An angel is a supernatural being found in many religions, whose duties are to assist and serve God. They typically act as messengers, as believed in the main three monotheistic religions.

n the Hebrew Bible, angels often appear to people in the shape of humans of extraordinary beauty, and often are not immediately recognized as angels; some fly through the air; some become invisible; sacrifices touched by them are consumed by fire; and they may disappear in sacrificial fire, like Elijah, who rode to heaven in a fiery chariot. Angels, or the Angel, appeared in the flames of the thorn bush. They are described as pure and bright as Heaven; consequently, they are said to be formed of fire, and encompassed by light Template:Bibleverse, as the Psalmist said:  "He makes winds His messengers, burning fire His ministers." Some verses in the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon depict angels wearing blue or red robes but no such reference occurs in the Protestant books.

Though superhuman, angels can assume human form; this is the earliest conception. Gradually, and especially in post-Biblical times, angels came to be bodied forth in a form corresponding to the nature of the mission to be fulfilled—generally, however, the human form. Angels bear drawn swords or other destroying weapons in their hands—one carries an ink-horn by his side—and ride on horses. It is worth noting that these angels carry items that are contempory to the time in which they visit (perhaps angels are bound by the technology which humans have achieved, or perhaps the items they carry have symbolic significance). A terrible angel is the one mentioned in Template:Bibleverse, as standing "between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand". In the Book of Daniel, reference is made to an angel "clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: his body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude". This imagery is very similar to the description of Jesus in the book of Revelation. Angels are thought to possess wings, as they are described in the Bible, and depicted in Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian art. They are commonly depicted with halos.

In the Bible, angels are a medium of God's power; they exist to execute God's will. Angels reveal themselves to individuals as well as to the whole nation, in order to announce events, either good or bad, affecting humans. Angels foretold to Abraham the birth of Isaac, to Manoah the birth of Samson, and to Abraham the destruction of Sodom. Guardian angels were mentioned, but not, as was later the case, as guardian spirits of individuals and nations. God sent an angel to protect the Hebrew people after their exodus from Egypt, to lead them to the promised land, and to destroy the hostile tribes in their way.