Genesis 3:24 · Doctrine · Featured Study
Angelology
Scripture names cherubim, seraphim, the living creatures, an archangel and the armies of angels, and it gives each class its own office.
In Genesis angels stand guard over Eden, rescue Lot from Sodom and meet Jacob on his road.
- First taught
- Genesis 3:24 “So He drove out the man and stationed…”
- Fullest statement
- Revelation 5:11 “Then I looked, and I heard the voices…”
Benozzo Gozzoli, Angels in Adoration, c. 1459. Public domain.
Summary
The heavenly beings of Scripture are created servants of God who guard, carry his word, fight and worship.
- Cherubim guard holy ground and bear the throne, and seraphim stand above the throne crying holy.
- Gabriel brings God's word to Daniel and to Mary, and Michael leads the angels in battle.
- The host is an army, and the LORD of Hosts is a title of command over it.
- The nine orders of angels and the seven archangels come from later tradition and from books outside the Hebrew canon.
From the Gate of Eden to the Throne
The cherubim at the gate of Eden are the first heavenly beings Scripture names, and John's vision near the end of the canon gathers the whole host around the throne.
So He drove out the man and stationed cherubim on the east side of the Garden of Eden, along with a whirling sword of flame to guard the way to the tree of life.Their first work is a guard set on holy ground, the work the cherubim keep again in the tabernacle and the temple.
Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels and living creatures and elders encircling the throne, and their number was myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.John hears angels, living creatures and elders together, so the classes the rest of Scripture names meet in one act of worship.
An Anatomy of the Host
Read from the throne outward, the classes run from the seraphim who stand above it to the host of angels.
A table of the five classes of the heavenly host, each with its texts, its office and its marks.
| Class | Texts | Office | Marks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seraphim (saraph, שרף, H8314) | Isaiah 6:2 to 3 | the burning ones above the throne | six wings each, and the cry holy, holy, holy |
| Cherubim (kerub, כרוב, H3742) | Ezekiel 10 | guardians and bearers of the throne | four faces; they bar Eden and overshadow the mercy seat |
| Living creatures | Revelation 4:6 to 8 | the four around the throne | covered with eyes, and never resting from worship |
| Archangel Michael | Jude 1:9; Daniel 12:1 | the great prince | one of the chief princes (Daniel 10:13), who fights the dragon (Revelation 12:7) |
| Angels and the host (tsaba, H6635) | Luke 2:13 | messengers, armies and guardians | a great multitude praising God at the birth of Jesus |
The Hebrew malʾak (H4397) and the Greek angelos (G32) both mean messenger, so the Bible's word for an angel names an office, the errand on which the being is sent.
Guido Reni, Archangel Michael Defeats Satan. Public domain by date, painted in about 1636. Wikimedia Commons, File:Guido_Reni_031.jpg.
Reni painted Michael with his sword raised over Satan, the war of Revelation 12:7 in which Michael and his angels fight the dragon.
After Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593 to 1650), Ezekiel's vision, an engraving copied from his Icones Biblicae. Public domain by date, engraved in 1670. Wikimedia Commons, File:Ezekiel's_vision.jpg.
The engraver drew the four-faced living creature and the wheels of Ezekiel 1, the beings Ezekiel 10:20 names as cherubim.
The Angels of Genesis
Three visitors come to Abraham at Mamre, two angels lead Lot out of Sodom, and the angels of God meet Jacob at Bethel and at Mahanaim.
The three visitors at Mamre1 quotation, 1 verse, 1 paragraph
Then the LORD appeared to Abraham by the Oaks of Mamre in the heat of the day, while he was sitting at the entrance of his tent. And Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he ran from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.Abraham sees three men, and the next chapter calls two of them angels when they reach Sodom (Genesis 19:1).
Hebrews 13:2 tells believers to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it.
“And this was done designedly, in order that he, receiving them as men, might give proof of his charity. For angels do not need those services of ours, which are the true evidences of charity. Moreover, hospitality holds the chief place among these services; because it is no common virtue to assist strangers, from whom there is no hope of reward.”
John Calvin · Commentaries · on Genesis 18:2Reformed
The two angels at Sodom1 verse, 2 paragraphs
At daybreak the angels hurried Lot along, saying, “Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But when Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters. And they led them safely out of the city, because of the LORD’s compassion for them.The angels sent to destroy the city (Genesis 19:13) are the same angels who lead Lot and his family out of it.
