An article was published back in 2020 by Seth N. Hord, “Beings Divine or Devilish: Which is the Destroyer Riding Upon the Waters?”, Religious Educator 21, no. 3 (2020): 99-115. The author argues that the “destroyer” in D&C 61 is not the devil, but instead, an angel of God. I happen to agree with him and his interpretation provided in the article.
The
following is part of the definitions provided for “Destroyer” in Dictionary
of Deities and Demons:
DESTROYER משׁחית
I. ‘Destroyer’ is the
designation of a supernatural envoy from →God assigned the task of annihilating
large numbers of people, typically by means of a plague. The noun is a hiphil participle of the root šḥt which
is not attested in the OT in the qal.
When the root appears in the hiphil,
hophal, piel, and niphal stems,
it describes the deterioration, marring, disfiguring, damaging and destruction
of people and things, such as textiles (Jer 13:7), pots (Jer 18:4), vineyards
(Jer 12:10), trees (Deut 20:19), cities (Gen 13:10) and buildings (Lam 2:6). It
represents the kind of activity performed by plundering thieves (Jer 49:9).
Deities in other ancient Near Eastern cultures who annihilate populations are
identified by personal names that may reflect their function or devastating
character (e.g. Namtar, ‘Fate’, →Resheph, ‘Flame’, ‘lightning bolt’).
II. The Destroyer must
be distinguished from those supernatural figures who, in their capacity as
angels/messengers of death, visit all men and terminate the lives of single
individuals. In the Bible, the Destroyer does not kill all humans, nor is he
dispatched by God to kill isolated individuals. Furthermore, unlike the angels
of death who bring death of any sort (both natural and premature), the
Destroyer brings specifically a premature and agonizing death.
. . .
III. The Hebrew word mašḥît, explicitly describing a
supernatural creature commissioned by God to exterminate large groups of
people, appears in only two contexts in the Bible (Exod 12:23; 2 Sam 24:16 // 1
Chr 21:15). The activity of such a creature can be further detected in at least
four other passages, even though it is not there explicitly identified as a mašḥît (Num 17:11–15[16:46–50]; 2 Kgs
19:35 // Isa 37:36; Ezek 9; Rev 9:11).
The death of the firstborn in
Egypt, in concert with all of the other plagues, is primarily attributed to the
activity of Yahweh throughout the Bible: “I will kill (ʾānōkî hōrēg) your first-born” (Exod 4:23; cf. 11:4–5; 12:12–13,
23a, 27, 29; Ps 78:51; 105:36). Nevertheless, Yahweh’s involvement is further
qualified in one passage: “Yahweh will pass through to strike down the
Egyptians; when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts,
Yahweh will pass over the door and will not allow the destroyer (hammašḥît) to enter your houses to
strike you down” (Exod 12:23).
The relationship between Yahweh
and the Destroyer in this passage is hardly extraordinary in the context of the
ancient Near East. One is to picture Yahweh, accompanied by a retinue of
assistants, going against his enemies in judgment (Miller 1973). Both Yahweh
and his entourage can be depicted as active in the same conflict, and if Yahweh
decides to restrain his weapons, he must also give orders to desist to the
supernatural warriors that accompany him. In Exodus 12, therefore, Yahweh and at
least one supernatural assistant are responsible for the deaths of the Egyptian
first-born (cf. Ps 78:49); when Yahweh sees lamb’s blood on door-posts, not
only does he not kill, but he gives orders to the accompanying Destroyer to
exercise similar restraint (biblical and later sources affirm that a number of
plague and destroying angels do God’s work; cf. Ps 78:49; 1 Enoch 53:3; 56:1; 66:1; 1QS 4.12).
The means by which the Destroyer
slew the Egyptian first-born is not immediately obvious, although the Hebrew
term and its translation in the early versions point to a violent or painful
death (Vg percussorem; LXX ton olothreuonta; Syriac and Targums
employ the root ḥbl). This is
confirmed by the statement that the Destroyer must be restrained from
“smiting”, lingōp (Exod 12:23), a
verb whose root is identical to the root for the word ‘plague’ or ‘pestilence’
(negep Num 17:11–12[16:46–47]; Josh
22:17; maggēpâ Num
17:13–15[16:48–50]; 25:8–9, 18–19; 1 Sam 6:4; Zech 14:12, 18). The word
translated ‘plague’, negep, is used
in connection with the death of the first-born (Exod 12:13), as maggēpâ describes the other ‘plagues’
(Exod 9:14). There can be little question, therefore, that the Destroyer in
Exod 12:23 belongs to the class of plague deities broadly attested in the
ancient Near East.
The plague associations with the
Destroyer are even more pronounced in 2 Samuel 24 (paralleled in a slightly
different and more expansive version in 1 Chronicles 21) where Yahweh sends →‘Deber’
(Pestilence) at David’s request (vv 13, 15; cf. maggēpâ vv 21, 25). In contrast to Exodus 12, the Destroyer, here
called “the Destroying Angel” (lammalʾāk
hammašḥît, v 16; 1 Chr 21:15 [20 Syriac]; cf. Pal. Tgs. Exod 12:23), is depicted in considerable detail: he is of
gigantic proportions (1 Chr 21:16) and visible to humans (v 17; cf. 1 Chr
21:16, 20), with a hand (2 Sam 24:16; 1 Chr 21:15) holding a sword (1 Chr
21:16, 30; cf. “sword of Yahweh” v 12) which he replaces in its sheath when he
is done with his destructive task (1 Chr 21:27). The Destroying Angel in this
passage is also described as an →“angel of Yahweh” (2 Sam 24:16; 1 Chr 21:16,
30), the “smiting angel” (hammalʾāk
hammakkeh, 2 Sam 24:17), and a “destroying angel of Yahweh” (malʾak YHWH mašḥît; 1 Chr 21:12). As in
Exodus 12, he takes orders from Yahweh who once again bids the Destroying Angel
not to destroy all the people (1 Chr 21:15, 27). Unlike Exodus 12, Yahweh is
not described as participating in the slaughter, for he sends the Destroyer in
his place (1 Chr 21:15).
