The 9 Types of Biblical Angels Explained

Source: The 9 Types of Biblical Angels Explained, Wendigoon, 57:25, uploaded 2021-09-27, Watch Later position 876.

Wendigoon approaches angelology as a study of a world that most people know through a single image: a human figure with wings who carries out God’s will. The Christian Bible contains a much less settled population. Its visions describe burning beings, creatures with several faces, wheels covered in eyes, regional rulers, warriors, messengers, and spirits assigned to individual people. The video gathers these descriptions into nine types arranged across three spheres, then follows the places where the biblical text runs out and later Christian interpretation takes over.

The three spheres

The video begins with a limit. Humans see angels for a few seconds in particular visions or encounters, so one recorded action cannot define everything an angel can do. Wendigoon therefore treats each job and location as the part we can observe. The Christian canon supplies the main material, whilst the Book of Enoch, the Apocrypha, and Catholic interpretations fill some gaps. He marks those additions as extra-biblical when they appear.

The first sphere, or first choir, contains the godly servants that stay closest to God: seraphim, cherubim, and thrones. The second sphere contains the heavenly rulers. Dominions, virtues, and powers remain in heaven whilst their actions affect people on earth. The third sphere contains the earthly messengers: principalities, archangels, and what Wendigoon calls common angels. The word lower describes distance from God in this scheme. It says little about strength. The archangels and common angels, who interact with people, may possess more direct power over earthly events than beings that remain beside God’s throne.

This is a composite hierarchy rather than a single list found in one biblical passage. The Bible names several of these beings without placing them in a complete order, whilst later Christian systems give the nine types a structure. Wendigoon also uses angel as a broad term even though Scripture calls many of the beings heavenly creatures or spirits rather than angels. The last category, common angels, is the group that the Bible most plainly calls angels in the everyday sense.

Seraphim, cherubim, and thrones

The burning ones

Seraphim are the first type because Isaiah places them directly beside God’s throne. The name means “the burning ones”. In Isaiah 6, the prophet sees creatures with human heads and six wings. One pair covers the face, another covers the feet, and the third carries the seraphim through the air. They call to one another that the Lord is holy and that the earth is full of his glory.

The seraphim care for the throne and sing around it. When Isaiah says that he has an unclean mouth and cannot stand before God, one seraph takes a burning coal from the altar and touches it to his lips. The act purges his sin. Wendigoon keeps the interpretation modest because the passage gives no wider account of the seraphim’s role in forgiveness. Some Christians have taken the scene as a model for what happens when a person becomes a Christian, although the Bible gives this as a single vision.

The creatures around God’s throne in Revelation are often identified as seraphim, and Wendigoon connects that reading to the description of wings covered in eyes. The canonical account therefore gives us a close attendant of God, a singer, a flying creature, and a being associated with fire and purification. The rest comes from outside the Bible. Wendigoon mentions a passage in Enoch that calls Michael a seraph, then notes that Michael appears in other biblical stories in another form. Catholic traditions also name Seraphiel as the leader of the seraphim and Metatron as a seraph who records every person’s life. He presents these figures as later interpretations, with the possibility that angels can change their appearance.

The guardians beneath the throne

Cherubim receive the most sustained treatment because the Bible describes them in several places and popular culture has given them a very different body. Renaissance artists borrowed the image of Cupid and turned the cherub into a small, appealing child with wings. Wendigoon’s cherubim are the creatures Ezekiel sees beside the throne.

Ezekiel describes four faces: a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle. The bodies resemble lions, the feet resemble those of oxen, and the wings are covered in eyes. Fire surrounds the creatures, and lightning comes from it. Wendigoon leaves open the physical meaning of the eyes. They may be literal eyes, since Ezekiel also says that the eyes watch God’s works, or they may be marks or moving rings that looked like eyes to the prophet. His own reading favours literal eyes whilst remaining an interpretation.