The two angels reach Sodom in the evening and strike the men at Lot's door with blindness (Genesis 19:11). The city is not destroyed until Lot reaches Zoar (Genesis 19:22).
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, reads the rescue as Lot's kindness repaid, since Lot had protected the angels and they now took care for his safety.
The ladder at Bethel1 quotation, 1 verse, 2 paragraphs
And Jacob had a dream about a ladder that rested on the earth with its top reaching up to heaven, and God’s angels were going up and down the ladder.Jacob dreams this on the road from Beersheba to Haran (Genesis 28:10), alone and in flight from his brother.
Jacob woke afraid and named the place the house of God and the gate of heaven (Genesis 28:17). Jesus takes up the dream in John 1:51, where the angels of God ascend and descend on the Son of Man.
Rashi, in his commentary on Genesis, notes that the angels go up first. He reads them as the angels who escorted Jacob in the Land going up to heaven, while those who would serve him outside it came down.
“All the intercourse between heaven and earth, since the fall, is by this ladder. Christ is the way; all God's favours come to us, and all our services go to him, by Christ. If God dwell with us, and we with him, it is by Christ.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible · on Genesis 28:12Puritan
The camp of God at Mahanaim1 verse, 2 paragraphs
Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him. When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God.” So he named that place Mahanaim.The camp of God meets Jacob before his messengers report that Esau is coming with four hundred men (Genesis 32:6).
Adam Clarke, in his Commentary on the Bible, reads the name Mahanaim as two hosts, the angels forming one and Jacob's company the other. Rashi, in the same commentary on Genesis, reads the angels as those who serve in the Land, come to escort Jacob home. Jerome, in his Hebrew Questions on Genesis, sees Jacob received by choirs of angels as he goes to meet the brother who was his enemy.
That night at Peniel Jacob wrestled with a man until daybreak (Genesis 32:24), the meeting studied on The Angel of YHWH.
Cherubim and Seraphim
Cherubim stand in the tabernacle, in the temple and in Ezekiel's vision, and seraphim stand in Isaiah's vision alone.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, in their Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871), render the guard set at Eden so that God dwelt between the cherubim at the east of the garden. A fire kept the way to the tree of life. They read the whole as the form of worship set up after the fall, to show God's anger at sin and to teach the mediation of a promised Saviour.
From Eden the cherubim pass into the sanctuary. Two gold cherubim overshadow the mercy seat, and God says he will meet Moses there and speak with him from between them (Exodus 25:20 to 22). Solomon set two cherubim of olive wood in the inner sanctuary and overlaid them with gold (1 Kings 6:23 to 28). In Ezekiel's vision the glory of the LORD leaves the threshold of the temple and stands above the cherubim, who rise with the wheels beside them (Ezekiel 10:18 to 19). Ezekiel knew them as the living creatures he had seen by the River Kebar (Ezekiel 10:20).
The root saraph means to burn. John Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765), takes the name of the seraphim from fire and burning, for their bright and pure nature or for their zeal in God's service. The same Hebrew word stands behind the venomous snakes of Numbers 21:6. One seraph flies to Isaiah with a glowing coal from the altar, touches his lips, and his sin is atoned for (Isaiah 6:6 to 7).
Above Him stood seraphim, each having six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling out to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Hosts; all the earth is full of His glory.”Their threefold cry of holy is the one the church has sung ever since.
“Cherubim and seraphim with unwearied voices praise him and say, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.’ They say it not once, lest you should believe that there is but one; not twice, lest you should exclude the Spirit; they say not holies [in the plural], lest you should imagine that there is plurality, but they repeat three times and say the same word, that even in a hymn you may understand the distinction of persons in the Trinity and the oneness of the Godhead, and while they say this they proclaim God.”
Ambrose of Milan · On the Holy Spirit 3.16.110 · on Isaiah 6:3Patristic
Scripture shows the work of both orders and does not rank one above the other.
What Scripture Counts and Leaves Unnumbered
The books of Daniel, Isaiah and Jude give the few counts Scripture makes of the angels.
