Who Is Archangel Jophiel in Traditions of Beauty, Wisdom, and Light?

Which old texts name Jophiel, and what do they say?

The earliest text that names Jophiel is Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah that expands many verses with stories. Deuteronomy 34:6 says only that God buried Moses in a valley in Moab. The Targum adds a burial scene: Michael and Gabriel spread a golden bed, and "Metatron, Jophiel, and Uriel, and Jephephya, the wise sages, laid him upon it" (J. W. Etheridge's translation).

In that scene Jophiel shares one task and one title with Metatron, Uriel, and Jephephya: they lay Moses down, and the text calls all four "the wise sages." Nothing in the passage mentions beauty, art, or light, so the oldest evidence ties Jophiel to Torah and wisdom.

The Zohar, the thirteenth-century classic of Jewish mysticism, gives the name a larger office. In its description of the heavenly palaces in the Torah portion Pekudei, Yofiel is a "living creature" who "is familiar with all the mysteries of Wisdom, and has all the keys of Wisdom," and who rules four further living creatures, each with four wheels.

Renaissance and modern writers then moved Jophiel into new roles, and the sources disagree about what the angel does.

Read down the table and the role changes with every source: a bearer at Moses' burial, a keeper of wisdom's keys, three different seats in Agrippa, a guard at Eden, and a teacher on a yellow ray. None of these texts puts Jophiel in charge of art or physical beauty. That modern role is read from the name.

Is Jophiel in the Bible or the Book of Enoch?

No. The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament name only two angels, Michael and Gabriel, and the Book of Tobit, which Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include, adds Raphael.

The verse most often attached to Jophiel is Genesis 3:24. After the expulsion, God stations cherubim and a flaming, turning sword east of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life, and the verse gives none of them a name.

The identification comes from later lore. Robert Means Lawrence's 1898 folklore study The Magic of the Horse-Shoe lists "Jophiel, who expelled Adam and Eve from Eden, and who was the guardian of the 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil.'" Lawrence even places the guard at the wrong tree, since Genesis 3:24 sets the cherubim before the tree of life.

The Book of Enoch does not include Jophiel either. Its list of seven holy angels in chapter 20 names Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqael, Gabriel, and Remiel. The Celestial Hierarchy of Pseudo-Dionysius, written around 500 and often cited in modern lists as a source for Jophiel, names only Michael and Gabriel.

A claim that Jophiel is biblical therefore rests on Genesis 3:24 read through nineteenth-century lore. A claim that Jophiel is ancient rests on the Targum, which is Jewish commentary on scripture rather than scripture itself.

How did Jophiel become one of the seven archangels?

The seven-archangel list that includes Jophiel is already in print in Lawrence's 1898 book: Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Chamuel, Jophiel, and Zadkiel. Lawrence gives each one a job from legend. In his list Chamuel is the angel who wrestled with Jacob. The same list makes Zadkiel the angel who stayed Abraham's hand before he could sacrifice Isaac.

The same seven names return in the Summit Lighthouse, an American Ascended Master movement founded by Mark L. Prophet in 1958, which assigns one archangel to each of seven rays and gives Jophiel the second ray, of wisdom and illumination. When a modern prayer card lists Jophiel among seven archangels, it follows this nineteenth- and twentieth-century list rather than 1 Enoch 20 or a church calendar.

Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533) had already given Jophiel several seats, and they do not agree with each other. His scale of the number ten puts Jophiel at Chokmah, wisdom, with the order of Cherubim. His Book III seats "another intelligence named Iophiel the ruler of Sem" at Binah, understanding, and the sphere of Saturn, beside Zaphchiel, "the ruler of Noah." His planetary tables make Johphiel the intelligence of Jupiter.

The "ruler of Sem" line belongs to a pattern in that chapter, where angels act as teachers of the patriarchs: Raziel of Adam, Zaphchiel of Noah, and Iophiel of Shem, Noah's son. Readers who find Jophiel at different points on different Kabbalistic charts are seeing Agrippa's own inconsistency carried forward.

How is Jophiel different from Uriel, Tzaphkiel, and Yefefiah?

Three names sit close to Jophiel in the sources, and each is often merged with it. Uriel stands beside Jophiel in the Targum's burial scene, but Uriel also has texts of his own: in 1 Enoch 72 he shows Enoch the laws of the sun, moon, and stars, and in 2 Esdras 4 he answers Ezra's questions about God's judgments. Jophiel's wisdom rests on a title in a single line, while Uriel's rests on long teaching scenes.

Agrippa's Book III seats Tzaphkiel, his Zaphchiel, at Binah beside Iophiel, and some lists treat the two as one angel. They are different Hebrew names, and Agrippa himself gives them different pupils: Noah for Zaphchiel and Shem for Iophiel.

Yefefiah is the fourth angel in the same Targum sentence, spelled Jephephya in Etheridge's translation. Some modern lists merge Yefefiah and Jophiel because both names are tied to Moses and Torah learning and sound alike, yet the Targum itself counts them as two angels.

The contrast with Gabriel is sharper. Gabriel is named in Daniel 8:16 and 9:21, where he explains Daniel's visions, and in Luke 1:19 and 1:26, where he announces the births of John and Jesus. None of Jophiel's sources gives the angel a message to carry.

Can you ask Jophiel for wisdom in study?

Whether a prayer to Jophiel fits depends on the tradition, and only one of the sources above invites it directly. The Summit Lighthouse encourages calls to Jophiel and Christine for illumination, and its page on the pair quotes Christine: "Call to me to intercede before the Cosmic Christ in your behalf to release advanced teaching methods."

Jewish and Christian authorities are more cautious. The Catholic Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy (2001) says that "the practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture." The Jerusalem Talmud (Berakhot 9:1) has God say that a person in trouble should cry neither to Michael nor to Gabriel but to God, and Colossians 2:18 warns Christians against the "worship of angels."

For a reader who follows that guidance, the older sources still point to a prayer that fits it: a request to God for wisdom in study and judgment, which is also the request James 1:5 tells Christians to make ("If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God"). Jophiel is then remembered as the angel the Targum placed at Moses' burial rather than addressed by name.

Readers who pray in the Ascended Master or New Age style usually ask Jophiel for clear thinking, help with study, or a fresh eye for the beauty around them. Three limits follow from the sources themselves.

• No sign reading. None of the sources above describes Jophiel sending signs, so no text connects a gold light, a beautiful view, or a coincidence with Jophiel.
• No ranking by looks. The name praises God's beauty, so it gives no ground for judging people, bodies, or homes by appearance.
• No promised insight. The Targum and the Zohar tie Jophiel's wisdom to Torah learning, and a prayer for clarity does not replace the reading or advice a real decision needs.