The cherubim guard the boundary of Eden after Adam and Eve leave, with a fiery sword turning at the garden’s entrance. God also orders Moses to place two cherubim above the Ark of the Covenant. When Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem, he adds more cherubim as a sign of honour. The Ark serves as the mercy seat, where God manifests himself before the high priest, so the cherubim placed above it echo Ezekiel’s vision of guardians carrying God’s throne. They act on earth in Eden and around the Ark even though their main position remains close to God.

Wendigoon then offers his own reading of Satan’s identity. Ezekiel 28 addresses the king of Tyre with language about Eden, precious stones, music, the holy mountain of God, and an “anointed cherub” who walks among stones of fire. Wendigoon reads the king as a figure controlled by Lucifer, allowing the passage to describe Lucifer himself. He connects the music to the idea that Lucifer once led music in heaven, and the references to beauty and brightness to the pride that brought about his fall. The text calls the figure a cherub twice in this reading, so Wendigoon concludes that Lucifer was probably a cherub who carried or guarded God’s throne.

That conclusion remains the speaker’s interpretation of a difficult passage. The video does not claim a direct narrative in which the Bible names Satan’s original order and gives a complete account of his rebellion. Its force comes from the contrast between the later horned image of the devil and the possibility that he began as a beautiful guardian close to God. Wendigoon also connects the fall to the tradition that a third of the angels followed Lucifer and became demons.

The wheels within wheels

The third type in the first sphere is the thrones, which Ezekiel calls wheels. Beside the cherubim stand four wheels, each moving inside another wheel without turning. They have wings, eyes that look in every direction, and a fire whose colour Ezekiel compares to a terrible crystal. The word can also suggest a multitude, so Wendigoon imagines fire filled with many colours. Living creatures appear inside the burning wheels.

In Ezekiel 10, cherubim reach into the thrones and remove burning coals, then spread them over a household as God commands blessings. Ezekiel calls the wheels dreadful and describes their size as extending beneath the sky. Their wings sound like ocean waves, whilst their voices sound like thunder and trumpets. The physical scale matters because the vision does not picture a small object that happens to sit under a throne. It gives the throne itself an enormous, moving body.

Revelation describes elders around God’s throne without mentioning Ezekiel’s wheels. Wendigoon wonders whether the elders are another form of the thrones, or whether angels can present a shape that a human observer can understand. In this reading, Ezekiel sees their unfiltered form whilst John sees a form suited to his vision. Enoch calls them the many-eyed ones, which Wendigoon treats as an extra-biblical confirmation. The proposal remains speculative. The canonical texts give two visions with related throne imagery, while the idea that one form changes into another comes from the video’s attempt to reconcile them.

The heavenly rulers

The second sphere remains in heaven whilst directing events on earth. Wendigoon says that the Bible offers less material here, so the account draws more heavily on Catholic saints, the Apocrypha, and later artistic traditions. The three orders manage the world beneath the throne in different ways.

Dominions and the problem of choice

Dominions, also called dominations or lordships, regulate the duties of the angels below them. Wendigoon uses that role to raise the question of angelic free will. If every angel were a mindless servant, a hierarchy of commanders would have little use. Lucifer’s rebellion already suggests that angels can choose, and the authority exercised by the dominions supplies another reason to think that some form of choice remains within the heavenly order.

Later depictions give dominions a golden staff and the seal of God. The objects make them look like rulers who carry out divine decisions. They judge large conflicts and wars, govern regions of the earth, and pass wisdom or leadership to human rulers. They also bring mercy. Wendigoon repeats a belief that a dominion stopped Abraham from killing Isaac, although the biblical story describes an angel without naming its order. Paul mentions dominions in Ephesians and Colossians, and later systems extend their rule to the planets, stars, and cosmos. Their place in the hierarchy therefore joins administration, judgment, and the ordering of creation.

Virtues and the force of good

Virtues govern nature and the elements. Their name also describes the qualities they are believed to give people: faith, courage, strength, and valour. They are credited with carrying out miracles, strengthening a person’s belief, and bringing a divine action into the physical world. Wendigoon calls them the angels of nature whilst placing their work inside a moral account of human character.

