Despite not knowing the whole truth, the Angels were nevertheless prompted to cry out: "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" God replied: "The fowl of the air and the fish of the sea, what were they created for? Of what avail a larder full of appetizing dainties, and no guest to enjoy them?" And the Angels could not but exclaim: "O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy name in all the earth! Do as is pleasing in Thy sight." For not a few of the Angels their opposition bore fatal consequences. To invalidate his protest, God cast the Angel of Truth down from Heaven to Earth, and when the others cried out against the treatment of their companion, He said, "Truth will spring back out of the earth." Before their objections, God had only told the Angels of the good there would be among Humans, but not of the evil too. The Angel of Truth and the Angel of Peace opposed his creation however, as he would be full of lies and be quarrelsome. The Angel of Love and Angel of Justice both favoured Man's creation as he would be affectionate and loving, alongside practicing Justice. The Angels were not all of one opinion however, with differing views and reasons. In the Midrash, God takes council with His Angels before he creates Adam the first Man. In Midrash Konen, it is revealed that Raphael was originally once named Libbiel ( Hebrew: לִבִּיאֵל Lībbīʾēl Meaning: "God is my heart"). Rashi writes, "Although Raphael's mission included two tasks, they were considered a single mission since they were both acts that saved people." The Life of Adam and Eve lists him with the archangels Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Joel, and the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides included his name in his Jewish angelic hierarchy. Each was commanded to carry out a specific mission, Gabriel to destroy Sodom, Michael to inform Sarah that she would give birth to Isaac, Raphael to heal Abraham from his recent circumcision and save Lot. In post-biblical Judaism edit Abraham with the Three Angels by RembrandtĪccording to the Babylonian Talmud, Raphael ( Hebrew: רְפָאֵל Rəfāʾēl, Tiberian: Răp̄āʾēl) was one of the three angels who appeared to Abraham in the oak grove of Mamre in the region of Hebron (Genesis 18 Bava Metzia 86b) Michael, as the greatest, walked in the middle, with Gabriel to his right, and Raphael to his left (Yoma 37a). In the text he acts as a physician and expels demons, using an extraordinary fish to bind the demon Asmodeus and to heal Tobit's eyes, while in 1 Enoch he is "set over all disease and every wound of the children of the people", and binds the armies of Azazel and throws them into the valley of fire. In Tobit he goes by the name Azariah ( Hebrew: עֲזַרְיָה/עֲזַרְיָהוּ ʿĂzaryāh/ʿĂzaryāhū, " Yah/Yahu has helped") while disguising himself as a human. His name derives from the Hebrew root רפא ( r-p-ʾ) meaning "to heal", and can be translated as "God has healed". ![]() In the oldest stratum of 1 Enoch (1 Enoch 9:1) he is one of the four named archangels, and in Tobit 12:11–15 he is one of seven. ![]() Raphael first appears in two works of this period, 1 Enoch, a collection of originally independent texts from the 3rd century BCE, and the Book of Tobit, from the early 2nd century BCE. At the same time the angels and archangels began to be given names, as attested in the Talmudic statement that "the names of the angels were brought by the Jews from Babylonia", attributed to Shimon ben Lakish or Rabbi Hanina respectively. The original mal'akh lacked both individuality and hierarchy, but after the Babylonian exile they were graded into a Babylonian-style hierarchy and the word archangelos, archangel, first appears in the Greek text of 1 Enoch. ![]() When used in the latter sense it is translated as " angel". ![]() In the Hebrew Bible, the word 'מַלְאָךְ' ( malʾāk̠) literally means messenger either human or supernatural in nature.
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