What Does the Name Michael Mean Across Angel Traditions?

Why does Michael mean "Who is like God?" in Hebrew?

Michael is the English form of the Hebrew מִיכָאֵל (Mikha'el), built from three parts: mi ("who"), kha ("like") and El ("God"). Read together, the name asks "Who is like God?", and the answer it expects is that no one is.

Jewish interpreters heard two verses of scripture in those three parts. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the rabbis, in Numbers Rabbah 2:9, took the first Hebrew word of Exodus 15:11, "Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?", and joined it to the second Hebrew word of Deuteronomy 33:26, "There is none like God." The first supplies mi, the second supplies ka-El, and together they spell Mikha'el: the question of Moses' song at the sea followed by the answer of his final blessing.

Latin writers render the name word for word as Quis ut Deus? (or Quis sicut Deus?). Catholic art sometimes paints the phrase on the shield Michael carries, and the Scapular of St. Michael bears it too. The Catholic Encyclopedia goes a step further and calls the name "the war-cry of the good angels" in the battle in heaven, a devotional reading in which the question becomes a challenge thrown at the rebel angels.

The question mark changes the meaning. Popular glosses such as "one who is like God" turn the name into a claim about its bearer, when the Hebrew denies that anyone, the angel included, is like God.

Where does the name Michael appear in the Bible and the Qur'an?

Michael is named in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Qur'an, and Gabriel is named in all three as well. Gabriel appears in Daniel 8:16 and 9:21, in Luke 1:19 and 1:26, and as Jibril in Qur'an 2:97-98, the same passage that names Michael beside him.

In the Hebrew Bible the name belongs to people more often than to the angel. Sethur son of Michael represents the tribe of Asher among the twelve spies (Numbers 13:13), one of King Jehoshaphat's sons is Michael (2 Chronicles 21:2), and Zebadiah son of Michael returns from Babylon with Ezra (Ezra 8:8). The angel appears only in Daniel, as "one of the chief princes" (10:13) and as the prince who stands for Daniel's people (10:21 and 12:1).

Daniel is the only book of the Hebrew Bible that gives angels personal names. The Jewish Encyclopedia reports the teaching of Simeon ben Lakish that the names of the angels came up with the Jews from Babylon (Jerusalem Talmud, Rosh Hashanah 54d; Genesis Rabbah 48:9), and Daniel is set at the Babylonian and Persian courts.

The New Testament uses the name twice, in the Greek spelling Μιχαήλ: Jude 9 speaks of "the archangel Michael," and Revelation 12:7 has "Michael and his angels" fighting the dragon. The Qur'an names him once, at 2:98, which says that whoever is an enemy to God, his angels, his messengers, Gabriel and Michael has God as an enemy. In the Hafs reading, the word there is wa-Mīkāla, from the short form Mīkāl, while the longer Arabic form Mīkāʾīl keeps the glottal stop of the Hebrew Mikha'el.

What is Michael in other languages, from Miguel to Mihai?

Most European languages received the name through Greek and Latin church use, and nearly every form keeps the opening Mi- of the Hebrew question. The ending changes most, from Italian Michele to Romanian Mihai, which drops the -el altogether.

English is the outlier in sound. It keeps the Greek and Latin spelling but pronounces the name in two syllables, so the three Hebrew parts are no longer audible, while German Mi-cha-el and Hebrew Mi-kha-El still sound all three.

The question also sits inside a common girls' name. Michelle, the French feminine form of Michel, has been common in the English-speaking world since the middle of the 20th century.