Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel: The Angels of the Book of Enoch
In the Hebrew Bible angels are almost never called by name. In the Book of Enoch they have names, areas of responsibility and an orderly division of labor. Who are they, and what does each one do?
In short1 Enoch names, among others, Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Raguel, Saraqael, Suriel and Phanuel. Chapter 20 lists six holy angels and their areas of responsibility, and the Greek version of the chapter adds a seventh, Remiel.
In most books of the Hebrew Bible, angels come and go without introducing themselves. An angel stays Abraham's hand, an angel wrestles with Jacob until daybreak, an angel appears to the wife of Manoah, and none of them gives his name. When Manoah dares to ask, he is told: “Why askest thou thus after my name, seeing it is secret?”
Only in the Book of Daniel, one of the latest books of the Hebrew Bible, do two angels appear by name: Gabriel and Michael. The Book of Enoch, whose oldest parts were written before Daniel took its final shape, goes much further. It has lists of angels, a division of duties, and even something that looks like a board meeting.
Four who look down
When the earth fills with the blood shed by the Nephilim, someone in heaven notices:
Then Michael, Gabriel, Suriel and Uriel looked down and saw the great amount of blood shed on the earth, and all the violence done upon it. They said to one another: The stripped earth carries the sound of their cries all the way to the gates of heaven. And now to you, holy ones of heaven, the souls of humankind make their complaint, saying: Bring our case before the Most High.
1 Enoch 9:1–3
Four angels hear the outcry and bring it before God. In the manuscripts of the book the names vary slightly from version to version; in ours they are Michael, Gabriel, Suriel and Uriel.
The answer they receive is an orderly assignment of tasks. One angel is sent to the son of Lamech, to warn him of the flood. Raphael is sent to bind Azazel and throw him into the darkness. Gabriel is sent to the giants, to make them destroy one another. Michael is sent to Semyaza and his companions, to announce their sentence. Four problems, four envoys.
Names that are sentences
All these names end in “el,” and each of them is a short sentence about God. Michael means “who is like God?” Gabriel has to do with might, Raphael with healing, and Uriel with light or fire.
Sometimes name and role fit each other exactly. Raphael, who is sent to bind Azazel, is ordered in the same breath to heal the earth that the angels have corrupted. The ancient author did not pick the names at random. For him, an angel's name is his job description.
The list of those in charge
In chapter 20 the book pauses the plot for a moment and gives a list:
These are the names of the holy angels who keep watch: Uriel, one of the holy angels, who is over thunder and trembling. Raphael, one of the holy angels, who is over the spirits of humankind. Raguel, one of the holy angels, who takes vengeance on the world and on the lights of heaven. Michael, one of the holy angels, who is set over the best of humankind and over the people. Saraqael, one of the holy angels, who is over the souls of humans led into sin by the spirits. Gabriel, one of the holy angels, who is over the serpents, the garden and the cherubim.
1 Enoch 20:1–7
The Ge'ez version has six names in the list. The Greek version of the chapter adds a seventh, Remiel, and closes the list with the number seven.
Reading the list feels like studying the chart of a large organization. Someone is in charge of thunder, someone of human spirits, someone of the lights of heaven, someone of the garden and the cherubim. Enoch's journeys in the chapters that follow are largely built on this list: wherever he arrives, one of these angels goes with him, and explains what he is seeing.
Four around the throne
In the Book of Parables, the second part of 1 Enoch, Enoch sees four figures standing on the four sides of the Lord of Spirits, and asks who they are:
He said to me: The first is the holy Michael, merciful and slow to anger. The second, who is over every disease and every wound of humankind, is Raphael. The third, who is over all the powers, is the holy Gabriel. And the fourth, who is over repentance and the hope of those who will inherit eternal life, is Phanuel.
1 Enoch 40:9
Three of the names are already familiar. The fourth, Phanuel, takes the place that other lists reserve for Uriel. The difference is instructive in itself: the book was written by several authors, over generations, and each had a slightly different list. On the principle, though, they all agreed. Four stand around the throne, each with his own field: mercy, healing, might and repentance.
Why they suddenly have names
The rabbis of the Talmud noticed the phenomenon, and had an explanation. The Jerusalem Talmud records a brief saying in the name of Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish: the names of the angels, too, came up with Israel from Babylon. The names, in other words, are a souvenir of the exile.
Many scholars accept the general direction. In the Persian period, and later in the Hellenistic period, Jews lived inside enormous empires, headed by a distant king, with ministers, officials and envoys standing between him and his subjects. It is hard not to see the resemblance between such a court and the heaven of the Book of Enoch.
We tend to think of angels as a matter of simple faith. The Book of Enoch offers a more sober picture: angels are an organizational solution. The greater and more remote God becomes, the more a mechanism is needed to mediate between him and the world. A mechanism needs office holders, and office holders need names. Every human organization that has grown beyond a few dozen members has discovered the same thing.
What became of them
The four angels did not stay inside the Book of Enoch. Raphael is the hero of the Book of Tobit, where he accompanies a young man on a journey and heals his blind father. Uriel is the angel who answers Ezra's hard questions in 4 Ezra. Michael and Gabriel entered the Bible itself, and from there the traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In the Jewish prayer book the four still appear together. The bedtime prayer says: “On my right Michael, on my left Gabriel, before me Uriel and behind me Raphael.” Four angels on four sides, exactly as in Enoch's vision. Only what stands in the middle has changed. In the Book of Enoch they surround the throne of God. In the prayer they surround a person going to sleep.
That may be the most interesting change of all. An angel without a name is a messenger: he comes, delivers his message and disappears. An angel with a name is an address, someone you can turn to. A name, after all, is the first thing we need to know about anyone we hope will watch over us.
