Angels in Scripture

John R. Gilhooly

John R. Gilhooly is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Theology and Director of

the Honors Program at Cedarville University, Cedarville, Ohio. He earned his PhD
from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas. He is the author
of several books, including 40 Questions About Angels, Demons, and Spiritual War-
fare (Kregel, 2018). Gilhooly has written articles in Journal for Septuagint and Cognate
Studies and Philosophia Christi, as well as translations of medieval texts. He is married
to Ginger and they have three children. 

The angels are minor characters in the story of Scripture. Even so, they fre-
quently adorn the narratives and the relative paucity of information about
them in Scripture has sometimes led to excesses in popular theology and
culture. Fewer places in Christian theology seem more apt for superstition
than angelology and demonology. A remedy for much of this speculation is a
firmer grasp on what the Scripture does (and does not) say about the angels.
Of course, the place to start is with the word “angel,” which—at the risk of
sounding unbelievable—is not itself a word in the biblical languages. Angel
is a theological word: indeed, a Christian one—it arises through the process
of translation. This fact gives us no reason to be suspicious of it. Hebrew,
Aramaic, and Greek simply do not have a specific term for angel—that is,
for a purely spiritual rational creature, as English does. Each of the biblical
languages uses other words that also have other meanings to refer to the
creatures that we call angels. The most common term that is translated “angel”
in English is the word for “messenger” in each of those languages (Heb/
Ara. mal’akh; Gk. angelos). Angel enters the English translations by way of
Latin, which has distinct words for messenger (nuntius) and the creature
called angel (angelus).1 So, in the biblical texts, we see frequent reference to
a kind of messenger or messengers who are not human and yet are like us
in many ways—they are moral, rational beings.2

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The history of the angelic beings is not as complete in the record of Scrip-
ture as people have sometimes wished or claimed. For example, there is no
narrative in Scripture about the creation of the angels nor about the event
that precipitated the moral fall of the demons, demon being the word in
Christian theology that is used to refer to angels whose moral character has
been corrupted by sin. That the angels are created by God is clear (e.g., Ps
128), but the event of their creation is not something that Moses included
in his account in Genesis. That some number of them departed the ranks of
the holy angels (the demons) through their own fault is likewise clear ( John
8:44; Jude 6), and that their punishment is certain is clear (2 Pet 2:4; Matt
25:41).3 But, when or how the demons turned from God is an implicit story
in Scripture that never rises to the level of the plot.4 There have been a variety
of suggestions for the nature of the sin of the angels in Christian history with
envy and pride being the standard options (1 Tim 3:6). We know that the
angels were created, that some number of them fell through their own fault
prior to the fall of man, and that the holy angels serve God while those fallen
ones resist his plans. That sketch is the story of their “history.”
Early biblical commentators saw the need to address questions about
the creation of angels in Genesis as well as the fall of the demons, precisely
because the creation of all things is described in the first chapter of the book.
Why, then, doesn’t Moses say anything of the creation and subsequent fall of
the angels? I think Alcuin gives the most satisfying answer to this question,
when he says, “because he has not predestined to cure the angel’s wounds.”5
The point Alcuin is making is that the Bible is not about angels. It is about
God and his plan of salvation for his people. Although the Scripture men-
tions the angels, it does not discuss them. Further, this lacuna is because the
biblical authors did not intend to discuss them as they were led by the Holy
Spirit. Incidentally, these facts constitute the major problem with books that
attempt to make the activity of the angels and demons central to the descrip-
tion of the Christian religion. The text of Scripture simply does not afford
angels or demons that kind of centrality.6 There are less than 300 mentions
of angels in Scripture, many of which are oblique, and some books do not
mention them at all. We must be content with what the Lord has seen fit to
reveal through his Word.7
One technique for discovering the role of angels in Scripture is to see
the manner and frequency of their appearance in the biblical storyline. The

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upshot of such a survey is the recognition that the angels are infrequent
and minor players. To do this, one must note instances of angelic activity
within the several groupings of texts that comprise the shape of the biblical
canon. Collations of texts that mention angels appear in virtually every
book in English on the angels as well as in basic bible doctrine theology
texts. I will not rehearse such work here.8 Instead, I will focus on a handful
of representative examples in the Pentateuch and refer to repeated motifs
in the Prophets and NT. To that task, we can turn our attention, after which
I will have something to say about the role of angels in Christian theology.

