Sandalphon

Sandalphon does not appear in the canonical scriptures; he emerges in later rabbinic, midrashic, and Kabbalistic writings. Some early sources and later summaries identify him as the prophet Elijah transfigured and risen to angelic status, and other traditions pair or compare him with Metatron (sometimes described as a twin or overlapping figure). His name and attributes are discussed in medieval and later mystical texts rather than in biblical narrative.

Descriptions vary across sources but commonly emphasize prodigious height: later rabbinic material says his head reaches Heaven (Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 13b) and traditions compare his stature to other towering heavenly figures (e.g., exceeding Hadraniel by a '500-year foot journey'). He is also linked to the merkavah wheel imagery and is called Ophan ("wheel"), and some ritual-theurgical sources (e.g., the Greater Key of Solomon as cited in secondary summaries) describe him as a left-hand feminine cherub of the Ark of the Covenant. Overall, sources present differing iconography but repeatedly note extreme size and occasional wheel/cherubic associations.

Sources attribute to Sandalphon the gathering of human prayers and conveying them to God—he is explicitly credited in Sukkot liturgy with making a garland of prayers and adjuring them to ascend as an orb to the King of Kings. He is named a Hazzan (master of heavenly song) and is described in the Zohar as 'chief of the Seventh Heaven.' In Kabbalistic schema he represents the sephirah Malkuth and appears before the Shekhinah. Other attributions in the mystical corpus include acting in embryonic formation (bringing about differentiation of sex in the embryo) and engaging in a ceaseless struggle with Samael, analogous to Michael's opposition to that adversarial figure. Comparative commentary in the sources notes affinities of his towering stature with figures like Israfil and Typhon.