they
were guardians of those born on those days or during those months, was
the result of many factors. The belief in the existence of angels is
present in all parts of the Bible, but in the earlier portions they are
not individualized in any way. The angel of God, or of the Lord (malach Elohim or malach Yahveh) was simply a messenger of God, employed to communicate his will or else to accomplish some act of divine justice.
It
is quite possible that the greater prominence given to angels among the
Jews after the Babylonian Captivity was not solely dependent upon
Babylonian or Persian influence. "We learn from the historical and
prophetical books of the Old Testament that the Jews had, from the
earliest times, worshipped other gods besides the God of Israel, and
were ever ready to assimilate the religious superstitions of the
heathen world. Several of the divinities that were worshipped in
Babylonia and Assyria were also objects of adoration in Israel, not
indeed by the chosen spirits of the nation from whom we receive our
records, but by the masses of the people. This very fact, however,
served in a certain sense to maintain the purity of the national
religion. As the superstitious inclinations of the populace were so
fully satisfied from without, there was no necessity to develop or
distort the national religion in this direction. The Babylonian
Captivity changed all this. It was the élite of the
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