“When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them…” Exodus 23.23, 24

The Angel of the Lord appears in the Law of God as a spiritual being sometimes identified with God and sometimes separate from Him. In addition to this good messenger, the Law mentions cherubim and seraphim as other spiritual beings which exist to serve the purposes of God. The people of Israel were thus to understand that the unseen realm is populated by other creatures, spiritual in nature, which exist to further the work of God in carrying out His will on earth. Subsequent revelation provides more insight into the nature and work of these spiritual beings.

The Law does no more than to suggest the existence of unseen spiritual forces of wickedness in its many mentions of the gods of the various pagan nations. There is only one God, as we have seen; how then to account for the many false deities served in so many abominable ways by the various pagan peoples? No explanation is given. It seems clear that God does not want His people to be overly curious about possible spiritual forces or powers beyond those which He reveals to them, at least, not at this stage in the Covenant.

Yet we suspect they are there, for false religion and the worship of terrible deities is ubiquitous among the pagan peoples of the day. The first and second commandments are designed, at least in part, to discourage peering into the unseen realm of wickedness on the part of God’s people. They must be aware of it, but not curious about it. And they must not indulge any of the practices of those peoples who sought contact with that aspect of the spiritual realm.

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