I thought your statement was very informative and somewhat accurate. But my sensibilities also lie with
@IndigoChild5559 and her beliefs too. Exodus 23:20 lends itself to the idea of a
demon-god gallivanting throughout the pages of the Tanakh; a god who's sometimes written about, and sometimes even worshiped, as though he were the God of Moses and Jesus:
The words אין זולתך [there is no other than you], refer to powers, deities, already in existence to whom G'd has assigned various domains within which they appear to reign supreme . . . [but] their rule is not independent of You, i.e., אין זולתך. When it is your will, these powers exercise dominion; when it is Your will, You take this power away from them.
Shney Luchot Habrit, vol. 2, p. 415.
What Rabbi Horowitz says above relates to Exodus 23:20:
Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for Hashem is in him.
Exodus 23:20–21.
A lot could be said about the phrase, "my name is in him." The very next verse says:
But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
The true Jew is to "obey" the voice of the angel, but "in him," that is, in the voice of the angel, they're to hear what Hashem would have them do. Obey the angel, but do what I say. Don't provoke the angel, for he's the lawgiver and the angel of death. Obey him knowing I don't let him know what my right hand is doing to procure your salvation: I tell you things I don't reveal to him. ----This hearkens back to earlier in the story when Moses hears the voice of the angel in the burning bush. Hashem is "in him" --- in the burning bush (in the midst of the fiery seraph --Exodus 23:20).
After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord's voice: I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Acts 7:30-32.
Here, an angel appears to Moses (by means of the flames of a burning seraph or bush). When Moses gets closer, he hears not the angel, but the Lord.
The angel of the Lord went up from Gilgal to Bokim and said, "I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your forefathers."
Judges 2:1.
In Exodus 23:20-21, God tells Moses he's sending and angel to guard Israel and bring them to the land. Judges 2:1 has this angel telling Israel he brought them up out of Egypt just as the Lord told Moses would be the case. And true to what the Lord told Moses about this angel, he goes on (the angel does), in Judges chapter 2, to curse Israel for alleged disobedience. The narratives are all pretty clear that Moses knows the difference between this angel versus the Lord while Israel in general generally do not.
"People from many nations will pass by this city and will ask one another, `Why has the Lord done such a thing to this great city?' And the answer will be: `Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and have worshiped and served other gods.'"
Jeremiah 22:8-9.
This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us: To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust him from them, and in their hearts turned back again into Egypt, Saying unto Aaron, Make us gods to go before us: for as for this Moses, which brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is become of him. And they made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven.
Acts 7:37–42.
John