The more expansive passage in
Chronicles presents one peculiarity that is not characteristic of the Destroyer
(and indeed is not found in the parallel passage in 2 Samuel). According to 2
Sam 24:18–19, Gad received from Yahweh directions for David to obey. 1 Chr
21:18–19 specifies that it is the Destroyer, called here the “angel of Yahweh”,
who gives this information to Gad. The syntax, vocabulary, and use of indirect
discourse in the Chronicles passage point to a later formulation that could not
have been in the Samuel text in this form. The Destroyer is otherwise a
creature who specializes in mass slaughter (not verbal communication) and who
does not act independently but only at the specific command of Yahweh. The
present verse compromises both of these characteristics, and probably
represents the later breakdown of the archaic perception of the Destroyer in
the face of the developing angelology of the Second Temple period.
It has been common to seek an
origin for the Destroyer in early or pre-Israelite cult traditions, but the
association of Yahweh with plague and destruction is pervasive in the Bible,
making the theory unnecessary. The imagery of a god destroying populations with
a retinue of divine assistants (or envoys dispatched in the god’s place) is so
common in the Bible and the Near East as to moot the question of cultural or
cultic borrowing.
Although these two passages (one
of which appears in two parallel accounts) are the only places in the Bible
where the Hebrew mašḥît, “Destroyer”,
is explicitly applied to a supernatural being, there is good cause to see such
a figure at work elsewhere in the Bible. In Numbers 17 God’s wrath against the
Israelites in the wilderness once again prompts a plague (negep, Num 17:11, 12[16:46, 47]; maggēpâ, Num 17:13, 14, 15 [16:48, 49, 50]). This plague, described
as “restrained” (vv 13, 15) and as “wrath gone forth from Yahweh” (v 11), may
be a personification (cf. Tg. Ps.-J.
v 12). Like the preceding two stories (cf. also Namtar in Atr.), this destruction can be checked by a cultic act (blood on
the door-posts, building an altar, offering incense). Also like the other two
accounts, the destruction is indiscriminate in the annihilation of wicked and
upright alike unless they are somehow formally distinguished (blood on
door-posts, physical separation [Num 17:10(16:45)]).
In any case, the earliest
traditions available to us interpret the story in Numbers 17 as the work of the
Destroyer. The same term used to translate mašḥît
in the LXX of Exodus 12 and 1 Chronicles 21 resurfaces in the NT and the
Apocrypha to describe the creature who brings this plague in Numbers 17: “they
were destroyed by the Destroyer” (apōlonto
hypo tou olethreutou, 1 Cor 10:10), “the Destroyer” (ho olethreuōn, Wis 18:25). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan inserts the same
Aramaic term in Num 17:11[16:36] (“Destroyer”, mḥblʾ) that was used to translate Hebrew mašḥît elsewhere. Although different terms appear in 4 Macc 7:11,
once again a divine emissary—“the fiery angel”, ton empyristēn … aggelon—is pictured as bringing the plague in
Numbers 17.
The term “Destroyer” does not
appear in 2 Kgs 19:35 (// Isa 37:36) when the “angel of the Lord went out and
struck 185,000 in the Assyrian camp” by night. However, early interpretations
of this destruction describe it as a plague: maggēpâ in Sir 48:21(24) appears in Vg LXX as “his angel”; Josephus
sees a plague in Ant. X.21 but “an
angel of the Lord” in B.J. V.388;
Ramael is the angel who “burned their bodies within” in 2 Bar 63:6–8 (cf. Herodotus II.141). Since one of the tasks of
God’s angels in general can be destruction, one cannot be confident that the
specific angel in view here is the Destroyer, even though the early
interpretative tradition moved in that direction.
None of the angelic figures who
slaughter Jerusalemites in Ezekiel 9 are called “Destroyer”, even though the
word does appear as part of their commission (lĕmašḥît, v 6). Nevertheless, the imagery is suggestive of the
Destroyer’s activity elsewhere, for those who destroy do not act independently
but must follow God’s orders (vv 4, 11), and the destruction is indiscriminate,
arrested only if one has an external sign (“a mark on the foreheads”, v 4).
In the NT, at least two texts
reflect the influence of OT and ancient Near Eastern imagery associated with
the Destroyer. Rev 9:11 gives the name “Destroyer” (Apollyōn) to the “angel of the abyss” (→Abaddon; cf. the epithet of
→Nergal). Like the Destroyer in the OT, affliction is indiscriminate and
overtakes all who are not distinguished in some external fashion (“seal of God
on their foreheads”, Rev 9:4), and the affliction is bodily pain (Rev 9:5, 10).
It is therefore possible that the imagery of Rev 19:11–15 also reflects
features of the Destroyer. . . . (S. A. Meier, “Destroyer,” in Dictionary of
Deities and Demons in the Bible, ed. Karl van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and
Pieter W. van der Horst [Leiden: Brill, 1999], 240-43)