Angels in the Pentateuch, Prophets, and the NT

In the Book of Moses, angels appear at certain key moments to deliver a
message to a significant figure. That last phrase is crucial: the angel is bringing
a message to a figure that is significant. The angel is, by contrast, marginal.
Even in instances where angels are a major figure in the pericope, nearly all
the appearances of the word “angel” in the text are oblique. In other words,
nothing specific is said about the angel. Rather, he appears as a background
figure or he is referred to indirectly. For example, Abraham says to his ser-
vant that God will send an angel before him as he seeks a wife for his son:
“The LORD, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and
from the land of my kindred, and who spoke to me and swore to me, ‘To
your offspring I will give this land,’ he will send his angel before you and
you shall take a wife for my son from there” (Gen 24:7). Later, the servant
seems confident that God did send the angel (Gen 24:40).
But there is no depiction of this figure, nor does an angel figure promi-
nently in the remaining section of the narrative. We do not know in what
manner he goes “before” the servant. The angel does not appear at all. We
know even less about this angel than we do about the servant of no name.
The angel is referred to but is not a character of the scene.
Most of the appearances of the angels in Scripture are similar. Notice the
challenge this raises for angelology. Total mentions of the word mal’akh are
limited to a few cases—around 200 or so. More than half the time the word
mal’akh appears, it refers unambiguously to human messengers (e.g., 1 Kgs
19:2, “So Jezebel sent a messenger (mal’akh) to Elijah). About forty percent
of the time the word appears in an oblique manner, as in Genesis 24 above.
In only about two percent of cases does the word avoid entanglements with

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other exegetical issues sufficiently that the text in question could serve as
the basis for metaphysical inference, i.e., a constructive angelology. The
usage is clear: the angels are background figures. Perhaps, this is because
messengers are less important than their message. Certainly, our angelology
should reflect the biblical data—it should be circumspect, proportioned to
the amount of material the biblical authors saw fit to give us as they were
guided by the Spirit of God.
Some commentators have recognized the ambiguity of the word mal’akh
and consequently overreacted to this ambiguity by concluding that “angel”
is invariably a specious rendering of the Hebrew term. Dorothy Irvin says
that the Hebrew term:

is the word used from those who carry a message from one person to another.
Kings in particular used them in the Old Testament. The same word is used for
the being who carries a message from God to man. The Hebrew text gives no
indication that these two types of messengers differ, and neither does the Sep-
tuagint. Only with the Vulgate does a special word for ‘angel,’ as distinguished
from other messengers, appear, angelus. Therefore, to translate one occurrence
of mal’akh by “messenger” and another by “angel” is certainly to read later theo-
logical ideas into the text. The distinction is quite arbitrary and finds no support
in the original text.9

Irvin goes too far here. After all, traditional readings of the text do provide a
rationale for recognizing the presence of non-human messengers without the
imposition of “later theological ideas.” As an example, take the appearance
of the angels in Genesis 19. The traditional Christian reading is that the two
“angels” are celestial messengers sent by God to warn Lot about the fate of
Sodom and Gomorrah, to search out the city’s wickedness. This reading is
correct. To Irvin’s point about the word mal’akh in general, however, it is true
that the figures of the passage are variously referred to as men and angels. In
Genesis 19:10, 12, and 16, the angels are called men (anishim). The same word
introduces the figures in Genesis 18. We need some clue, then, from the text
to indicate that these messengers are something other than the men that they
appear to the characters to be. Part of what helps us to recognize the ambiguity
of the terms and how they function is seeing the text from the perspective of
the characters of the narrative as well as from the perspective of the narrator.

