Is there an angel named Raphael in the Bible?
Answered from the commentary of William Kelly and Morrish Bible Dictionary
No angel named Raphael is named in canonical Scripture; Raphael is named in Tobit 12:15, but Tobit belongs to the Apocrypha, which is called spurious.
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
23 Luke 1:19. — "Gabriel." Tobit 12:15, speaks of seven archangels (naming "Raphael"). The Book of Enoch adds "Uriel." These are the sources of Milton's nomenclature. In canonical Scripture (but see Rev. 1:4, Rev. 3:1, Rev. 4:5) not more than two archangels are named, Gabriel (Dan. 8, 9), herald of goodness, and Michael (Dan. 10, 12; Jude 9; Rev. 12:7) of wrath. The Jews have said that "Gabriel flies with two wings, Michael with one."
The intelligent spiritual beings who are constantly referred to in scripture as God's messengers both as carrying good tidings and, as executors of God's judgements. We know little of their nature: "of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire," Heb. 1:7; and man is described as being a little inferior to the angels. Ps. 8:5 ; Heb. 2:7. There are apparently gradations in rank among them, described as principalities and powers, of which Christ as Man is now the head. Col. 2:10. Twice we meet with 'archangel:' an archangel's voice will accompany the rapture of the church, 1 Thess. 4:16; and 'Michael the archangel' contended with Satan about the body of Moses. Jude 9. He with his angels will fight with the dragon and his angels and cast them out of heaven. Rev. 12:7-8. Gabriel is the only other name of an angel revealed to us: he appeared to Daniel, to Zacharias, and to Mary: he said that he stood in the presence of God. Dan. 8:16; Dan. 9:21; Luke 1:19, 26.
In Daniel we read of angelic ministry (chaps. 3:28; 6:22). On two occasions the object was the deliverance of special servants of God at critical moments. Twice the angel Gabriel (the first instance of the name of an angel being given) appeared to Daniel, once in a vision, once in person. Hosea once refers to angels, in connection with Jacob’s history. Zechariah contains no less than twenty allusions to them; in nearly every case the prophet in vision sees angels who instruct him as to prophetic events.
There are distinctions amongst the angelic hosts. They are distributed into various orders and ranks, but all, from the archangel down to the least, are servants. They have no relationship to God founded on redemption. They are servants, and never rise out of that position, nor do they desire it. The two great characteristics of angel life are unquestioning obedience and activity in service (Ps. 103:20; Heb. 1:7, 14). The “presence angels” is a familiar Jewish thought. They are supposed by some to be identical with the seven Spirits before the throne (Rev. 1:4), and by others the term is regarded as a borrowed expression from the apocryphal book of Tobit. Both are wrong. Why depart from obvious simplicity and force an interpretation for which there is really no adequate reason? What the angel Gabriel said of himself, “I am Gabriel, who stand before God” (Luke 1:19), is here said of these seven presence angels. As to the number, seven, they represent the full power of God in judicial judgment.
Israelites knew Michael to be the highest angel (Dan. 12:1). Apocryphal works and Jewish tradition have four or more Archangels, but Scripture lets us know only of one. But how did Jude get his information? We might also ask how did Paul get his information about the names of the magicians who confronted Moses (2 Tim. 3:8)? It is clear to me that the answer lies in our belief regarding inspiration. God is able to reveal His will and details of history otherwise lost to mankind. God has also revealed that these two spiritual beings will be in conflict again in a coming day (Rev. 12:7-9), but then Michael will express himself and act firmly to expel Satan from heaven down to this earth.
The angels are in ministry. "They are not all ministering spirits." And those of them who stand nearest the throne are perhaps the most abounding in ministry; as well they maybe from their nearness to that source of goodness. For Gabriel again and again appears in ministry; and he could say of himself as being thus very near the throne, "I am Gabriel that stand in the presence of God."
These are the types of those that follow them; and Michael is always the warrior-angel, characterized as he is by his name, as Gabriel — "man of God" — is the messenger of God to men. If God draw near to men, it is in the tender familiarity of manhood that He does so. How plainly do these names speak to us!
These are the types of those that follow them; and Michael is always the warrior-angel, characterized as he is by his name; as Gabriel — "man of God" — is the messenger of God to men. If God draw near to men, it is in the tender familiarity of manhood that He does so. How plainly, then, do these names speak to us!
Ques. "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God." What is that?
324 Tobias 4:18: this is also Apocrypha, a history of an angel, accompanying a good young man as a dog, and helping him to drive a devil away from his nuptial chamber with a broiled fish's liver.