Numbers 22 · a question people ask
Is the LORD's angel here the LORD himself?
The chapter calls him "the LORD’s angel" ten times (22:22-35) and doesn't say more. The New Testament doesn't name the angel of Numbers 22. Readers answer in two main ways. Both agree that the angel spoke with the LORD's authority and gave Balaam the same condition God gave (22:20, 22:35).
How Christians read it
Where Christians differ, Favor sets out the main views side by side and doesn't pick one.
The LORD appearing
Some read the angel as the LORD himself appearing. He speaks as God does: "your way is perverse before me" (22:32) and "the word that I shall speak to you" (22:35), the words God used in 22:20. Elsewhere, "The LORD’s angel said to her, 'I will greatly multiply your offspring'" (Genesis 16:10), and Hagar "called the name of the LORD who spoke to her" (Genesis 16:13). At the bush "The LORD’s angel appeared to him" (Exodus 3:2), and then "God called to him out of the middle of the bush" (Exodus 3:4). Some who read it this way take the angel to be the Son before he was born, since "No one has seen God at any time. The only born Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him" (John 1:18).
Numbers 22:32 · Numbers 22:35 · Genesis 16:10 · Genesis 16:13 · Exodus 3:2-4 · John 1:18
A messenger sent by the LORD
Others read him as an angel the LORD sent, who speaks for the one who sent him. The Hebrew word is the ordinary word for a messenger, the same word as Balak's "messengers" in 22:5. Elsewhere the LORD speaks to his angel as to another: the LORD "said to the angel who destroyed the people, 'It is enough. Now withdraw your hand'" (2 Samuel 24:16), and "the LORD commanded the angel, and he put his sword back into its sheath" (1 Chronicles 21:27).
Numbers 22:5 · 2 Samuel 24:16 · 1 Chronicles 21:27
The verses
“God’s anger burned because he went; and the LORD’s angel placed himself in the way as an adversary against him. Now he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.”
“God came to Balaam at night, and said to him, “If the men have come to call you, rise up, go with them; but only the word which I speak to you, that you shall do.””
“The LORD’s angel said to Balaam, “Go with the men; but you shall only speak the word that I shall speak to you.” So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.”