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In fact, the ambiguity in accounts containing angels is often an inten-

tional compositional choice by the inspired author. Regarding this text
for example, Bruce Waltke notes that “the narrator blanks the correspon-
dence between the ‘two men’ of the previous scene (18:2,16,22) and
the two angels … He obviously intends the audience to make the con-
nection between the phenomenological and the theological.”10 In other
words, Moses is aware that Abraham’s primary interlocutor in Genesis 18
is God—who sent the angels to meet with him—and he makes this clear
in the introduction to the literary scene (Gen 18:1). Call this awareness—
which the reader and writer share—the theological outlook. In contrast,
Abraham is presented as unaware of the celestial nature of his visitors.
He is entertaining angels unaware, as his relative will in the next chapter
(Heb 13:2). Call this perspective the phenomenological outlook. The dis-
tinction between these two viewpoints contributes to the dramatic irony
of the story. Rather than being unreflective, the shifting between these
viewpoints is further evidence that this story like the whole Scripture is a
highly wrought literary artifact.11
Nor is this distinction an ad hoc attempt to justify the traditional reading.
Abraham’s sighting of the visitors is highlighted by hineh (behold! or look!),
which unites the reader’s perspective with that of a character. Furthermore,
Abraham’s address to the visitors is ambiguous in the consonantal text.12
Although Abraham understands that there is more than meets the eye by the
end of his section, Moses reestablishes the theological outlook in Genesis 19:1
by introducing two mala’khim as they head to Sodom, presumably the third
heads to Gomorrah. But, as noted, elsewhere in the chapter these angels/
messengers are referred to as men. This represents the phenomenological
outlook. Again, textual clues drive this inference: it is not merely ad hoc. For
example, the two “men” are able to pull Lot from the hands of “the men of
the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last
man” and shut the door against them.13 Furthermore, the “men” strike the
crowd with blindness, a word elsewhere only in 2 Kings. In that text (6:18),
Elisha prays to the LORD and asks him to strike the Syrians with blindness.
A celestial judgment falls on the Syrians after prophetic intercession. How-
ever, the “men” of Genesis 19 are able to strike the crowd with blindness
without reference to intercession. Of course, this detail is not conclusive,
but it is suggestive. The cumulative effect of these suggestions is powerful.

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After all, it is after their striking the crowd with blindness that they deliver a
message of impending divine judgment, at which point Moses again refers
to them not as men but as angels. Hence, although textual details are not
as metaphysically robust as interpreters have sometimes suggested, there
is sufficient grist for the mill to recognize the celestial origin of these key
figures. Irvin is too hesitant here and ignores these sorts of details.
It is right, however, to notice that references to angels are circumscribed
tightly and are generally oblique. When an angel does appear as a figure in
the text, he is usually delivering a message, though in some cases an angelic
figure is instead described as acting on God’s behalf.
For example, in Genesis 16, an angel instructs Hagar to return to Sarah, and
he makes the pronouncement about Ishmael. In Genesis 19, angels rescue
Lot from Sodom and Gomorrah. An angel calls to Abraham to forestall his
sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22. An angel wrestles with Jacob in Genesis 32
and names him (Hos 12:4). But, even in these instances, the angel simply
appears and speaks to the main character of the narrative. He is not described
in any detail, which is in keeping with biblical style.14 In each case, however,
the angel delivers a significant message that impacts the unfolding of God’s
plans for his people. As seen above, Genesis 18-19 offers an interesting
example of the angels’ tendency to fade into the background.
In Exodus, the most significant angelic appearance is in the burning bush
(Exod 3:2; Acts 7:30). Again, the angel serves as a legate for God. An angel
is also active in the destruction of the first-born in Egypt—although Moses
does not say “angel” here but rather “the destroyer” (for the connection to
angels, see Ps 78, Heb 11:28, cf. 2 Sam 24:16). Perhaps the reason is because
that angel does not deliver a message—he does deliver a very clear sign. The
rest of the major appearances involve the language from Abraham: an angel
that goes before the people (cf. Exod 14:19-20). In this case, he will drive
the people from the land ahead of them. Notice again that these instances
are references to an angel but that the angel remains off-screen, so to speak.
In Leviticus, the angels make no obvious appearance at all.
This notion that angels are behind the scenes is pervasive. In Numbers,
a donkey sees an angel before her master does, Balaam (Num 22:23), the
angel having been sent as an adversary (a “satan”) against Balaam (Num
22:22). However, the prophet receives from the angel instructions about what
he should prophesy (Num 22:35). The (human) messenger is receiving a

