This Is What The Bible Says Angels Really Looked Like

If you've ever been told "You look like an angel!", you probably took that as a compliment. But a closer look at the Bible reveals that maybe you should have felt insulted.

Today, there's a stereotypical look that most angels have when shown in works of art or popular culture. Generally, angels are depicted as beautiful, pale-skinned humans with wings, wearing white robes, carrying a harp, and sporting a halo.

But this look is far from the actual version of angels described in the Bible. Biblical angels were generally strange, frightening creatures, ranging from human-lion-ox-eagle hybrids to floating wheels with eyes. Biblical angels struck fear into the hearts of anyone who witnessed them.

One of the most vivid descriptions of angels in the Bible comes from the prophet Ezekiel's inaugural vision. Ezekiel, of course, is probably best known in pop culture for this:

"and you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee!"

Quentin Tarantino slightly altered the original text, but you get the idea, Besides that famous line, Ezekiel also wrote extensively about angels. He describes two main types of angels. The first are the cherubim (which is plural; the singular is cherub).

Today, cherubs are typically depicted as chubby little babies. But the Bible disagrees. According to Ezekiel's vision, every cherub

"[...] had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle."

If the combined faces of four different species aren't frightening enough, cherubs also have two sets of wings; one for flight, and the other to conceal their bodies. Additionally, per Medium, cherubs have straight legs and shiny bull hooves.

Weird, right? But the second type of angel described in Ezekiel 1 is even more bizarre. Meet the ophanim.

According to Medium, ophanim comes from the Hebrew word for "wheels." It's a fitting name, because Ezekiel's vision suggests that some of God's angels are actually floating, eye-covered wheels that sparkle like jewels.

"Each appeared to be made like a wheel intersecting a wheel... Their rims were high and awesome, and all four rims were full of eyes all around."

Then there are the seraphim, which are described in the Book of Isaiah as floating around God's throne singing his praises.

"I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne [...] Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying."

If you're keeping count, that means that the seraphim have one more set of wings than the cherubim, but lack the extra faces.

There is one other type of angels that's more human looking, though, which are God's messenger angels. Per Blue Letter Bible, the angels that God chose to deliver his messages could take a variety of corporeal forms. Most commonly, they would appear nearly identical to a human male. This is true for the warrior archangel Michael, who first appears in the Book of Daniel. It likewise applies to the archangel Gabriel, who informed Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. In fact, most of the angels referenced in the New Testament appear to be more humanlike and tame than their frightening Old Testament counterparts. For example, Luke describes the angels at Jesus' tomb as, quote, "two men in shining garments."

This might give you the impression that the angels you see in popular culture are accurate depictions of angels as they're described in the New Testament. But not so fast. In the Bible,
cherubim and seraphim are the only types of angels described as having wings; messenger angels like Gabriel have none.

Similarly, the classic depiction of cherubim as flying babies was adopted from an ancient Italian art of carving winged babies into child sarcophagi. More modern still is the idea of angels playing the harp, which was popularized by John Milton in his 1667 epic Paradise Lost.

And they said you couldn't reinvent the wheel!

#Bible #Angel #Religion

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