What Do Biblically Accurate Angels Really Look Like?

　　"Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew." (Isaiah 6:2)

　　Fresco painting of a Seraphim in the Hagia Sofia

　　Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they moved, they went toward any one of four directions; they did not turn aside when they went. (Ezekiel 1:15-17)

　　Many of us like the picture of angels as beautiful winged feminine creatures or baby-like creatures with halos and harps, known as cherubims. Most of us do not know that angels in the Bible likely do not look like any of our imaginations, nor do they appear as our media would have us believe.

　　Angels do not have cherub cheeks, appear as babies, or really like most artists' depictions, particularly Renaissance ones.

　　So, what do angels really look like? What is a biblically accurate description of an angel? Will we know when we see one?

　　The answer to this actually entirely depends on what form they take. Angels, being spiritual beings, can take on different forms. As we see in Scripture, angels can sometimes appear as humans, to the point where we may not even recognize that we’ve served an angel (Hebrews 13:2).

　　Other times, we get some really bizarre passages, like the one found in Ezekiel 1, where the prophet attempts to describe angels through a series of images, including wheels covered in eyes.

　　The short answer is we don’t have a definitive description for angels, but we can use Scripture to show how they sometimes appear.

　　In this article, we’ll explain some of the Biblically accurate forms that angels take according to Scripture and why this matters.

What Do Angels Look Like According to the Bible?

　　The donkey saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand. Thus the donkey turned off the road, and went into the field and Balaam struck the donkey, to turn it back onto the road (Numbers 22:23).

　　In this passage, we see that Balaam didn't see the angel. Angels can be invisible to us. When we do see them, they tend to strike fear into us.

　　We should also note that they fight spiritual battles, and this isn’t the first instance of us seeing an armed angel in Scripture. Let's take a look at some examples in the Bible where angels carried swords.

　　After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:24).

　　I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude (Daniel 10:5-6).

　　Although the last six chapters of Daniel tend to draw speculation and much debate from the theological community, these verses included, if these verses refer to an angelic being, it’s clear the being has a striking appearance in its true form. They seem to glow like gems or bronze.

　　And, of course, the most bizarre: Their entire bodies, including their backs, hands, and wings, were full of eyes all around, as were their four wheels (Ezekiel 10:12).