URIEL yŏŏr’ ĭ əl (אוּרִיאֵ֣ל, El [God] is light). 1. A prominent Levite from the family of Kohath who helped to bring the Ark of the covenant from the house of Obed-edom to Jerusalem. The Ark had originally been placed at Shiloh, from whence it had been stolen by the Philistines, and then finally came to rest in the home of Obed-edom near Kirjathjearim. The return was accomplished with much singing and dancing both by the priests and by David.

2. A man of Gibeah, whose daughter Micaiah was the mother of Abijah, king of Judah.

3. One of the four angels mentioned in Enoch 9:1. The others are Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. Uriel appears in a number of places in the Book of Enoch. Uriel was sent to tell Noah that the earth would be destroyed by a deluge (Enoch 10:1). He described the angels who had led men into false worship (19:1), and was assigned to watch over the world and Tartarus (20:2). He prophesied to Enoch that the fallen angels (stars) would be bound and punished for 10,000 years (21:5ff.), and that those who said unseemly things about the Lord would be punished in “the accursed valley” (27:2). He instructed Enoch in the names of the stars, their positions and movements according to their months (33:4), and told him about the courses of the heavenly luminaries, their relations to each other, and how they regulate the time and condition of the world (72:1); he discussed the lunar year (74:2) and the movements of the moon (75:3, 4; 78:10; 79:6; 80:1). Uriel is mentioned also in 2 Esdras 4:1, 5:20ff., 10:28. He rebuked Esdras for questioning the ways of God by propounding questions that have no answers.

In later lit., Uriel appears as the angel who helped to bring Adam and Abel into Paradise, and as the angel who wrestled with Jacob.