Angels in the Bible

Here is poet and painter William Blake’s “Angel of the Revelation”, illustrated between 1803-1805, and you might notice the giant, mostly naked (it was the Victoriano age) figure does not have wings. And this is because Biblical angels didn’t. (In the Abrahamic tradition, the winged Seraphim and Cherubim eventually were considered angels, but in the OG texts they weren’t.) The angels’ appearance in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament differs — sometimes they look like people (Middle-Eastern heritage assumed), other times like giants. Frequently they carry swords. Often they are invisible. They also take form as fiery columns or pillars of fog. In effect, as Biblical scholar Esther Hamori puts it, angels are shapeshifters.

Across their appearance in the Bible, angels are terrifying, making human observers run and hide (Daniel 10:5-8) or faint from fear (Matthew 28:2-4). They have a couple of consistent attributes — they easily cross dimensions from the mortal to divine plains, and they are divine servants. The Biblical Hebrew word for angel is “mal’ākh,” which means messenger, one of the Biblical angels’ major tasks.

While God’s angels often help humans in the Bible — leading the Israelites through the desert (Exodus 14: 19-20) or announcing to the virgin Mary that she will bear Jesus (Luke 1: 26-38), they also commit really violent acts. In Psalms 78:49, God sends a “company of destroying angels” to kill every first-born son in Egypt as part of the ten plagues that precede Moses and the Jewish people’s escape. There are many other examples of angels who follow divine orders by causing pain and suffering, but the most terrifying angels appear in the Book of Revelation, written in the late first century CE by John of Patmos. In books eight and nine, seven angels blow seven horns, ushering in the apocalypse with hail and blood raining on Earth, seas turning to blood, fresh water becoming poisonous, and crazy iron locust monsters coming out of the ground and eating everything. There’s more horror that follows, but you get the general idea.