8 myths
Myths, legends, and mystical writings about Raphael from across Jewish tradition.
8 myths on JewishMythology.com retell how Jewish tradition imagines raphael, drawn from the Hebrew Bible, Midrash, Talmud, Kabbalah, and later Jewish literature. Each story below synthesizes primary sources into a single narrative; follow any myth to read it, and from there into the source passages behind it.
Tobiyyah offers the man who guided him home half the silver he carried, and the man refuses, then names himself one of the seven.
Tobit prayed for death in Nineveh. Sarah prayed for death in Media. Both prayers reached the throne of glory at once, and one angel answered them both.
Satan built a face no man could resist and set it in the rabbi's doorway, so Matya took white-hot nails and burned out his own eyes.
Raphael walked with Tobias from the Tigris to Ecbatana and back, ate at every table, and never once touched a single bite of food. Then he said what he was.
An angel walked the road to Ecbatana as a hired guide and already knew how the journey would end. The young man beside him did not.
Tobias went looking for a road guide to distant Media and hired a traveler named Azariah, never guessing the man was an angel.
The Testament of Solomon records how Israel's king used a ring from Michael to force demons one by one to confess what they do and what defeats them.
A grieving judge collapses into a trance, is swept past the firmament, and shown the storehouse of unborn souls and the dated day of judgment.
