Who Is Archangel Uriel, the Angel of Light and Warning?

Why Isn't Uriel in the Catholic or Protestant Bible?

Uriel is not named as an angel in the Hebrew Bible, the Catholic Old Testament, or the Protestant Bible. The Hebrew Bible uses the name Uriel only for men: a Levite of the Kohath clan in 1 Chronicles 6:24 and 15:5, and the father of King Abijah's mother in 2 Chronicles 13:2.

The angel appears in two books that most Bibles leave out. 1 Enoch, a collection written between about the third and first centuries BCE, is part of the Old Testament of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and of no other church's Bible. 2 Esdras, also called 4 Ezra, is a Jewish apocalypse whose central chapters (3 to 14) are usually dated near 97 CE; editions of the Latin Vulgate print it in an appendix, and English Bibles with an Apocrypha section, such as the NRSV Updated Edition, include it there.

The Qur'an names Gabriel and Michael but no angel called Uriel. So when a source calls Uriel a biblical archangel, it is counting 1 Enoch, 2 Esdras, or a later church tradition, and the answer to whether he is in the Bible depends on which Bible the reader holds.

How Does Uriel Answer Ezra in 2 Esdras?

2 Esdras opens with Ezra in Babylon, thirty years after Jerusalem's destruction, asking God why Babylon prospers while Zion lies in ruins (3:1-4, 3:28-31). The reply comes from "the angel that had been sent to me, whose name was Uriel" (4:1), and it starts with a test: weigh the weight of fire, measure a blast of wind, or call back a day that is past (4:5). When Ezra says no one could do that, Uriel draws the lesson.

The dialogue continues past that refusal. Across three conversations Uriel tells Ezra that "the age is hurrying swiftly to its end" (4:26), lists the signs that will come before it, and tells him to fast before each new session; Ezra reports fasting seven days "as the angel Uriel had commanded me" (5:20). When the question turns to how long the righteous dead must wait, Uriel repeats an answer given to their souls by the archangel Jeremiel (4:35-36).

By the fourth vision Ezra has stopped arguing and is comforting a grieving mother, who turns into a city before his eyes. Frightened, he cries, "Where is the angel Uriel, who came to me at first? For it was he who brought me into this overpowering bewilderment" (10:28). Uriel returns, raises him, and explains that the woman is Zion (10:29-44). Ezra blames Uriel for his confusion and then depends on him to read the vision, and that double role runs through the whole book.

Where Does Uriel Appear in Later Jewish Tradition?

Rabbinic writing keeps Uriel as one of four angels around God's throne. Numbers Rabbah 2:10 matches them to the four camps of Israel in the wilderness: Michael at God's right, Gabriel in front, Raphael behind, and Uriel at the left, on the north side with the tribe of Dan. The midrash explains his name through Isaiah 60:1, "Arise, shine, for your light has come," and says that through him God gives light to Israel by the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings.

The bedtime Shema in many Jewish prayer books uses the same four names with one change of place: "at my right Michael, at my left Gabriel, before me Uriel, behind me Raphael, and above my head, the Presence of Almighty." The prayer is addressed to God, and the angels mark the four sides of the person going to sleep.

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Torah, adds Uriel to the burial of Moses in Deuteronomy 34:6: Michael and Gabriel spread a golden bed, and "Metatron, Jophiel, and Uriel, and Jephephya, the wise sages" lay Moses on it. In all three texts Uriel is one member of a group, with none of the long speeches he has in 1 Enoch and 2 Esdras.

Medieval Jewish sources, as summarized in the Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), make Uriel the prince of Sunday and the source of daytime warmth in winter, and Sefer Raziel has his name written on amulets meant to "illumine" the soul for sacred study.

How Do Orthodox and Ethiopian Churches Honor Uriel?

Eastern Orthodox churches name Uriel at the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and the Other Bodiless Powers on November 8. The Orthodox Church in America's account lists him with Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Selaphiel, Jehudiel, Barachiel, and Jeremiel, calls him "the fire or light of God, enlightener," and cites 2 Esdras 5:20. Its description of his icon gives him "a naked sword" raised in his right hand at chest level and "a fiery flame" in his lowered left hand.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, whose Bible includes 1 Enoch, keeps an annual feast of Uriel on Tir 22 in its calendar (January 30 in most years) and remembers him on the 22nd of every month. Its Sunday School Department teaches that Uriel gives the cup of life and wisdom, that he gave Ezra water to drink, and that he guided Mary and the child Jesus when they traveled to Ethiopia.

The cup has a textual anchor. In 2 Esdras 14:38-41 a voice tells Ezra to drink, and he is handed a cup "full of something like water, but its color was like fire"; after drinking it he dictates for forty days. The passage does not name who holds the cup, and Ethiopian teaching gives that part to Uriel.

Why Is Uriel Linked With the Sun, Fire, and Gold?

The sun link has the longest trail. 1 Enoch sets Uriel over the luminaries, the Ethiopian Church glosses his name as "the Light of the Sun," and John Milton made him "regent of the sun" in Paradise Lost (1667).

In Milton's Book 3, Satan disguises himself as a young cherub and asks Uriel the way to Earth. Milton calls Uriel "one of the seven / Who in God's presence, nearest to his throne, / Stand ready at command" and "the sharpest-sighted Spirit of all in Heaven," and has him fooled anyway, because hypocrisy is "the only evil that walks / Invisible, except to God alone" (3.648-691). In Book 4 Uriel sees the stranger's face darken with passion, glides down "on a sun-beam," and warns Gabriel at the gate of Eden (4.555-575).

Fire comes from the name and the texts together. The Jewish Encyclopedia reads the name as "the fire of God" and ties it to Uriel's first riddle for Ezra, to weigh the weight of fire; Uriel also shows Enoch a chasm of fire in 1 Enoch 21, and the Orthodox icon puts a flame in his hand. Modern angel writing adds a book or scroll for wisdom and an open hand holding a flame or the sun, both listed in Whitney Hopler's Learn Religions profile.

No ancient text gives Uriel a color, so modern colors differ by teacher. The Summit Lighthouse, a twentieth-century American movement, places Uriel and Aurora on its sixth ray "of ministration and service," which it describes in purple and gold. British angel writer Diana Cooper prays to Uriel's "gold and ruby light," and Hopler's profile gives him red. The gold light often tied to Uriel online comes from these teachers, not from Enoch or Esdras.

Which Archangel Is Most Like Uriel, and Where Do They Differ?

The closest match is Gabriel, since both explain visions: Gabriel interprets Daniel's ram and goat (Daniel 8:16), and Uriel interprets Ezra's grieving woman (2 Esdras 10). The difference is length. Gabriel's visits are short and end in a message, while Uriel's run across whole chapters of argument, astronomy, and signs of the end.

The Catholic Church accepts the books that name Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, while Uriel and Raguel are named only in 1 Enoch and, for Uriel, 2 Esdras. Each angel's first text also gives him a different job.

In Tobit, Raphael is the opposite case: he travels with Tobias under the human name Azariah, and his teaching is practical, such as which parts of a fish to keep for healing (Tobit 5:12, 6:4-9).