Angels who function as the "Sword of God," and who are dispatched to mete out punishment to humans. Punishment can be in the form of illness, plague, pestilence, misfortune or death.
Angels of destruction specifically named are Uriel, Harbonah, Azrael (The Angel of death), Simkiel, Za'afiel, Af, Kolazonta, Hermah and Kemuel. Various sources cite either Kemuel or Simkiel as chief of the group. Other angels not specifically "angels of destruction" also carry out God's orders of punishment. The archangel Gabriel sometimes is cited as the angel dispatched to destroy the wicked Sodom and Gomorrah. Accounts of destroying angels often do not give names of angels.
Numbers of angels of destruction also vary according to source, ranging from 40,000 total to 90,000 in hell alone.
Numerous incidents of angelic punishment are cited in scripture and other religious tracts. The Zohar, a kabbalistic work, observes that there is no act of annihilation or punishment that does not involve a destroying angel.
Besides the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, biblical accounts of punishing angels include a number of episodes, among them the following.
In 2 Kings 19, King Hezekiah battles the Assyrians, and is assured by God that not a single Assyrian arrow will be shot into Jerusalem. A long destroying angel visits the Assyrian soldiers one night, and the next morning all 185,000 of the troops are found dead.
However, God is not so pleased with Jerusalem, because King David has displeased him (1 Chronicles 21). Satan incites David to number (count) Israel against God's orders. God gives David a choice of punishments (1 Chronicles 21:11012); "Take what you will: either three years of famine; or three months of devastation by your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days of the Lord destroying throughout all the territory of Israel." David opts not to be punished by his mortal enemies. God sends the pestilence and the destroying angel, stretched between heaven and earth, ready to smite Jerusalem with his sword, and begs for mercy. The angel instructs him to set up an altar. David does so, and offers a sacrifices to God. The Lord accepts, and orders the angel to stay his hand.
One of the best-known accounts is that of the destroying angel who slaughters the first born of Egypt in the Passover, recounted in Exodus 12:18-30. God warns the Israelites held captive in Egypt that he will pass judgment on the land. The faithful are told to smear blood on their lintels and doorposts as a sign. At midnight on the appointed night, the destroying angel sweeps over Egypt and kills the firstborn of man and beast in every household except those houses whose lintels have been marked by blood.
In Job 2, Satan again functions as an angel of destruction when God, seeking to test Job's faith as a righteous man, delivers Job into Satan's hands. Satan smites Job with "loathsome sores" (boils) all over his body, but Job only curses the day of his birth, and not God. Eventually, God restores Job to favor and rewards him with prosperity.
Punishing angels appear in the New Testament as well. In Matthew 13, Jesus goes out into a boat and addresses a large crowd on short, speaking in parables. In 13:47-50, he describes the kingdom of Heaven as like a net thrown into the sea, which gathers every kind of fish. Fishermen must sort out the good from the bad. "So it will be at the close of the age," he explains. "The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth."
Acts 12tells of the punishment of King Herod. Herod is angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. A group of them come to him and ask him for peace, because their people depend on his country for food. Herod dons his royal robes, ascends his throne and delivers an oration to them. They cry out, "The voice of a god and not of man." (Acts 12:22). Acts 12:23: "Immediately an angel of the Lord smote him, because he did not give God the glory; and he was eaten by worms and died."
Revelation, a vision of the end of times, is filled with angels of destruction who obliterate sinners. Revelation 8 describes seven angels who blow their trumpets, raining down upon the earth hail and fire mixed with blood, turning part of the sea into blood, dimming the sun, moon and stars and wreaking tremendous havoc. A host of angels unleash pestilence, plagues, searing fires and earthquakes upon the earth. The angels promise to torture with fire and sulphur anyone who worships "the beast" (the Devil). The author of the Revelation is assured that Jesus has sent his angel to reveal the prophecies, and to remind people that he is "coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay everyone for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Revelation 22:12-13)
The concept of angels of destruction conflicts with certain modern and popular ideas about angels as beings solely of goodness, protection and beneficence. The body of eary lore on angels presents them as neither intrinsically "good" nore "bad," but as capable of acting out in either "good" or "bad." Angels are charged with carrying out the instruction of God, whether they be to reward or punish. The New Testament gives us the concept of evil, or "fallen" angels, thrust out of Haven and into hell; these became synonymous with Demons, malicious beings which exist in all mythologies.