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message from a (celestial) messenger in this case. In fact, this is what Balaam
tells Balak (Num 24:12)—having received words from God, Balaam must
say them. Again, the angel is not described in any detail. He simply delivers
a message as God’s messenger.
In Deuteronomy, angels are again mentioned elliptically. For example, in
Deuteronomy 33, they are depicted in association with Mt. Sinai upon which
Moses received the law from God.15 But, otherwise, they play no significant
role in the book. These patterns continue throughout the rest of the OT.
So, setting aside those actions that should be expected from any rational
creature (e.g., worship of God), we can collate the types of angelic activity
from the book of Moses: (1) protection/rescue of a key figure, (2) execution
of divine judgment, (3) announcement of a significant birth, (4) delivery/
interpretation of a key message to a prophet. These four activities are the
motifs that recur throughout the Scripture. Specific types of angelic beings
are typically limited to a handful of texts, and these would enlarge the list.
Seraphim, for example, (Isa 6) worship God around his throne specifi-
cally—but clearly, they are involved in (2) and (4) with Isaiah. Cherubim,
likewise, are involved in (2) in their protection of the Garden (Gen 3:24)
as well as (4) in their association with the nearness of God’s presence and
message (Ezek 1:5-11).
In the prophets, likewise, we see angels announcing a significant birth (e.g.,
Judg 13:3), rescuing a key figure (e.g., 2 Kgs 6:17), interpreting messages
(e.g., Zech 1:9; Dan 7-8), and executing divine judgement (e.g., 2 Sam 24).
All these instances are examples of the basic pattern of motifs found in the
book of Moses.
The NT appearances of the angels similarly fall into these patterns. For
example, in the Gospel accounts, we have announcement of a birth (Matt
1:20-21; Luke 1:26-28), protection/rescue (Acts 12:7), the promised exe-
cution of judgment (Matt 16:27). (4) is limited primarily to the book of
Revelation in which John can report what he has seen in similar ways to the
apocalyptic texts in Zechariah and Daniel. But the same general pattern
continues, although angelic appearances are limited to narrative contexts
and the epistolary corpus features them less frequently as a result. As the
angels are not doctrinally or practically central to Christian life, it stands to
reason that they do not receive a place of prominence in the NT. In fact, other
than the Gospel accounts and Acts in which the angels make some minor

