The implication is that angels, as created beings in service to God, therefore spoke Hebrew.Īlong with the book of Jubilees, the notion that Hebrew was the language of angels is witnessed in the Dead Sea Scroll 4Q464. In fact, the author of this work apparently believed “God used Hebrew to call the universe into existence every living creature originally spoke Hebrew.” This included animals: on the day God expelled Adam and Eve from Eden, “the mouth of all the beasts and cattle and birds and whatever walked or moved was stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak with one another with one speech and one language” (Jubilees 3:29). This passage along with other elements in Jubilees suggests that the original language in Eden was Hebrew. And he studied them (in) the six months of rain. And I caused him to know everything which he was unable (to understand). And he took his father’s books-and they were written in Hebrew-and he copied them. In Jubilees 12:25–27, the claim is put forth that Hebrew was the original language of creation and that when God called Abraham out of Ur he needed to be supernaturally enabled to understand it:Īnd the LORD God said to me, “Open his mouth and his ears so that he might hear and speak with his mouth in the language which is revealed because it ceased from the mouth of all of the sons of men from the day of the Fall.” And I opened his mouth and his ears and his lips and I began to speak with him in Hebrew, in the tongue of creation. The first of these texts is from the book of Jubilees, created in the mid-second century BC. The idea that angels spoke Hebrew-and that this is the notion upon which Paul draws in 1 Corinthians 13:1-is based almost entirely on two Second Temple texts. After the fifth century, Jewish writings reflected more openness to the older, esoteric language perspective. Before the fifth century AD, the rabbinic community was of a different mind-that angels spoke Hebrew, the language of God according to the rabbis.

As early as the Second Temple period, Jewish apocalyptic texts bear witness to the notion that angels have their own esoteric language. Scholarly consideration has vacillated between two alternative explanations, both of which have ancient roots.

What did the apostle mean by “tongues of angels”? First Corinthians 13 begin, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels.” Paul’s introductory line to this famous and beloved passage has engendered much curiosity and controversy.

Angels by michael heiser