GABRIEL

(Gaʹbri·el) [an able-bodied one of God].

The only holy angel other than Michael named in the Bible; the only materialized angel to give his name. Twice Gabriel appeared to Daniel: first, near the Ulai River “in the third year of the kingship of Belshazzar” to explain Daniel’s vision of the he-goat and the ram (Dan. 8:1, 15-26); and second, “in the first year of Darius” the Mede, to deliver the prophecy concerning the “seventy weeks.” (Dan. 9:1, 20-27) To Zechariah the priest, Gabriel brought the good news that he and his aging wife Elizabeth would have a son, John (the Baptist). (Luke 1:11-20) To Mary, the virgin girl betrothed to Joseph, Gabriel addressed himself, saying: “Good day, highly favored one, Jehovah is with you.” He then told her that she would give birth to a son, Jesus, who “will be called Son of the Most High; and Jehovah God will give him the throne of David his father, . . . and there will be no end of his kingdom.”—Luke 1:26-38.

From the Bible record it is learned that Gabriel is a high-ranking angelic creature in close association with the heavenly court, one “who stands near before God”; that he was one “sent forth” by God to deliver special messages to servants of Jehovah here on earth (Luke 1:19, 26); that his personal envisioned or materialized form was, true to the meaning of his name, “like an able-bodied man.”—Dan. 8:15.