Which archangel leads the Thrones?

Scripture and the church fathers name no leader for the thrones. The pairing with Tzaphkiel, also spelled Zaphkiel, comes from Renaissance Christian Kabbalah, as in Agrippa's 1533 table, and modern angel books repeat it.

Are the Thrones the same as the throne of God?

No. The throne of God in Ezekiel 1:26 and Revelation 4 is God's own seat, while the thrones choir is a rank of created angels that Pseudo-Dionysius described as bearing God.

How many Thrones angels are there?

No source gives a number. Daniel 7:10 speaks of "a thousand thousands" serving God, but that line describes the heavenly court as a whole, not a rank called thrones.

Where do Thrones rank in the angelic hierarchy?

Third from the top, after seraphim and cherubim, in both Pseudo-Dionysius and Gregory the Great. Aquinas calls them the lowest order of the first hierarchy, the one that passes light on to the dominions.

What Are the Thrones Angels, and Are They Ezekiel's Wheels?

Thrones are the third of the nine angelic choirs in Christian tradition, ranked just below the seraphim and cherubim. The name comes from one Greek word, thronoi, in Colossians 1:16, where Paul lists "thrones or dominions or rulers or powers" among the things created through Christ.

Paul says nothing else about them. Their rank comes from Pseudo-Dionysius around 500 CE, their link with judgment from Gregory the Great, and the popular image of wheels covered in eyes from Ezekiel's ophanim, which no ancient text calls thrones.

Quick Facts

Only biblical use as a class: Colossians 1:16, Greek thronoi
Rank: Third of nine, lowest order of the first sphere (Celestial Hierarchy 6-7)
Name explained: A seat that is raised, steady, and carries God to lower creatures (Aquinas, Summa I q.108 a.5)
Gregory's reading: The order through which God carries out his judgments (Homily 34 on the Gospels)
Ophanim: Ezekiel's wheels; second of ten ranks in Maimonides, never called thrones in scripture
Eyes and wheels: Given to Ezekiel's wheels and cherubim, not to any text about thrones

Where does the Bible mention thrones as heavenly beings?

Colossians 1:16 is the only verse in the Bible that uses thrones as the name of a heavenly group. The NRSVUE lists "things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers," and then adds that "all things have been created through him and for him."

The Greek word is thronoi, the plural of thronos, a seat of rule. Ephesians 1:21 gives a close parallel, "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion," but leaves thrones out, so the whole later choir rests on this one occurrence in Colossians.

Every other plural "thrones" in scripture means seats that someone sits on. The difference matters because readers often gather these verses as if they described one group of angels.

What "thrones" means in each passage
Passage	What the thrones are	Who sits on them
Daniel 7:9	Seats set in place for a heavenly court	The Ancient One takes one; the others are not named
Matthew 19:28	Twelve thrones at the renewal of all things	The disciples, judging the twelve tribes of Israel
Revelation 4:4	Twenty-four thrones around God's throne	Twenty-four elders in white robes with golden crowns
Revelation 20:4	Thrones given to those who judge	People "given authority to judge"
Colossians 1:16	A kind of created thing, visible or invisible	No one; here the thrones are the beings named

Only the last row names beings rather than furniture. Anyone who says the Bible describes the thrones choir is really drawing on Colossians alone, and Colossians gives a name without a description.

Did Paul mean angels when he wrote thrones?

Probably spiritual powers of some kind, but Paul never says which, and commentators on the Greek text have read the word in two ways since at least the nineteenth century.

One reading takes thronoi as angels of the throne, beings who carry God's seat as the cherubim do. Arthur Peake, in the Expositor's Greek Testament (1903), reported that view and judged a second one more likely: the thrones are those seated on thrones, like the elders of Revelation 4:4.

Jewish writings from around Paul's time did use the word for heavenly beings. The Testament of Levi 3 places "thrones, dominions" in a heaven where hymns are always offered to God, and 2 Enoch 20:1 lists "thrones and many-eyed ones" among the hosts of the seventh heaven.

Joseph Barber Lightfoot, writing on Colossians in 1875, warned against finding a ranking in the verse. "No stress can be laid on the sequence of the names," he wrote, as though Paul "were enunciating with authority some precise doctrine respecting the grades of the celestial hierarchy."

Paul's own argument points the same way. The list backs up a claim about Christ, that whatever powers exist were made through him, and the next chapter warns against anyone "insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels" (Colossians 2:18). So the verse supports the belief that thrones are real created powers, but it gives them no shape, no rank, and no task.