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appearances, the NT does not make much of the angels although they are
mentioned occasionally. This recognition is crucial for a healthy angelology.
Matthew is representative of some of the features of angelic appearance in
the NT, especially because dreams or visions make up a substantial part of
the angelic appearances in the NT. When an angel appears to Joseph to tell
him to take Mary as his wife, this happens in a dream, a dream constituting
the most significant announcement of a birth in the Bible. In Matthew 1:20,
we read, “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph,
son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has
been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.’ ” The announcement of the birth
of the Christ is mirrored by the angelic announcement of his resurrection in
Matthew 28:5-6, “Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus
who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said.”16 Elsewhere
in the Gospels, we continue to see figures described with reference to light
(Matt 28:3, cf. Dan 10:16) and the appearance of men (Mark 16:5: neaniskos;
Luke 24:4: andres; John 20:12: angelos). This ambiguity of the word choice
used to refer to the figures reinforces the ambiguity of their appearances
as first attested by Moses. But their spiritual nature is attested regularly as
well (Acts 23:8-9), particularly in Hebrews, a case to which we will return.
As in the Gospel accounts, in Acts, Luke describes a handful of angelic
encounters with key persons in the narrative. These incidents are conspicuous
because they are rare and receive essentially no mention in the NT letters.
Hence, they are not central to the apostolic church’s conception of itself or its
practices. Like elsewhere in Scripture, the angels appear to deliver messages,
typically to one of the apostles (Acts 1:10; 5:19; 8:26; 12:7–9). Consistent
with other appearances of the angels in Scripture, these appearances are not
always understood clearly at first. For example, Peter does not know that
the angel who frees him from prison is real because he thinks he is seeing a
vision or dream (12:7–9). In one significant instance, an angel appears in a
vision to someone who is not an apostle, the centurion Cornelius (10:3).
This is an important moment in the book and in history because it inaugu-
rates the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles and shows that the gospel
is for all peoples, as Peter explains (10:35; 11:15). This becomes central to
Paul’s mission in the second half of the book.17 So, the angels continue to
exfoliate key moments of the narratives in a certain respect. Their appearance
highlights the significance of the time and messages they deliver.

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The Role of Angels in Theology

To this point, we have focused largely on what angels do—that is, on their
external acts or the patterns of their activity that emerge in the Bible. But
another important aspect of angelology involves the structural role that the
angels play in a Christian theology, whether creation, anthropology, Christol-
ogy, etc. For some elements of that aspect, we can turn out attention to the
book of Hebrews. Of course, Hebrews is not about angels, but they play an
important structural role in the argument of the book, particularly in chapter
1-2. However, this role highlights a use of angels in theology—which is a
contrastive or foil usage. It is by contrast to them that an author can more
clearly illustrate what he wants to say about his topic. In fact, the clarity of
these contrasts might be impeded if the doctrine on the angels were more
expansive than it is.
Christian theology turns on a basic distinction between the Creator and
the creation. Indeed, this distinction is the fundamental one of the Christian
worldview. But within the category of creation, theologians have generally
distinguished between the different kinds of creatures according to a pattern
called the hierarchy of being—a taxonomy that is cashed out in critically
assimilated terms from Platonic cosmology. The division of nature is centered
on the line between creatures that are spiritual and ones that are physical.
Men straddle that line, while angels stand above it.18 Things like squirrels,
rutabagas, and rocks fill out the lower portion of the division. Early Christian
commentators saw evidence that this basic taxonomy of the created order
was affirmed by the contours of Scripture. For our purposes, the argument
of Hebrews 1 suggested the ontological distinction between men and angels
that served to establish the role of angels in later Christian theology.19 There
are some interesting exegetical issues here, but the controlling idea is that the
distinction between men and angels is crucial for the nature of the argument
that the author wishes to make about men and Christ. That men and angels
are distinct types in the hierarchy of being is sine qua non for the argument
the author wants to make.
The key was seeing that angels were spirits and not “from the dust” as
men are (Gen 2:7). Psalm 104:4 filled this purpose.20 However, scholars
typically find that the psalm referred to the Lord’s sovereign control over
nature and not to the ontological status of angelic beings, given the nature of
the immediate literary context. An abstruse claim about separated substances

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is not in keeping with a psalm of God’s creative authority. In fact, many

