Who is the angel Gabriel?

The angel who explains

Gabriel enters the Bible in the book of Daniel, the only book of the Hebrew Bible that names him. Daniel has seen a ram and a goat in a vision beside the river Ulai, and a man’s voice calls out: “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision” (Daniel 8:16). Daniel falls on his face in terror. Later, as he prays, Gabriel comes again.

While I was speaking in prayer, the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening offering.

He brings the prophecy of the “seventy weeks,” the years until an anointed one (Daniel 9:24–27). Two things about him carry into the New Testament: he is the angel who explains, and he comes at the hour of prayer. His name joins the Hebrew gever, “man” or “strong one,” to El, God, and is usually read “God is my strength”; some prefer “man of God.”

Gabriel and Zechariah

Centuries later he comes again at an hour of prayer, now inside the Temple, while the people pray outside (Luke 1:10). An old priest named Zechariah has drawn the lot to burn the incense, an honor later Jewish sources say came once in a lifetime. An angel stands at the right side of the altar and promises him a son, to be named John. Zechariah wants proof: “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man” (Luke 1:18).

The angel answered him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God. I was sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.”

Why did Zechariah lose his voice? Gabriel tells him he will be silent until it all happens, “because you didn’t believe my words” (Luke 1:20). The proof he asked for is the silence itself. He walks out to the waiting crowd making signs. His tongue is freed only at his son’s naming, when he writes on a tablet, “His name is John” (Luke 1:63–64). The child grows up to be John the Baptist.

Gabriel and Mary

Six months later Gabriel is sent north, to Nazareth, to a young woman engaged to Joseph.

Having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, you highly favored one! The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women!”

In Latin the greeting begins Ave, gratia plena, and joined to Elizabeth’s words a few verses later (Luke 1:42) it became the Hail Mary. Gabriel promises a son named Jesus who will receive “the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32). Readers have long noticed the contrast with Zechariah. He asked how he could be sure; she asks how it can happen: “How can this be, seeing I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34). She is not struck dumb. She answers. Churches keep the scene, the Annunciation, on March 25, nine months before Christmas.

Archangel, trumpeter, Jibril

Some of what people “know” about Gabriel comes from later.

• Archangel. The Bible never gives him the title; only Michael is called an archangel (Jude 9). The rank comes from Jewish writings outside the Bible, such as the Book of Enoch, which names Gabriel with Michael, Raphael and Uriel among the angels closest to God.
• The trumpet. Paul speaks of “the voice of the archangel” and “God’s trumpet” at the end (1 Thessalonians 4:16), but names no one. The earliest known text that hands the horn to Gabriel is a twelfth-century Armenian hymn by Nerses the Gracious; African American spirituals made it famous.
• Jibril. In Islam he is the angel who brought the Quran to Muhammad, and the Quran names him (2:97). Muslims also see him in the angel sent to Mary in Quran 19.

Catholics keep his feast on September 29, together with Michael and Raphael; the Orthodox honor him on March 26, the day after the Annunciation.