Jophiel

Jophiel appears in Jewish pseudepigraphal and mystical corpora and later in Christian and occult angelologies rather than in a single narrative origin myth. The Revelation of Moses (pseudepigraphal) names Jophiel (also called Dina) as an angel of the seventh heaven, a guardian of the Torah and wisdom who taught seventy languages to souls at the dawn of creation. The Zohar, produced in the milieu of medieval Kabbalah, lists Jophiel as a Great Angel Chief who commands legions and supervises Torah-reading on the Sabbath. Early modern ceremonial and magical texts (for example, listings in works cited by the Calendarium Naturale Magicum Perpetuum and variants of the Key of Solomon) adapt Jophiel into correspondential systems (notably associated with the Sephira Binah) and into planetary/zodiacal attributions in the writings of authors such as Agrippa, Paracelsus, and Rudd.

Canonical textual sources provide little consistent literal description; instead iconography and literature shape Jophiel’s visual image. Medieval and later Christian church windows and murals commonly depict Jophiel as an angelic figure often holding a flaming sword (examples cited in stained glass at St Michael's Church, Brighton; St Peter and St John's Church, Kirkley; Holy Trinity Church, Coventry; and a mural at St. John's Episcopal Church, Memphis). John Milton’s Paradise Lost characterizes the archangel as 'the cherubim with the swiftest wings,' reflecting literary imaginings of great swiftness and beauty. General angelological conventions (humanlike beauty, wings, halo, radiance) are applied to Jophiel in artistic contexts, but no single canonical anthropomorphic description is provided in the mystical or pseudepigraphal texts cited.

Across the cited sources Jophiel functions as a high celestial officer with pedagogic, custodial, and supervisory powers. The Revelation of Moses credits Jophiel/Dina with teaching seventy languages to souls and guarding the Torah and wisdom. The Zohar assigns Jophiel command over many legions (the Zohar names eighty-three or, as summarized, fifty-three legions in various listings) and the role of superintendence over Torah-readings on the Sabbath. Later occult and Kabbalistic systems place Jophiel in correspondence with the Sephira Binah and various planetary/zodiacal attributions (Agrippa assigns Saturn; Paracelsus assigns Jupiter; Rudd links Jophiel with the Zodiac), which integrates the angel into ritual and astrological frameworks where the name functions as an operative power to be invoked or stationed by practitioners. Artistic depictions of Jophiel with a flaming sword indicate a guardian or martial aspect in devotional imagery, though the supplied texts do not elaborate combative powers beyond iconographic signaling.