Published 2026-11-01 · 5 min read
How many times are angels mentioned in the Bible?
The words “angel” and “angels” appear 297 times in 283 verses of the King James Bible: “angel” 203 times and “angels” 94. Revelation has the most (76). Cherubims, seraphims and the archangel are counted separately.
Download the per-verse CSV to check every match yourself. The method file (JSON) lists the rule, the source hash and every result.
How we counted
Rule: whole word, any case, in the verse text of our King James Version file. A letter, digit, underscore or hyphen next to the match disqualifies it, so a form never matches inside a longer word; possessives such as “’s” stay in. An occurrence is one match; a verse counts once however many matches it holds. This is the same rule as our Bible word counter.
| Form | Occurrences | Verses | In the headline |
|---|---|---|---|
| angel | 203 | 194 | yes |
| angels | 94 | 92 | yes |
| Headline total | 297 | 283 |
Verse totals cannot be added across rows: one verse can contain more than one form.
Angel of the LORD, cherubim, seraphim
| Word or phrase (KJV) | Occurrences | Verses | Old Testament | New Testament |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “angel of the lord” | 68 | 64 | 56 | 12 |
| “cherubims” | 65 | 57 | 64 | 1 |
| “cherub” | 30 | 21 | 30 | 0 |
| “seraphims” | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| “archangel” | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
“Angel of the LORD/Lord” is already inside the headline, because it contains “angel”. The cherubim and seraphim rows are separate words and are not added: the KJV spells their plurals “cherubims” and “seraphims”, and seraphims appear only in Isaiah 6. “Archangel” is a separate word (1 Thessalonians 4:16, Jude 1:9).
The source words also mean “messenger”. Hebrew malak and Greek angelos are sometimes translated “messenger” for human messengers, which this count does not include; and a few “angels” are human, such as the angels of the seven churches in Revelation 2–3, depending on interpretation.
Old Testament, New Testament and each book
| Testament | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| Old Testament | 117 | 108 |
| New Testament | 180 | 175 |
| Book (KJV) | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| Revelation | 76 | 72 |
| Luke | 24 | 24 |
| Judges | 23 | 19 |
| Acts | 21 | 21 |
| Zechariah | 20 | 19 |
| Matthew | 19 | 19 |
| Genesis | 15 | 15 |
| Hebrews | 13 | 12 |
| Numbers | 11 | 11 |
| Psalms | 11 | 11 |
Show the other 24 books with at least one match
| Book (KJV) | Occurrences | Verses |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Chronicles | 9 | 7 |
| 2 Samuel | 7 | 5 |
| Exodus | 6 | 6 |
| Mark | 5 | 5 |
| John | 4 | 4 |
| 1 Corinthians | 4 | 4 |
| 1 Kings | 3 | 3 |
| 2 Kings | 3 | 3 |
| Galatians | 3 | 3 |
| Isaiah | 2 | 2 |
| Daniel | 2 | 2 |
| 1 Timothy | 2 | 2 |
| 1 Peter | 2 | 2 |
| 2 Peter | 2 | 2 |
| 1 Samuel | 1 | 1 |
| 2 Chronicles | 1 | 1 |
| Job | 1 | 1 |
| Ecclesiastes | 1 | 1 |
| Hosea | 1 | 1 |
| Romans | 1 | 1 |
| 2 Corinthians | 1 | 1 |
| Colossians | 1 | 1 |
| 2 Thessalonians | 1 | 1 |
| Jude | 1 | 1 |
First: Genesis 16:7. Last: Revelation 22:16. The most in one verse is 3, in 2 Samuel 24:16, 1 Chronicles 21:15. 32 of the 66 books have no match.
Check the count yourself
Open angels-count-audit.csv in a spreadsheet: 283 rows plus a header, one for every verse containing a counted form. The headline_occurrences column sums to 297 (=SUM over it) and has 283 non-zero rows (=COUNTIF(range,">0")). The context_url column opens each verse.
Or recount from scratch. Download count-words.py and run it with Python 3:
python count-words.py --output-dir results
It uses only Python’s standard library, downloads the pinned KJV file, checks its SHA-256 (0c3b8afefa4efaa8bd72576682c8ad060e4ccb499e81943a9678de49ab9416ad) and writes every CSV and the method JSON. The KJV text was imported from aruljohn/Bible-kjv; its exact printing is unknown. Only verse text is counted: no headings, notes or Apocrypha.
To count another word with the same rule, use the Bible word counter.
Read next
Other word counts: fasting, forgiveness, heart, Enoch, Jesus, God and love.