We may have heard of certain popular angels in sermons or our Bible readings. Names such as Michael and Gabriel come to mind. However, as our Protestant Bibles don’t share the names of any other angels, we have to wonder if other angels exist. And if so, can we trust the extra-biblical texts that name them? For instance, an angel named Phanuel. Is there an angel named Phanuel in the Bible?
And if he isn’t named in the Bible, is he named elsewhere? And can we trust that source who talks about him?
We will discuss all these questions and more in this article.
First, we have to answer our initial question.
If we’re talking about the Bible translations used by most Protestant churches, then no, we don’t find him anywhere. Nor do we find any of the other names he goes by—such as Uriel or Sariel. Sometimes, he goes by the name Ariel.
No matter what name Phanuel seems to go by, we don’t see him in any of the 66 books of the Bible. So besides Gabriel and Michael, do we have any other named angels in the Protestant Bible?
It appears not. We do have the Angel of Death, mentioned in place of the Egyptian plagues (although some argue that this is the Angel of the Lord, which is a name for God).
We see the four living creatures who give God glory in several prophetic books of the Bible, but these angels go without names.
We see the ophanim, too: angels in the shape of wheels, who also go unnamed.
So, is it possible for an angel named Phanuel to exist? Certainly. After all, two angels (remember, Gabriel and Michael) are mentioned in the Bible with names.
Angels only appear to be given names when they serve as messengers in the Bible or seem to be of particular importance.
So, is there an angel named Phanuel in the Bible? Even though we don’t see him in our Protestant Bibles, he does show up in the Catholic and Orthodox ones. He also appears in the Book of Enoch, which is accepted in a few minor church traditions but is not included in mainstream Bible translations.
As always, we must take any extra-biblical text with a grain of salt, even though we can see the importance of the Apocrypha. So, with that in mind, let’s dive in.
Phanuel appears in the Book of Enoch with a grouping of four angels.
The four angels are Michael, Gabriel, an angel named Raphael, and Phanuel.
These four angels stand before the throne of God, and it’s reasonable to assume they’re high-ranking angels, most likely archangels.
Each of these angels has a different role.
Although we could touch on the roles that the Book of Enoch delegates to each of them, let’s focus on Phanuel. He does several things.
First, he kicks out the angels in heaven who go astray. We know that the Bible mentions that Satan managed to turn one-third of the angels in heaven against God. We can imagine some angel had the task of escorting them out, so if we believe what the Book of Enoch says, we know that he helped to take care of this.
He frequently serves as an angel of judgment, presiding over the repentance of people and the wicked actions of certain angels.
Secondly, he seems to be in charge of the ophanim.
We mentioned the ophanim earlier. They function as wheels for a chariot, the very same one that takes up the prophet Elijah into heaven.
The Book of Enoch leaves us with fewer details than this. In summary, Phanuel seems to take charge of the repentance of humans, the expelling of wicked angels and takes charge of the ophanim.
As the Bible doesn’t elaborate much on the individual roles of angels, we can only speculate about the tasks delegated to each.
Phanuel, if he exists, would be an archangel. This begs the question of whether angels have ranks or not.
The Bible appears to believe so. Michael, for instance, goes by the name “Prince” and seems to have a far more elevated role than certain angels.
In the same way, when Jesus walked the earth, he had several followers, but he also chose 12 to be his apostles. And he chose three of those 12 to be his inner circle.
Hierarchies are not inherently evil. After all, without rulers, chaos would erupt. It makes sense that heaven would have orders and management systems.
In the same way, Satan copies God’s plan. The Bible seems to indicate that demons follow a hierarchy as well.
Certain entities wield more power than others. Some get placed over nations, and others will torment one person.
Task delegation isn’t a foreign concept in Scripture. We see Moses’ followers encouraging him to offload some of his work onto others. In the Book of Acts, we see the early church fathers giving ministry tasks to newer followers so they don’t get overloaded.
Although God is all-powerful, it is nice to see that he employs the use of creatures he has created to further his plan. In the same way, God gives us duties. Although we may see certain Christians as “higher” in the hierarchy than us—we all have an equal task of spreading the Gospel to the nations.
So whether Phanuel exists or not, we can imagine God has given certain tasks to certain angels to help steer people closer to him and to help expel evil from this world and from heaven.
Although we cannot definitively say whether Phanuel exists or not, we can still learn a lot from this angel we meet in the Book of Enoch. Let’s uncover three takeaways we can glean from this archangel.
First, hierarchies are not inherently sinful.
Because we live in a fallen world, we've often seen those in positions of power abuse the power and make those under them miserable.
It’s natural for us to cringe when we hear the word hierarchy. However, when placed under God’s power, management systems can prove beneficial. God appears to rank angels, but that doesn’t make any angel less important than others. It just follows the logic that those who have much given to them have much expected out of them.
Michael has more responsibilities than angels underneath him, and we can imagine he takes those responsibilities seriously.
Second, even the angels went bad.
One-third of the angels got consumed by pride and followed Satan out of heaven’s gates. If Phanuel exists, he helped to usher them out of the glory of God’s kingdom.
If humans believe they can resist the power of temptation on their own, they ought to look to the biblical narrative. Without the power of Christ in a person, even an angel can walk away from the most perfect place in the universe.
Finally, angels value repentance.
We know that the angels rejoice when a sinner comes to repentance. If Phanuel is responsible for helping humans seek repentance, we can imagine how much he celebrates when someone truly does yield their life to Christ.
How much encouragement can we have when we know that God has employed the might of his heavenly armies to fight for us during times of great spiritual darkness and warfare?
And if Phanuel does exist, we can only imagine how much work he has done to make sure more people get to experience Christ.
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Hope Bolinger is an acquisitions editor at End Game Press, book editor for hire, and the author of almost 30 books. More than 1500 of her works have been featured in various publications. Check out her books at hopebolinger.com for clean books in most genres, great for adults and kids. Check out her editing profile at Reedsy.com to find out about hiring her for your next book project.
This article is part of our People of Christianity catalog that features the stories, meaning, and significance of well-known people from the Bible and history. Here are some of the most popular articles for knowing important figures in Christianity:
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