English translations of the psalm take the double accusative of verse four
as “he makes the winds his messengers,” which eclipses any notion that the
angels are being discussed from most English readers.21 The grammar of
the Hebrew does not require this translation, but the surrounding interests
of the psalm control the decision from many translators. Nevertheless,
the canonical context should lead translators a different way. After all, the
NT use of the Psalm differs from this common translation of the Psalm.
Hebrews 1:7 reads, “he makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming
fire.” Not only does this reverse the standard word order in translations of
the Hebrew, but it also introduces the explicit reference to angelic beings.
In fact, the word order (angels, then spirits) is required by the grammar of
the reference.22 Hebrew does not share this grammatical requirement, but
neither do grammatical considerations preclude translating or understanding
the Psalm as the author of Hebrews does. The differences between MT, LXX,
and NT notwithstanding,23 the important phrase for angelology is the same
in LXX and NT. Since the inspired author uses a LXX text here, we should
follow his reasoning even in the Hebrew original. His translation guides
our understanding of the Hebrew passages also by deciding the potential
ambiguity that is present in them. The Hebrews rendering of the text is
sufficient to infer the spiritual nature of angels from Psalm 104:4, though it
is true that theologians were guided in their reasoning by the insight of the
author of Hebrews.24
This insight was further developed by the concluding idea in chapter 1,
which is the rhetorical question, “Are they not all ministering spirits sent
out to serve those who are going to inherit salvation?” (Heb 1:14). Not
only does this question establish a clear divide between angels and men,
but it also refers to them as spirits. Of course, some modern scholars have
thought that “spirits” here would really be better translated as winds. The
rationale being that “winds” would capture a parallelism between “ministers”
and “flaming fire” in Hebrews 1:7 as well as in the cited text in Psalm 104.25
However, both texts Hebrews 1:7 and 1:14 use the same word pneumata to
refer to the angels. The literary context of Hebrews 1 (not Ps 104, which may
be ambiguous taken on its own) seems to plainly mean spirits, not winds
(cf. Zech 6:5). I think it asks too much of a non-technical word, pneumata,
to make it serve for fine-grained distinctions, but in any case, a pure spirit

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would be more like a wind or a fire than anything else we know. Certainly,
even those who argue for “winds” believe that this communicates something
about the ethereal nature of the angels.
In the succeeding chapter of Hebrews, the reference to Psalm 8 seems to
affirm the traditional translation (spirits as opposed to winds). The author
of Hebrews takes Psalm 8 christologically in his offering of the extended
reference to Psalm 8:4-6. In the context of the Psalm, we see that God’s glory
is above the heavens, including his angels (Heb. elohim, the standard gloss for
which is gods),26 and that man is below them. Some scholars, wrongly in my
view, think that elohim here should be understood as “gods,” but both LXX and
Targum Jonathan have angels (angelos/mal’akh). The resemblance to the tiers
of being are seen clearly in this text: God, angels, and then man (leaving aside
cattle and creeping things). Especially because of the Christological focus
of the passage regarding the humanity of the Son, it is reasonable to infer an
ontological difference between the angels and humans.27 Christ descended
below the angels “for a little while,” but was raised again to dominion with
all things beneath his feet. Hebrews, then, shows the function of angels in
Christian theology clearly. They are typically invoked in foil contexts, that
is, they bring the salient features of some other topic into relief by contrast.
In the way that they are less significant than the message that they deliver in
narrative passages, so in didactic passages their nature is used to highlight
something else, whether that be the contours of anthropology, Christology,
or creation. Hence, the controlling insights about the angels’ nature is that
they are celestial and spiritual by nature (in that way, like God: John 4:24)
but they can appear to men to be indistinguishable from men (Heb 13:2).
Yet, they are not men but spirits (Heb 1:14) who differ from men not only
ontologically but also soteriologically (Heb 2:16). The Scripture informs
us about the angels’ role in nature sufficiently well so that we can see their
illustrative function in the theology of the biblical authors.

