01_AzuelosVoltaggio_161_178_copia_161_178 10/07/15 11:33 Pagina 170 170 YAACOV AZUELOS – FRANCESCO GIOSUÈ VOLTAGGIO 170 given as Michael, comes down with a drawn sword in his hand in order to warn Laban. The association between the appearance of the angel of the Lord and the motif of the “drawn sword” is not made explicit in the He- brew text of Gen 31,24, but it is unequivocal in the story of Balaam: “The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand” (Num 22,23.31), and in the story of David: “David looked up and saw the angel of the Lord standing between earth and heaven, and in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem” (1 Chr 21,16a). In Josh 5,13 we find: “He looked up and saw a man standing before him with a drawn sword in his hand”. The “angel of the Lord” who appears in the stories of Balaam and of David with his sword drawn 28, then, parallels the “man” who appears before Joshua and, therefore, Targum Jonathan could accordingly translate “commander of the army of the Lord” as “angel of the Lord”, as is also the case in the targumic tosaftot. We have here, then, a double gezerah shawah which supports our conclusion that the angel ap- pearing before Joshua is in fact Michael 29. The tradition of the Angel Michael as Israel’s angelic champion was well established in the apocalypses of the Second Temple pe- riod 30: he became the principal Angel in many circles in the first century CE 31. The representation of Michael as the prince of the heavenly armies was common in the early Christian tradition. The term avrca,ggeloj appears twice in the NT: in Jude 9 and in 1Thess 4,16. In the first text, Michael is the “Archangel” (o` avrca,ggeloj), 28 KASHER, Targumic Toseftot, 123, reports a targumic tosefta to 1 Kgs 1,1 (ms. Salamanca 1), which describes in detail the Angel of Death who appears before David with a drawn sword in his hand. 29 In the Christian iconographic tradition, the Archangel Michael is rep- resented with a drawn sword, slaying a serpent. This representation owes its popularity to the victory of Constantine over Licinius (represented as “the serpent” in some coins) at the battle of Adrianople (4th cent.). The battle took place not far from the Michaelion, a sanctuary north of Constantinople, where an image of Michael slaying a serpent was painted. Our research, however, indicates that, above all, the iconography of Michael with a drawn sword in his hand traces back to the literary texts mentioned in this article. 30 Cf. D.D. HANNAH, Michael and Christ. Michael Traditions and Angel Christology in Early Christianity (WUNT 2.109; Tübingen 1999) 38. 31 Cf. HANNAH, Michael and Christ, 48.