The Book of Enoch calls them the shining ones. Later images give them white lilies and red roses, with the lilies representing divine perfection and the roses standing for Christ’s love or blood. Raphael is often placed at their head because he is known as a healer. The association connects the virtue’s work of giving strength and healing with a named archangel who appears in other traditions. Wendigoon treats the whole account as later Christian interpretation because the Bible gives little detail about the order itself.

Powers and the border of heaven

Powers, also called authorities, guard against demonic presence. Their central work is a spiritual war with fallen angels. They remain in heaven because they protect the border between heaven and earth, even though their work reaches the earthly realm. Cherubim guard God’s throne, while powers guard heaven itself.

The order is therefore often assigned to the escort of human souls into heaven. Wendigoon uses this duty to explain why powers appear in large numbers. They also resist temptation when Satan and demons try to influence human beings, and they give people strength to oppose that influence. Artistic depictions cover them in armour and weapons. In the video’s simple division of the second sphere, dominions judge, virtues give, and powers protect and fight.

Earthly messengers

The third sphere contains the orders that act inside human history. Wendigoon separates the principalities, archangels, and common angels by the scale of their work. Their nearness to people gives them an earthly role, while their stories also expose the way the hierarchy overlaps.

Principalities and regional powers

Principalities, or princes, rule over areas on earth. Their jurisdiction can cover nations, rulers, groups, or churches. They preserve a ministry and help it continue, so images give them crowns and sceptres. Wendigoon also assigns them the work of bringing knowledge and strength to human groups. A Christian who says that God inspired a work of art or gave a scientist the insight for a discovery is, in this system, describing a principality’s action.

The order becomes darker in Paul’s letters. Ephesians speaks of wrestling against principalities and powers, which Wendigoon reads as classifications of fallen angels rather than a general word for powerful people. The fallen versions retain influence over regions and groups whilst serving the devil. Daniel gives the clearest example. A messenger travelling to Daniel is delayed by the prince of Persia until Michael arrives and drives him away. The prince therefore acts as a regional spiritual ruler, and the story suggests that earthly areas can have both good and fallen powers assigned to them.

This places the principalities inside ordinary time and geography. The first sphere belongs to a heaven that Wendigoon describes as separate from human chronology. The second sphere reaches into the physical world from heaven. Principalities operate directly within the regions and political histories that people inhabit. The category also explains why later Christian speech can describe demonic influence over governments as the work of fallen regional angels.

Archangels and the last battle

Michael is the only angel explicitly identified as an archangel in the Christian Bible. He appears in Daniel as the opponent of the prince of Persia, and Jude 1:9 describes him disputing with the devil over the body of Moses. The passage gives Michael a restrained authority. He says, “The Lord rebuke thee,” rather than making an accusation in his own name.

Wendigoon connects Michael’s role to the whole biblical timeline. God creates the angels, heavens, and earth. Adam and Eve bring sin and death into the world, Jesus opens the way to heaven, and a final conflict will place Michael against Lucifer. Michael is supposed to defeat the devil and lock him away with the demons. That future victory explains why later traditions treat him as the single chief archangel and as the warrior who protects the whole Christian church.

Gabriel occupies a different role. He announces Mary’s pregnancy, tells the shepherds that Christ has come, and carries messages through the biblical story. Revelation places Michael and Gabriel among the angels associated with the end of time, which Wendigoon takes as a sign that they share a high status. The idea of seven archangels then comes from combining biblical hints with Enoch and other religious traditions. In the list given in the video, Michael is the warrior, Raphael the healer, Gabriel the messenger, Jophiel the giver of beauty, Ariel the force of nature, Chamuel the angel of relationships, and Azrael the angel of death.

The status of this list remains uncertain. Wendigoon says that the Christian canon confirms one archangel, whilst later readers infer seven. Raphael is also linked to the virtues and Michael is sometimes called a seraph, which suggests that archangel may be a title given to important angels rather than a separate order. The same reasoning allows the possibility that Lucifer was once an archangel before becoming the fallen cherub of Wendigoon’s reading.