How does Daniel 7:9 fit, where thrones were set in place?

Daniel 7:9 is the throne scene most often pulled into this topic because it puts thrones and wheels in one verse. "As I watched, thrones were set in place, and an Ancient One took his throne," the NRSVUE reads, and that throne "was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire."

The thrones here are seats for a court. The next verse ends, "The court sat in judgment, and the books were opened," while "a thousand thousands served him" and more stood in attendance.

Who sits on the other seats was already a question for the rabbis. In the Babylonian Talmud (Hagigah 14a), Rabbi Akiva says one throne is for God and one for David, and Rabbi Yosei the Galilean objects that the two thrones stand for judgment and for righteousness.

The wheels in Daniel belong to God's own throne, not to a separate order of beings. The Aramaic word, galgal, is the same root as "the wheelwork" Ezekiel hears named in 10:13, which is why readers connect the two visions. That wheeled throne is the usual explanation modern reference works give for calling the thrones wheels. Daniel himself keeps seats and servants apart: thrones are set in place, and a separate crowd of thousands serves.

Are the Thrones the same as the ophanim in Ezekiel?

No text from the ancient or medieval world says they are. Ezekiel's ophanim are wheels beside the four living creatures, and scripture never calls them thrones.

Ezekiel 1:15-21 gives the wheels their features. They gleam like beryl, look like "a wheel within a wheel," move in any of four directions without turning, and their rims "were full of eyes all around."

A "living spirit was in the wheels," so they rise and stop with the creatures. Ezekiel does see a throne, but only one, and verse 26 puts "something like a throne" above the dome over the creatures' heads, with a figure in human form seated on it.

The wheels are underneath that throne, part of what carries the vision, and they are not the throne itself. Chapter 10 retells the scene with the creatures now named cherubim, their "backs, hands, and wings" covered with eyes, "as were the wheels" (10:12).

Ophan is ordinary Hebrew for a wheel. Exodus 14:25 uses it for the Egyptians' chariot wheels, and 1 Kings 7:33 for the wheels of the bronze stands in Solomon's temple.

The wheels became beings only after Ezekiel, in Jewish writings that list the ophanim as a rank of their own beside cherubim and seraphim. None of those lists sets them in place of a rank called thrones.

Where did the idea that Thrones are ophanim come from?

The equation is recent: read in order, each source below keeps the two names apart until modern angel encyclopedias join them.

Thrones and ophanim, source by source

Where each list puts the wheels, and whether it has a rank called thrones.

Ezekiel 1 and 10
Wheels full of eyes move beside the living creatures
Part of the vision, not called angels or thrones.
1 Enoch 61:10; 71:7
In the Book of Enoch, ophanim stand with cherubim and seraphim and "guard the throne of His glory"
The wheels become a rank of beings, with no rank of thrones beside them.
2 Enoch 20:1
Enoch sees "thrones and many-eyed ones" in the seventh heaven
Thrones and many-eyed beings appear as two different groups.
Pseudo-Dionysius, c. 500
Thrones take third place; wheels are treated in chapter 15 as a symbol for heavenly minds in general
The Christian choir is built on Colossians, not on Ezekiel's wheels.
Maimonides, c. 1180
Ofanim rank second of ten, after the holy chayyot
The Jewish list has no rank called thrones.
Agrippa, 1533
A table of ten pairs Thrones with Aralim and Cherubim with Ophanim
Even the Christian Kabbalah match-up keeps thrones and ophanim apart.
Guiley, 1996
A modern encyclopedia gives ophanim and galgallin as other names for thrones
The equation as most readers meet it today.

Maimonides gives the clearest medieval test. In the Mishneh Torah, Foundations of the Torah 2:7, he names ten ranks from the holy chayyot, "above all the others," down to the ishim, the angels who speak with prophets, and the ofanim come second.

His names come from Hebrew scripture, and none of them translates Paul's thronoi. The Jewish ranks and the Christian choirs were built from different books, so any one-to-one match between them is a later project.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa carried out that project in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1533), Book II, chapter 13. His table sets the Dionysian choirs beside the Hebrew ranks, pairs Thrones with the Aralim, and names Zaphkiel as the ruling angel of that row.

Agrippa's row is an early printed source for the modern pairing of the thrones with Tzaphkiel. It is also a table that puts the ophanim beside the cherubim, which is the opposite of what modern thrones pages claim.

Jewish prayer keeps the ophanim in their own place as well. The morning blessing before the Shema says "the Ofanim and the holy Chayos, with a mighty sound rise toward the Serafim," and mentions no thrones.

