Raguel the Angel (Ῥαγουήλ, Rhagouēl). One of several angels in the pseudepigraphal book of 1 Enoch who help Enoch understand what he is seeing during his travels.

In 1 Enoch 21–36, several angels (six in the Ethiopic text, seven in the Greek text) help Enoch understand what he is seeing as he travels to different locations. 1 Enoch 20 provides a list of the names and duties of these angels, introducing them as “the holy angels who watch” (1 Enoch 20:1). Tuschling notes that the title “Watchers” appears in other intertestamental texts and usually refers to fallen angels. However, he argues that the “watchers” of 1 Enoch 20 are “an exalted class of angels” (Tuschling, Angels and Orthodoxy, 89–91).

1 Enoch 20:4 specifies that Raguel is the angel who “takes vengeance on the world of the luminaries.” Two proposed meanings for the name “Raguel” include “friend of God” and “shepherd of God” (see Davidson, Angels at Qumran, 92n1). Davidson notes that the Raguel and Uriel were responsible for “cosmological phenomena,” and the rest of these angels dealt with “eschatological issues” (Davidson, Angels at Qumran, 77).

Raguel has an active role in two accounts in 1 Enoch:

• In 1 Enoch 23:1–14 Raguel offers an explanation for a fire that Enoch sees ceaselessly following a path: “This course of fire that is toward the west is the fire chasing away all the luminaries of heaven” (1 Enoch 23:4 LES).

• 1 Enoch 87:2–4, which is part of the “Animal Apocalypse” (1 Enoch 85–90), seemingly refers to Raguel indirectly with its reference to three “beings like white men.” These three beings—who are likely Raguel, Saraqael, and Remiel (Davidson, Angels at Qumran, 97–98)—place Enoch upon a high place from which he can observe humanity’s disobedience before the flood and the events that ensue, which the narrative portrays symbolically with animals.