Exodus 23:20-26 describes God’s announcement that He is sending an angel on behalf of the children of Israel.

I am sending a “mal’akh” (angel) before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have made ready. Pay heed to him and obey him; do not defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since My name is in him. But if you obey him and do all that I say, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.

When My “mal’akh” (angel) goes before you and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I annihilate them, you shall not bow down to their gods in worship or follow their practices, but shall tear them down and smash their pillars to bits. You shall serve the L-RD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. No woman in your land shall miscarry or be barren. I will let you enjoy the full count of your days.

The fundamental question is: Which figure, celestial or not, is meant by the term “mal’akh” (angel)? Rambam’s approach is the polar opposite of that advanced by Rashi (to Exodus 32:21), who cites Metatron, R, Bahya ben Asher in the name of R. Hananel, who refers to the archangel Michael, or the Ramban, who integrates his interpretation with the narrative of the fifth chapter of the book of Joshua (the mysterious encounter of Joshua with the Captain of the Hosts of the L-RD), and at the end of his commentary to Exodus 23:20 refers to the arch angel Gabriel. (The Sefer Sha‘arei Aharon, by R. Yeshaya Aharon Roter [Benei Beraq, 1982], has a discussion of all these views.)

In the Guide of the Perplexed (2:34; Pines ed., p. 366), Rambam writes that the meaning of these verse in Exodus is elucidated by the verses in Deuteronomy, where God is recorded as having said to Moses at Mount Sinai as follows:

The L-RD your God will raise up for you a prophet from among your own people, like myself; him you shall you heed (Deut. 18:15). Thus, the “angel” refers to a prophet.

In general, Rambam understands that at various junctures, the term mal’akh (angel) in the Torah refers to a prophet. The angel denotes a human being (a morally and intellectually exalted one, to be sure). Moreover, Rambam writes that from Exodus 23:21, one deduces that the verse can’t be discussing an angel. For that verse states: Pay heed to him and obey him; do not defy him, for he will not pardon your offenses, since My name is in him. As Rambam notes, an angel, however, does not manifest himself to the multitude and does not give them orders and prohibitions’ consequently, they [that is, the children of Israel] could not be ordered not to disobey him (Guide, ad loc.). Ralbag (Rabbi Levi ben Gershom [1288-1344], known as Gersonides), in his Commentary on the Torah, follows this path in his interpretation of these verses in Parashat Mishpatim, and R. Menachem Mendel Kasher, in his magisterial Torah Shelemah, Parashat Mishpatim (new York, 1960), Vol. 19, #299 (pp. 229-30), quotes numerous sources that follow this view, such R. Asher (the Rosh) in the name of R. Don Ashkenazi, R. Josef Bechor Shor, and the Hizkuni.

Numbers 20:16 states: We cried to the L-RD and he heard our plea, and He sent a messenger who freed us from Egypt. In this case, the JPS translation of mal’akh as messenger reflects the Rambam’s view, for the Hebrew is mal’akh, which is often in that translation rendered as angel (e.g., Genesis 19:1), is translated here as messenger. The messenger, of course, is none other than Moshe Rabbenu, the messenger of God. Sometimes (and this case seems to be one of them!), a rigorously philosophic interpretation coincides with a thoroughgoing peshuto shel miqra approach!