Thoughts on Zechariah

Remember back in those Sunday School days? We kids would try to outdo each other in our Bible knowledge, chiding the ones who foolishly believed that Jesus was born in a manger and sticking up our noses at those who couldn’t pronounce Habakkuk. The subject of angels came up often enough. Movies like It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and Angels in the Outfield (1994) we believed were leading souls astray by equating those heavenly beings with dead people who’d gone to heaven. We’d roll our eyes and declare that angels were always men and never had wings, let alone had to earn them.

Fast forward a good fifteen years later. For some odd reason, every time I’d read through the Bible in my teens and early twenties, I hadn’t noticed the possible implications of a short passage:

Then I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, two women coming forward! The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. - Zechariah 5:9 (ESV)

A couple of years ago, when a woman at church mentioned there were no female angels, I posed the question to her: What are these creatures? She couldn’t answer. I made a suggestion.

Now, you might argue that “angel” (מַּלְאָ֖ךְ in Hebrew, ἄγγελον in the Greek LXX) is used for the messenger with whom the prophet interacts throughout the book. The beings in 5:9 are distinctly described as “women” (נָשִׁ֤ים, γυναῖκες), not “angels.” But recall that many beings we call “angels” are just as distinctly described as “men” (e.g., הָֽאֲנָשִׁ֔ים or ἄνδρες Genesis 18:22, אִישׁ in Daniel 10:5, ἄνδρες in Acts 1:10), without “angel” used in the near vicinity or even at all. Often we read the word into the text, assuming that it’s appropriate.

Now the Jews and the Roman Catholics have organized entire hierarchies of angelic beings according to their perceived natures and roles. I have no idea where these two “women” would fit into them. What is questionable is why Christians feel so strong about there never being female-looking “angels.” The argument I remember hearing as a child was that angels had to appear as men in a patriarchal society in order to be respected. Now as an adult, I see that this fails on multiple points:

1. Human women in positions of authority (at minimum one judge, a number of prophetesses, and a few queens) have the same problem.
2. Strange men don’t automatically earn people’s respect just because they’re male. (Case in point: Luke 1:18).
3. Anyone, regardless of apparent sex or gender, doing supernatural things is going to get people’s attention, including the son of a carpenter from the wrong side of the tracks.
4. Angels obviously have different roles to play.

The final point is the most relevant here. The two “women” seen by Zechariah neither spoke to him nor, to the best of our knowledge, interacted at all with humanity. Only male-looking ones did. No socio-cultural gender boundaries had to be crossed for the beings in 5:9 to get their job done. In other words, I’m puzzled as to why Christians feel so strongly about this controversy over female-looking angels. I just can’t see how it would influence, pro or con, any doctrinal position involving women’s roles and position in the home, church, or abroad.