Psalms 103:20

103:20 Praise the Lord, you angels of his,

you powerful warriors who carry out his decrees

and obey his orders! ¹ 

Psalms 104:4

104:4 He makes the winds his messengers,

and the flaming fire his attendant. ² 

Isaiah 6:2

6:2 Seraphs ³  stood over him; each one had six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, ⁴  and they used the remaining two to fly.

Ezekiel 1:11

1:11 Their wings were spread out above them; each had two wings touching the wings of one of the other beings on either side and two wings covering their bodies.

Ezekiel 1:14

1:14 The living beings moved backward and forward as quickly as flashes of lightning. ⁵ 

Hebrews 1:7

1:7 And he says ⁶  of the angels, “He makes ⁷  his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire,” ⁸ 

¹ tn Heb “[you] mighty ones of strength, doers of his word, by listening to the voice of his word.”

² tc Heb “and his attendants a flaming fire.” The lack of agreement between the singular “fire” and plural “attendants” has prompted various emendations. Some read “fire and flame.” The present translation assumes an emendation to “his attendant” (יו in the Hebrew text being virtually dittographic).

³ tn Hebrew שָׂרָף (saraf, “seraph”) literally means “burning one,” perhaps suggesting that these creatures had a fiery appearance (cf. TEV, CEV “flaming creatures”; NCV “heavenly creatures of fire”). Elsewhere in the OT the word “seraph” refers to poisonous snakes (Num 21:6; Deut 8:15; Isa 14:29; 30:6). Perhaps they were called “burning ones” because of their appearance or the effect of their venomous bites, which would cause a victim to burn up with fever. It is possible that the seraphs seen by Isaiah were at least partially serpentine in appearance. Though it might seem strange for a snake-like creature to have wings, two of the texts where “seraphs” are snakes describe them as “flying” (Isa 14:29; 30:6), perhaps referring to their darting movements. See the note at 14:29.

⁴ sn Some understand “feet” here as a euphemistic reference to the genitals.

⁵ tc The LXX omits v. 14 and may well be correct. The verse may be a later explanatory gloss of the end of v. 13 which was copied into the main text. See M. Greenberg, Ezekiel (AB), 1:46.

⁶ sn The Greek correlative conjunctions μέν and δέ (men and de) emphasize the contrastive parallelism of vs. 7 (what God says about the angels) over against vv. 8-9 and vv. 10-12 (what God says about the son).

⁷ tn Grk “He who makes.”

⁸ sn A quotation from Ps 104:4.