A table of four counts Scripture gives of the angels, each with the text that gives it.
| Count | What is counted | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | holy angels named, Michael and Gabriel | Daniel 8:16; Daniel 10:13 |
| 1 | angel titled archangel, Michael | Jude 1:9 |
| 6 | wings on each seraph | Isaiah 6 |
| Myriads upon myriads | the host before the throne | Daniel 7:10 |
Scripture does not say in what order the angels stand, when they were made, or what form the cherubim at Eden took.
Gabriel, for all his part in the announcement at Nazareth (Luke 1:26 to 38), is never given the title archangel.
Created Servants of God
Scripture teaches that the angels are created, that they refuse worship, and that they serve the purpose of the LORD.
Psalm 148 calls all his angels and heavenly hosts to praise the LORD, for he gave the command and they were created (Psalm 148:2 and 5).
The angel of the LORD struck down the camp of the Assyrians in one night (2 Kings 19:35). On the night of his arrest Jesus said he could call on more than twelve legions of angels (Matthew 26:53), and he did not call them.
And I am John, who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had shown me these things. But he said to me, “Do not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”This refusal stands at the close of the book, and a like one at Revelation 19:10.
Where Tradition Outruns the Text
The nine orders come from Pseudo-Dionysius and Thomas Aquinas, and the seven archangels from Tobit and 1 Enoch.
The nine orders of angels2 paragraphs
Pseudo-Dionysius, in The Celestial Hierarchy, set nine orders in three hierarchies. The first holds seraphim, cherubim and thrones, the second dominions, virtues and powers, and the third principalities, archangels and angels.
Thomas Aquinas taught the scheme in the Summa Theologica, First Part, question 108, and drew its names from Isaiah 6:2, Ezekiel 1, Colossians 1:16, Ephesians 1:21 and Jude 1:9.
The ranks left unnumbered2 paragraphs
John Calvin, in the Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.14.4, sets the scheme of Pseudo-Dionysius aside, and in 1.14.8 he holds that the texts on Michael cannot settle the ranks and honours of the angels.
He warns those who dogmatize on their ranks and numbers to consider on what foundation they rest.
The seven archangels2 paragraphs
In Tobit 12:15 Raphael says his place is among the seven who stand in the presence of the Lord. 1 Enoch 20, in the translation of R. H. Charles, gives seven names: Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel and Remiel.
Both books stand outside the Hebrew canon and the New Testament and are read here as study resources, and no book of the sixty-six names Raphael or Uriel.
On the sons of God of Genesis 6, the study The Sons of God and the Nephilim reads them as angels who left their place, the oldest reading on record. Augustine reads them as the line of Seth in Book 15 of The City of God, and The Watchers and the Nephilim sets the readings side by side with their holders.
Books to Read Next
Three works on the orders of the angels, each free to read.
The Celestial Hierarchy
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite · about 500
This is the treatise the medieval church read on the ranks of the angels.
Read it free at the Christian Classics Ethereal LibrarySumma Theologica, First Part
Thomas Aquinas, tr. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province · 1920
Each article sets out the objections to its answer before Aquinas gives his own.
Read question 108 free at New AdventInstitutes of the Christian Religion
John Calvin, tr. Henry Beveridge (1845) · 1536
The same chapter also treats the devils and the creation of the world.
Read book 1, chapter 14 free at the Christian Classics Ethereal LibraryThe Angels and the Son
Hebrews 1 sets the angels beside the Son and names the work of each.
Every angel Genesis shows is a servant sent by God. Hebrews 1:6 calls all God's angels to worship the Son when God brings his firstborn into the world. The text asks the reader to give that worship to the Son. It also asks the reader to trust the God who sends his angels to serve his people on the road, as he did for Lot and for Jacob.
Are not the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?Hebrews ends its comparison of the angels and the Son by naming what the angels are and whom they serve.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Rashi on Genesis, in Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary, tr. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann (1929 to 1934)
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part, tr. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (1920)
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, tr. Henry Beveridge (1845)
- Tobit, in the Knox translation.
- Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy.
- Strong's lexicon with the STEP Bible word tags, as the site serves it.
- R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch, Project Gutenberg eBook 77935.
- The studies The Sons of God and the Nephilim and The Watchers and the Nephilim.
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