Are there other named angels in Scripture?

Question 8013.

Named angels are far rarer in Scripture than most Christians assume. Ask around a congregation and you will hear Raphael, Uriel, sometimes Raguel or Sariel, and a general impression that the Bible contains a substantial roll of angelic names. It does not. There are two.

Michael and Gabriel. That is the complete list in the sixty six books of the Protestant canon. Everything else comes from somewhere other than Scripture, and knowing where it comes from is worth an article of its own.

The two named angels we do have

Michael appears in Daniel 10 and 12, in Jude 9, and in Revelation 12. He is called one of the chief princes, the great prince who has charge of Daniel’s people, and the archangel. His work is consistently protective and combative, and it is consistently tied to Israel.

Gabriel appears in Daniel 8 and 9 and in Luke 1 twice. His work is consistently explanatory and announcing. He interprets visions and delivers the news of two births that changed everything.

Between them these two named angels cover the two things heaven most often needs done among people: protecting and telling. See who is Michael the archangel and who is Gabriel.

Where Raphael comes from

Raphael is the most familiar of the additional names, and he comes from the book of Tobit, which is part of the Apocrypha. In that story he travels with Tobias in disguise, drives away a demon, and eventually reveals himself as one of the seven who stand before the glory of the Lord.

Tobit is an interesting piece of ancient Jewish literature and it tells us a good deal about how Jews of the intertestamental period thought. What it is not is Scripture. It was never part of the Hebrew canon received by Jesus and the apostles, and it is never quoted as authoritative in the New Testament.

So Raphael is not one of the named angels of the Bible. He is a character in a book that sits outside the canon, and treating him otherwise blurs a line that ought to stay clear.

Uriel and the rest

Uriel comes mainly from 2 Esdras and from the various books attributed to Enoch, where he appears alongside a whole company of named angels with assigned duties. The Enoch literature is expansive on this subject, listing watchers, naming their leaders, and describing their offences in considerable detail.

Jude 14 does quote a prophecy attributed to Enoch, which occasionally gets used to argue for the wider authority of that literature. It does not follow. Paul quotes pagan poets in Acts 17 and Titus 1 without conferring canonical status on them. Citing a true statement from a source is not endorsing the source.

Beyond Uriel the lists proliferate. Different traditions produce different sets of seven, and the names vary. That variability is itself instructive. Genuine revelation does not drift; speculation does. On the wider question see how many angels are there.

Why so few named angels?

Given how many angels there are, the scarcity of names is striking. Revelation 5:11 describes myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, and Scripture gives us two names out of that number.

I think the restraint is deliberate, and it fits a pattern. Angels in the Bible consistently deflect attention. They refuse worship, they point to God, and several times when asked their name they decline to give it. The figure who wrestles Jacob will not answer the question. The angel who comes to Manoah asks why he would ask, since the name is wonderful.

Named angels are rare because angelic anonymity serves the message. A messenger who becomes a personality starts to compete with the one who sent him, and heaven appears to guard against exactly that.

What happens when the names multiply

History shows what follows when this restraint is abandoned. Elaborate angelic hierarchies developed in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, complete with names, ranks, and spheres of influence. Alongside them grew practices of invocation, in which particular angels were addressed for particular needs.

Paul saw the beginnings of it and named it as a problem. In Colossians 2:18 he warns against anyone insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions and puffed up without reason. The Greek there for worship, threskeia, describes religious observance and ceremony directed at these beings.

This is why the question of named angels is not trivia. Every additional name is a potential address, and every address is a potential rival to prayer. Restricting ourselves to what Scripture names is a protection rather than a limitation.

What about Lucifer?

Someone always raises this, so let me deal with it. Lucifer is not a name in the Hebrew text. Isaiah 14:12 uses helel ben shachar, shining one, son of the dawn, addressed to the king of Babylon. Lucifer is simply the Latin translation of the shining one, carried into English through the King James Version.

So Lucifer does not belong on a list of named angels any more than Raphael does. Satan is a title meaning adversary, and devil translates a word meaning slanderer. Scripture describes the enemy by what he does rather than by a personal name.

That is worth knowing when the subject comes up in conversation, and it is another example of tradition supplying what the text withholds. See what does Lucifer mean.

The angels who refuse to give a name

Two passages deserve particular attention when we think about named angels, because in both a name is requested and withheld. In Genesis 32 Jacob wrestles until daybreak and then asks his opponent, Please tell me your name. The answer is a question in return: Why is it that you ask my name?

In Judges 13 Manoah asks the same thing, wanting to honour the messenger when the promise comes true. The reply is, Why do you ask my name, seeing it is wonderful? The Hebrew word there, pili, means incomprehensible or beyond understanding.

Both of these are almost certainly appearances of the Angel of the LORD rather than of created messengers, but the principle carries. Names are withheld in Scripture far more often than they are given, and the withholding is purposeful.

Named angels and modern claims

This is not an antiquarian question. A steady stream of contemporary books and ministries introduce named angels, sometimes claiming personal acquaintance with them, sometimes teaching techniques for summoning particular ones for particular purposes.

I would treat the whole category with great caution, and for a straightforward reason. Scripture gives two names in sixty six books, and it repeatedly shows angels deflecting attention from themselves. A ministry built on angelic names is moving in precisely the opposite direction from everything the Bible models.

Add the warning of 2 Corinthians 11:14 about the enemy disguising himself as an angel of light, and the risk is obvious. A being who wants your attention has every reason to offer you a name. See how to respond to claims of angelic visitations.

A canon that says less on purpose

Step back and notice how much the Bible declines to tell us. Two named angels, no organisational chart, no census, no description of the fall as a narrative, no explanation of how spirit beings assume bodies.

I have come to see that reticence as a kindness. Curiosity about the unseen world is not wrong in itself, but it has an appetite that revelation deliberately does not feed. Every generation that has tried to fill the gaps has ended up with a religion increasingly about angels and decreasingly about God.

So the short list of named angels is not a defect in Scripture. It is a boundary marker, and boundaries in the Bible are usually there because something on the other side does us harm. Read Colossians 2 and see how firmly Paul draws it.

What to say when it comes up

If someone asks you about Raphael or Uriel, there is no need for a debate. Two named angels appear in Scripture, Michael and Gabriel. The others come from books outside the canon, and knowing that is enough. Most people are simply surprised, and the surprise is a good place to start a better conversation.

And if the conversation goes further, the more useful question is not which additional names might be genuine but why heaven has been so sparing with them in the first place. That question leads somewhere worth going.

So, now what?

Be precise when the question arises. Two named angels in Scripture, Michael and Gabriel, and everything else belongs to tradition or to books outside the canon. You can say that kindly, but say it clearly.

And then let the silence teach you something. Heaven is crowded with servants who will never be named to us, doing work we will never see, and none of them appear to mind in the slightest. That is a model of ministry worth thinking about. Whose applause were you working for?

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.

Revelation 5:11 (ESV)