Angels in the Bible: the names that appear and the ones that do not

Direct answer: the Bible names two angels. Michael and Gabriel appear in the sixty-six books shared by all Christian traditions; Raphael appears in the book of Tobit, part of the Catholic and Orthodox canon but not the Protestant one. Every other angelic name in circulation — Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, Metatron and the rest — comes from books outside the biblical canon, chiefly 1 Enoch, or from later mystical and popular sources. The Bible also never says how many angels there are, never arranges them into nine ranks, and never describes a cherub as a chubby infant with small wings.

Which angels are named in the Bible?

Luke introduces Gabriel by name in a single sentence:

Now in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man whose name was Joseph, of David’s house. The virgin’s name was Mary. (Luke 1:26-27)

Michael's title comes from Jude:

But Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him an abusive condemnation, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” (Jude 9)

The word "archangel" occurs only twice in the New Testament — here and in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 — and the second instance does not name anyone.

What do angels look like in the biblical text?

Not like the paintings. The two categories the Old Testament describes at length are cherubim and seraphim, and both are alarming rather than charming.

Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. With two he flew. One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:2-3)

Cherubim first appear as guards: "he placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life" (Genesis 3:24). Ezekiel 1 and 10 describe them with multiple faces and wheels. The plump winged children of Renaissance and Baroque art are putti, a classical motif that acquired the name "cherub" in later European usage.

A related detail: in the narrative passages, angels who appear to people are usually described simply as men, and the first thing they say is often a version of "don't be afraid". Wings are attached to the cherubim and seraphim of the visionary texts, not to the messengers of the narratives.

What does the Bible say angels do?

Four functions cover most of the material.

• They deliver messages. This is what the word means: the Hebrew mal'ak and the Greek angelos both mean messenger, and both are used of human messengers too.
• They serve. Hebrews 1 asks: "Aren’t they all serving spirits, sent out to do service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?" (1:14).
• They worship. Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4 both place them around the throne.
• They act in judgment and in war. Revelation is full of this; so is 2 Kings 19.

The Bible does not present them as souls of the departed. Matthew 22:30 says the resurrected are "like God’s angels in heaven" in one respect — not marrying — rather than that they become angels.

Where do the nine choirs come from?

Not from the Bible. Various passages mention categories — cherubim, seraphim, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, authorities, archangels and angels — scattered across Isaiah, Ezekiel, Ephesians, Colossians and 1 Peter, without an ordering. The arrangement into three hierarchies of three choirs was set out by the author known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in The Celestial Hierarchy, a work of around the late fifth or early sixth century, and it entered Western theology through Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas.

It is a systematization of biblical vocabulary, and it has been enormously influential. It is not a list the Bible provides.

The extra names have a similar history. Uriel, Raguel and Sariel appear in 1 Enoch, a Jewish work outside the canon of every Christian tradition except the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which does receive it.

Does everyone have a guardian angel?

Two texts are cited. Matthew 18:10 says: "See that you don’t despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven." Acts 12:15, when Peter escapes prison and knocks at the door, records the assembled believers saying "It is his angel." — evidence that the idea was current, though the passage is narrating their mistaken assumption.

Here the traditions differ in confidence rather than in direction:

The two passages that set a limit

The New Testament twice pushes back on interest in angels that goes too far. Paul warns in Colossians 2:

Let no one rob you of your prize by self-abasement and worshiping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, (Colossians 2:18)

And John, in the closing chapter of Revelation, is corrected by the angel he is addressing:

He said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow bondservant with you and with your brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.” (Revelation 22:9)

Catholic and Orthodox theology distinguishes veneration from worship precisely here, and understands these passages as forbidding the latter. Protestant traditions read them more broadly. That difference is old and is not resolved by the verses alone.

What the Bible does not say about angels

• It gives no number. Revelation 5:11 uses a deliberately uncountable figure; no passage supplies a total.
• It gives no origin story. There is no biblical account of the creation of angels, and the popular narrative of a third of the angels falling with Lucifer is assembled from Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 and Revelation 12 — three passages whose primary subjects are, respectively, a king of Babylon, a king of Tyre and a symbolic vision.
• It attaches no promise to naming them. The Bible contains no invocation of an angel by name, and no formula for summoning one.

For the visionary chapters themselves, Isaiah 6 and Luke 1 are short and worth reading whole; on how visionary texts work as a genre, see how to start reading the Bible.

Bible text: World English Bible (public domain). This article describes what the text says and what different Christian traditions teach; it does not recommend one of them.