GABRIEL (Heb. SKns,

See also:

• MAN
• MAN, ISLE OF (anc. Mona)

man of

See also:

• GOD

God)  , in the Bible, the heavenly messenger (see ANGEL) sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat, and to communicate the pre-diction of the Seventy Weeks (Dan. viii . 16, ix . 21) . He was also employed to announce the birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias, and that of the Messiah to the Virgin Mary (Luke i . 19, 26) . Because he stood in the divine presence (see Luke i . 19; Rev. viii . 2; and cf . Tobit xii . 15), both Jewish and Christian writers generally speak of him as an archangel . In the Book of Enoch " the four great archangels" are Michael, Uriel, Suriel or Raphael, and Gabriel, who is set over " all the powers " and shares the work of intercession . His name frequently occurs in the Jewish literature of the later post-Biblical period .

Thus, according to the

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, he was the man who showed the way to Joseph (Gen. xxxvii . 15); and in Deut. xxxiv . 6 it is affirmed that he, along with Michael, Uriel, Jophiel, Jephephiah and the Metatron, buried the body of Moses . In the Targum on 2 Chron. xxxu . 21 he is named as the angel who destroyed the host of Sennacherib; and in similar writings of a still later period he is spoken of as the spirit who presides over fire, thunder, the ripening of the fruits of the earth and similar processes .