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In 2 Maccabees, the people pray for a good angel to assist them in battle, drawing on a tradition also found in Tobit, where a good angel is said to accompany and protect travelers.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Tobit 5:22
Deuterocanon
20 As the Lord has given us to live, so does it suffice us. 21 And he said to her, Do not be troubled; our child shall go in peace, and in peace come to us and your eyes shall see in the day when he shall come to you in peace. Do not be troubled: do not fear for them, sister; 22 for a good angel shall go with him, and his journey shall be prospered, and he shall return in peace.
Date: 225–175 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
2 Maccabees 11:6
Deuterocanon
4 He took no account of God’s power, but was puffed up with his ten thousands of infantry, his thousands of cavalry, and his eighty elephants. 5 Coming into Judea and approaching Bethsuron, which was a strong place and about five stadia away from Jerusalem, he pressed it hard. 6 When Maccabaeus and his men learned that he was besieging the strongholds, they and all the people with lamentations and tears made supplication to the Lord to send a good angel to save Israel. 7 Maccabaeus himself took up weapons first, and exhorted the others to put themselves in jeopardy together with him and help their kindred; and they went out with him very willingly. 8 As they were there, close to Jerusalem, a horseman appeared at their head in white apparel, brandishing weapons of gold.
Date: 160–63 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The writers of the Apocrypha bear witness to one remarkable shift in the Jewish world view—the multiplication of angels, demons, and their functions. In the story of Tobit, a demon’s peculiar interest in an individual is the source of a family’s affliction, and exorcism and the supernatural binding of the demon is the solution (Tobit 3:7–8, 17; 8:1–3). Conversely, angels, who are now arranged in a kind of hierarchy (Tobit 12:15), work on behalf of God’s people, bringing the content of their prayers to God’s notice and acting as vehicles of help or revelation according to God’s directives (Tobit 3:16–17; 12:12–15, 18). Angelic guards halt Heliodorus’s advance toward the Temple (2 Maccabees 3:23–28); the heroes of the Maccabean Revolt ask God to send “a good angel” to fight on their behalf (2 Maccabees 11:6; 15:23); heavenly armies play a role in the Hasmonean victories against the Seleucid forces (10:28–20; 11:7–10). This view of a highly populated and interactive unseen realm is reflected in the Gospel narratives and other early Christian literature ..."
David A. DeSilva, “Biblical Theology and the Apocrypha,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Apocrypha, ed. Gerbern S. Oegema (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 534–549.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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