evident that the earthly Temple corresponds to the heavenly Temple.

Take heed of him, and hearken unto his voice (ibid., v. 21). Why? Because you are not worthy to hear My voice. Listen to the voice of the angel even though he is unable to forgive your transgressions. Why is he not able to do so? He is of the class (of creatures) that do not sin. Thus it is written: For he will not pardon your transgressions (ibid.).

Another explanation of He will not pardon your transgressions. Why not? For he is only a messenger, and a messenger can only do what he is sent to do. I alone can lift up countenances (i.e., grant pardon), as it is said: The Lord lift up His countenance unto thee (Num. 6:26). David cried out: Master of the Universe, you trust us into the keeping of an angel who cannot pardon us, but if Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who can stand? (Ps. 130:3). If You should say: Forgiveness is not available to you, For with Thee there is forgiveness that Thou mayest be feared (ibid., 4), therefore do not place over us the angel who is guardian of the Inner Sanctum, since it is said: For he will not pardon your transgressions. Why? For it is said My name is in him (Exod. 23:21) (i.e., he is only my messenger). R. Simeon the son of Lakish said: The name of the Holy One, blessed be He, is coupled with every angel, as it is said: For My name is in him.

Moses declared: I do not wish an angel to accompany us, only You. If You will not accompany us, we shall not leave this place, as it is said: For wherein now shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight, I and Thy people? Is it not in that Thou goest with us? (ibid. 33:16). The Holy One, blessed be He, replied: Be assured that even if the angel does not accompany you, I shall send a hornet ahead of you.

How do we know this? Because the Amorites perished. R. Levi said: The Holy One, blessed be He, attached two hornets to each of the angels, and they went ahead and poured poison into the eyes of an Amorite. His eye would split open, and the man would fall to the ground and die. R. Aha the son of Rab stated: Their bodies trembled, and they became weak in the presence of the Israelites, who then slew them. Our sages stated: Their faces turned black as the soot of a burning furnace, and they became weak in the presence of the Israelites, who killed them.

R. Abba the son of Kahana maintained: The Holy One, blessed be He, bound them before the Israelites, and they attacked and killed them, as it is said: So the Lord our God delivered into our hand Og (Deut. 3:3). He delivered them into their hands just as a man binds his son’s enemy and places him before his son. You should not maintain that the Amorites were small of stature. Observe what is written about them: Yet destroyed I the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit from above, and his roots from beneath (Amos 2:9). I destroyed his fruits from above refers to their guardian angel, and his roots from beneath alludes to the Amorites.

And so He would do in the future, He would punish their guardian angels and then the kings of the nations, as it is said: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord will punish the host of the high heaven on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth (Isa. 24:21). The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Israel: In this world I will send an angel to make the peoples of the world flee from you, but in the future I will lead you and I will send Elijah before you, as it is said: Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord (Mal. 3:24).

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Midrash Tanchuma, Beshalach 4Midrash Tanchuma

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.Townsend 1989 translation of Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber Recension · CC-BY

And the Lord went before them (Exod. 13:21). The Tanchuma reads this verse through a principle of exact reciprocity: just as a man treats other men, so is he treated. The measure a person extends to others is the measure that Heaven extends back to him and to his descendants. To prove it, the midrash reaches back to Abraham. Because Abraham personally escorted the three ministering angels who visited his tent, walking with them to send them on their way, as it is said, And Abraham went with them to bring them on the way (Gen. 18:16), the Holy One, blessed be He, repaid that act of escort by accompanying Abraham's children through the wilderness for forty years, going before them as a guide and guardian.

The pattern continues with hospitality. Because Abraham said to his guests, Let now a little water be fetched (Gen. 18:4), offering them water to wash and refresh themselves, as is recounted in the portion And He appeared unto him (Gen. 18:1), the Holy One, blessed be He, repaid that small kindness of water by causing the well to appear for Abraham's children in the desert, the moving well that gave them drink across their journey. The lesson is that no gesture of welcome is forgotten. The escort and the water that Abraham gave freely to strangers became, generations later, the cloud that led Israel and the well that sustained them, divine kindness measured out in the very currency the patriarch had once given.

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