Raphael- Hebrew/Jewish AngelAngel"God Heals"

The Journey of Tobias

Rafa-el: God heals. His name is his task, and the Book of Tobit is his story.

Tobit, a righteous Jew in exile in Nineveh, went blind after bird droppings fell into his eyes while he slept. He prayed to die. In distant Media, his kinswoman Sarah had been married seven times, and each husband was killed on the wedding night by the demon Asmodeus. She too prayed for death. God heard both prayers and sent one angel to answer them.

Raphael appeared in human form, calling himself Azariah, and offered to accompany Tobit's son Tobias on a journey to collect money owed in Media. On the road, a great fish leapt from the Tigris to attack Tobias. Raphael told him to catch it and keep the gall, heart, and liver. The heart and liver, burned as smoke, would drive out demons. The gall would cure blindness.

In Media, Raphael arranged Tobias's marriage to Sarah. On the wedding night, Tobias burned the fish's heart and liver. The smoke drove Asmodeus to Upper Egypt, where Raphael pursued and bound him. The curse was broken. Returning home, Tobias applied the gall to his father's eyes. The white film peeled away, and Tobit could see.

When the family offered Raphael half their goods, he revealed himself: "I am Raphael, one of the seven angels who stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord" (Tobit 12:15). He ascended before their eyes.

The Binding of Azazel

In the Book of Enoch, the fallen Watcher Azazel descended to earth and taught humanity forbidden knowledge: the forging of weapons and the arts of sorcery. Corruption spread. God commanded Raphael: "Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness; make an opening in the desert which is in Dudael, and cast him therein, that he may be sent into the fire on the great day of judgment" (1 Enoch 10:4-6). Raphael chained Azazel beneath the desert rocks.

Then God gave Raphael charge over "all the diseases and all the wounds of the children of men" (1 Enoch 20:3). The angel who imprisoned the corrupter was given the task of healing the corruption.

Healer of the Patriarchs

The rabbis saw Raphael at work long before Tobias. When three visitors came to Abraham at the oaks of Mamre, the Talmud (Bava Metzia 86b) identified each by mission. Michael came to announce Isaac's birth, Gabriel to overthrow Sodom. Raphael came to heal Abraham three days after his circumcision, when the pain was at its worst.

Raphael was also identified as the angel who healed Jacob's hip after his wrestling match at the Jabbok. Where the patriarchs were wounded in their encounters with God, the healer followed.

Seth at the Gates

In the Vita Adae et Evae, when Adam lay dying, he sent his son Seth to the gates of paradise to beg for oil from the Tree of Life. An angel met Seth at the gates and turned him away. The oil of mercy was not yet available. Healing would come only at the end of days. Some versions give Seth seeds from the tree to plant on Adam's grave, from which a tree would one day grow.

The Guardian Behind

In the nightly Bedtime Shema, Jews invoke four archangels as guardians: "To my right Michael, to my left Gabriel, before me Uriel, behind me Raphael, and above my head the Shekhinah of God." Raphael guards from behind, watching over the sleeper's vulnerable back. The Zohar places him over the hours between midnight and dawn, when the body is at its lowest and healing does its quiet work.