In the earlier literature the Mal’akh Yahweh or Elohim is almost the only mal’akh ("angel”) mentioned.  There are, however, a few passages which speak of subordinate superhuman beings other than the Mal’akh Yahweh or Elohim.  There are the cherubim who guard Eden.  In Gen. xviii., xix. (J) the appearance of Yahweh to Abraham and Lot is connected with three, afterwards two, men or messengers; but possibly in the original form of the story Yahweh appeared alone.[11] At Bethel, Jacob sees the angels of God on the ladder,[12] and later on they appear to him at Mahanaim.[13] In all these cases the angels, like the Mal’akh Yahweh, are connected with or represent a theophany.  Similarly the “man” who wrestles with Jacob at Peniel is identified with God.[14] In Isaiah vi. the seraphim, superhuman beings with six wings, appear as the attendants of Yahweh.  Thus the pre-exilic literature, as we now have it, has little to say about angels or about superhuman beings other than Yahweh and manifestations of Yahweh; the pre-exilic prophets hardly mention angels.[15] Nevertheless we may well suppose that the popular religion of ancient Israel had much to say of superhuman beings other than Yahweh, but that the inspired writers have mostly suppressed references to them as unedifying.  Moreover such beings were not strictly angels.

The doctrine of monotheism was formally expressed in the period immediately before and during the Exile, in Deuteronomy[16] and Isaiah;[17] and at the same time we find angels prominent in Ezekiel who, as a prophet of the Exile, may have been influenced by the hierarchy of supernatural beings in the Babylonian religion, and perhaps even by the angelology of Zoroastrianism.[18] Ezekiel gives elaborate descriptions of cherubim;[19] and in one of his visions he sees seven angels execute the judgment of God upon Jerusalem.[20] As in Genesis they are styled “men,” mal’akh for “angel” does not occur in Ezekiel.  Somewhat later, in the visions of Zechariah, angels play a great part; they are sometimes spoken of as “men,” sometimes as mal’akh, and the Mal’akh Yahweh seems to hold a certain primacy among them.[21] Satan also appears to prosecute (so to speak) the High Priest before the divine tribunal.[22] Similarly in Job the bne Elohim, sons of God, appear as attendants of God, and amongst them Satan, still in his role of public prosecutor, the defendant being Job.[23] Occasional references to “angels” occur in the Psalter;[24] they appear as ministers of God.

In Ps. lxxviii. 49 the “evil angels” of A.V. conveys a false impression; it should be “angels of evil,” as R.V., i.e. angels who inflict chastisement as ministers of God.

The seven angels of Ezekiel may be compared with the seven eyes of Yahweh in Zech. iii. 9, iv. 10.  The latter have been connected by Ewald and others with the later doctrine of seven chief angels,[25] parallel to and influenced by the Ameshaspentas (Amesha Spenta), or seven great spirits of the Persian mythology, but the connexion is doubtful.