Common angels and guardian spirits

Common angels are the only category in the list that Wendigoon treats as a direct classification of beings called angels. These are the messengers who move around people and can serve as guardian angels. The Bible says that angels watch over souls, appear in human form, and travel between heaven and earth. Jacob’s dream of a ladder shows angels going up and down as God works in the world. The heavenly host that appears to the shepherds after Gabriel’s announcement belongs to this group, as does the innumerable company of angels mentioned in Hebrews.

Their ordinary appearance says little about their force. When Lot tries to escape a city, an angel makes the attackers blind. When Elisha is surrounded by danger, God opens his eyes and lets him see armies of angels around him. The common angels therefore look like the most numerous order, whilst their actions remain far beyond human power.

Wendigoon also makes a numerical inference. If a third of the angels fell with Lucifer, and common angels form the largest population, then many demons may have begun in this order. He marks this as his own reasoning rather than a biblical claim. The same kind of angel can appear as a person, so stories about meeting an angel in human form belong to this category in the video’s scheme.

Human souls and free will

The final section turns from the hierarchy to the people it surrounds. Wendigoon’s Christian reading gives humans a special place because humans possess souls. Angels begin in heaven and move down to earth. Demons begin in heaven and fall. Humans begin on earth and can move upwards through the choices they make. Their souls can join Satan’s legion or the heavenly choir, which gives guardian angels a reason to watch over individual people.

Human bodies also explain why angels appear as people. Genesis says that God makes humanity in his own image. Wendigoon extends that description to the angels: their human form reflects the divine image that humans already carry. The strange beings with many faces, wings, eyes, and wheels can therefore appear as winged people because the human shape represents divinity in a form people can recognise.

The guardian angel cannot remove human choice. Angels and demons may tempt people towards good or evil, and powers may fight demons in the spiritual realm, while people retain the ability to choose their side. That limit accounts for the presence of violence and cruelty in a world filled with protective spirits. The spiritual conflict surrounds human action without determining it.

Wendigoon ends by presenting this account as a possible source of purpose. A person who believes in a soul with open potential, made in God’s image and accompanied by a guardian spirit, can find meaning in that belief. He offers the idea to viewers who may share the faith and to viewers who may only find the mythology interesting. The value of the ending lies in its clear shift from cataloguing beings to explaining why the catalogue matters to the people at its bottom.

Limits

The nine types form a later Christian hierarchy assembled from separate biblical visions, Paul’s letters, extra-biblical writings, Catholic interpretations, and artistic traditions. The video names Isaiah 6; Genesis 3; Ezekiel 1, 10, and 28; Daniel; Ephesians; Colossians; Jude 1:9; Revelation; and Hebrews. Those passages describe particular encounters and images. They do not present the complete nine-order system as one settled doctrine.

The strongest claims about the middle sphere and the seven archangels come from traditions that the video does not identify in detail. The Book of Enoch appears several times, while the narration gives no edition, passage numbers, or account of how its classifications relate to the Christian canon. The claims about Seraphiel, Metatron, Jophiel, Ariel, Chamuel, and Azrael therefore remain reports of later interpretation. Wendigoon also says that the numbers of archangels in Judaism and Islam may be mixed up, so those comparisons belong outside the note’s account of the Christian material.

The Lucifer and cherubim reading depends on treating Ezekiel’s address to the king of Tyre as a description of the devil behind the king. Wendigoon calls it his opinion and acknowledges that the Bible never gives a direct account of Lucifer’s original order. The same care applies to the idea that the thrones change form, that Michael is a seraph, that a dominion stopped Abraham, and that most demons began as common angels. These readings make the hierarchy coherent within the video, whilst the source itself leaves their evidence partial.

Further reading / references

• The Bible passages named in the video: Genesis 3; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1, 10, and 28; Daniel; Ephesians; Colossians; Jude 1:9; Revelation; and Hebrews.
• The Book of Enoch, cited as an extra-biblical source for the seraphim, the many-eyed thrones, and the seven archangels. The video does not identify an edition or specific passages.
• The Apocrypha and Catholic interpretations, cited by Wendigoon as later material that supplies roles and names for the middle sphere and several archangels.