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Bible Encyclopedias
Gabriel
Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
or Ga´briel (the mighty one [or ] of God), the heavenly messenger who was sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat (Daniel 8), and to communicate the prediction of the Seventy Weeks (). Under the new dispensation he was employed to announce the birth of John the Baptist to his father Zechariah (), and that of the Messiah to the Virgin Mary (). Both by Jewish and Christian writers, Gabriel has been denominated an archangel. The Scriptures, however, affirm nothing positively respecting his rank, though the importance of the commissions on which he was employed, and his own words 'I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God' (), are rather in favor of the notion of his superior dignity. But the reserve of the Inspired Volume on such points strikingly distinguishes its angelology from that of the Jews and Muhammadans, and we may add, of the Fathers and some later Christian writers. In all the solemn glimpses of the other world which it gives, a great moral purpose is kept in view. Whatever is divulged tends to elevate and refine: nothing is said to gratify a prurient curiosity.
Public Domain.
Kitto, John, ed. Entry for 'Gabriel'. "Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature". https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/kbe/g/gabriel.html.