1. Some LXX texts arguably make a distinction between angelos for angel and presbus for human messenger.
But, of course, this is not a universal pattern.
2. Of course, there are other terms that are used by the biblical authors to refer to angels and demons besides
‘messenger,’ but mal’akh/angelos is the most common term.
3. For further discussion on demons, see the sections on demonology and the devil in John R. Gilhooly, 40
Questions about Angels, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2019). For a

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different approach, see Lewis Sperry Chafer, Satan (2nd ed; Chicago: Moody Press, 1919).
4. See chapter one of John R. Gilhooly, The Devil’s Own Luck: Lucifer, Luck, and Moral Responsibility (Landham,
MD: Lexington, 2021), forthcoming. For the distinction between story and plot, see Gerard Gennette,
Narrative Discourse (trans. Jane E. Lewin; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980).
5. Alcuin, Quaestiones in Genesim, III.1
6. Notice the relative paucity of mentions of “angels” in large contemporary biblical-theological writings. For
example, Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom Through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding
of the Covenants (2nd ed.; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018) contains only a handful of references to angels
in the index, many of which crop up in the context of discussing polemical portrayals of divine council
imagery. This is not a mistake. The angels simply are not major players in the storyline.
7. John Calvin, institutio christiane religionis 1:14
8. For example, see John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, eds., Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of
Biblical Truth (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017), 666-669. Note the irony in the pagination.
9. Dorothy Irvin, Mytharion: The Comparison of Tales from the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East (Alter
Orient Und Altes Testament, vol. 32; Kevelar: Butzon und Bercker, 1978), 90.
10. Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001).
11. Consider the contrasts of Gen 18 with Gen 19, for example, which have nothing special to do with angels.
12. It is interesting to note that the Masoretes vocalize Abraham’s word to the visitors using a unique form that
is reserved for address to God, whereas they do not do the same for Lot. This pointing is merely suggestive.
13. Gen 19:4, 10. Emphasis mine.
14. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: Dargestellte Wirklichkeit in der abendländischen Literatur (Bern: A. Francke Verlag,
1946).
15. See John R. Gilhooly, “Angels: Reconsidering the Septuagint Reading of Deuteronomy 33:2) Journal of
Septuagint and Cognate Studies 50 (2017): 155-159.
16. In both case, text refers to the angel as “angelos kuriou,” a Septuagintism reflecting the Hebrew mal’akh Yahweh.
This fact should help further bury the notion that the angel of the Lord is Jesus, or worse a “pre-incarnate
Christ.” Not only is the Hebrew phrase not monadic, but NT authors can use a Septuagintal rendering of
the phrase to refer to figures that are obvious not the Son of God. And, of course, sometimes the Hebrew
phrase does not refer to an angel at all (Hag. 1:13).
17. Gilhooly, 40 Questions, 124.
18. See Balas, David. Metousia Theou: Man’s Participation in God’s Perfections According to Saint Gregory of Nyssa
(Roma: Pontificium Institutum S. Anselmi, 1966).
19. Perhaps refer here to the other articles in the issue.
20. Psalm 103 in LXX.
21. Some modern English Bibles harmonize this text with that of Hebrews 1:7.
22. The demonstrative pronoun in the verse requires that “angels” be taken as the direct object.
23. Differences in any case which do not clearly affect meaning and can perhaps be explained prosodically. See
L. Timothy Swinson, “‘Wind’ and ‘Fire’ in Hebrews 1:7: A Reflection Upon the Use of Psalm 104(103),”
Trinity Journal 28.2 (2007): 219, and Simon Kistemaker, The Psalm Citations in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984), 23.
24. John F. Brug holds the LXX is preferable to most modern English translations apart from any NT consid-
erations. “Psalm 104:4 – Winds or Angels?,” Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary 97.3 (2000): 209-10. One should
also consider the take of the author of Jubilees 2:2. It isn’t merely mischief on the LXX’s part that suggests
the presence of angels in the Psalm to early commentators and translators.
25. So, Craig R. Koester, Hebrews: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (The Anchor Bible,
vol. 36; New York: Doubleday, 2001), 193-194, Albert Vanhoye, Situation Du Christ, Hebreux 1-2 (Parts:
Editions du Cerf, 1969), 170-175, and Gareth Lee Cockerill, The Epistles to Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2012), 108-9.
26. With a singular verb, it is God as in Genesis 1.
27. Also notice the distinction in rule between angels and men in Heb 2:5: again, the angels serving a con-
trastive function.

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