Why did Pseudo-Dionysius put Thrones in the first sphere?

Because he took the name to mean nearness. In Celestial Hierarchy 6.2 he says the holy oracles place "the most Holy Thrones, and the many-eyed and many-winged hosts, named in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim," immediately around God, closer than any other order.

He credits the threefold scheme to his teacher, whom he calls "our Divine Initiator," and treats these three names as one first hierarchy. The second begins with the dominions, and the third ends with the angels.

Chapter 7 then reads the name as a description of character. Thrones are raised above everything low, settled "around the veritable Highest" with all their strength, open to receive God's approach, and marked by "their bearing God."

He leaves out wheels, eyes, and any reference to Ezekiel for this choir, because in the same work the "many-eyed" description belongs to the cherubim and seraphim.

Ezekiel's wheels are interpreted only in chapter 15, where Dionysius reads their name, "Gel, Gel," as a symbol of heavenly minds in general, meaning both revolving around God and revealing hidden things. He never ties that symbol to the thrones.

Thrones close the first triad, so the choir directly below them is the dominions. Even in last place within that triad, they stand nearer to God on his scale than any archangel or angel.

How did Gregory the Great and Aquinas order the Thrones?

Gregory the Great, preaching in the early 590s, reached nine orders by adding Paul's two lists together. Ephesians gives four names and Colossians adds one more, thrones, and with angels, archangels, cherubim, and seraphim the count comes to nine (Homily 34 on the Gospels).

Gregory kept thrones in the same third place as Dionysius but read the name through judgment. Thomas Aquinas quotes him: thrones are so called "because through them God accomplishes His judgments."

Two orders of the nine choirs, highest first
Rank	Pseudo-Dionysius	Gregory the Great (Homily 34)
1	Seraphim	Seraphim
2	Cherubim	Cherubim
3	Thrones	Thrones
4	Dominions	Dominations
5	Virtues	Principalities
6	Powers	Powers
7	Principalities	Virtues
8	Archangels	Archangels
9	Angels	Angels

The only disagreement is in the middle of the list, and it never touches the thrones. Aquinas sets out both orders in Summa Theologiae I, q.108, a.6, and concludes that "little or no difference exists in reality" between them.

On the name itself, article 5 follows Dionysius and works from an ordinary seat. A seat is raised off the ground, so thrones are raised to know the patterns of things directly in God; a seat is solid, but here the direction reverses and God makes these angels firm. A seat receives the one who sits and can carry him, so thrones "receive God in themselves, and in a certain way bear Him to the inferior creatures." A seat is also open on one side, and these angels are "promptly open to receive God and to serve Him."

Aquinas then explains why thrones sit last in the first triad. They receive light from God in a form suited to passing it straight on to the second hierarchy, and since all three highest orders know things in God directly, he allows that the whole first hierarchy "can be called the Thrones."

Do Thrones really have eyes and wheels?

Not in any text about thrones. The eyes come from Ezekiel, where they cover the wheels' rims (1:18) and the cherubim's bodies (10:12), and the wheels come from Ezekiel and from Daniel 7:9, where they turn under God's own seat.

Dionysius warned against taking even those images literally. In Celestial Hierarchy chapter 2 he tells readers not to imagine "wheels of fire above the heaven, or material thrones upon which the Godhead may recline," because scripture uses such pictures for minds that have no shape.

The eyed-wheel picture of the thrones is modern. Rosemary Ellen Guiley's Encyclopedia of Angels (1996) lists ophanim and galgallin as other names for thrones and describes them as great wheels with many eyes, and online "biblically accurate angel" art spreads the same image.

As drawings of Ezekiel's wheels, those images are fair to the text, but labelled as thrones they fasten Ezekiel's vision to Paul's word, a connection neither author made.

What do New Age writers claim about the Thrones?

Guiley's encyclopedia also lists duties for the thrones. It calls them the chariots of God, driven by the cherubim, stationed where material form begins to take shape, and says they carry out divine justice and keep universal laws in harmony; many angel websites repeat that list.

Only the justice duty has an older root. Gregory the Great said God carries out his judgments through the thrones, but neither he nor Colossians, Pseudo-Dionysius, or Aquinas makes them chariots, wheels, or keepers of universal law.

Readers who meet thrones on a Kabbalistic Tree of Life chart are using the Agrippa-style match-up, which sets the thrones row at Binah, the third sphere of the tree. That placement belongs to Renaissance and modern occult writing, not to Jewish lists such as Maimonides'.