Hadraniel is associated with the legends of Moses’s ascent to receive the Torah. Louis Ginzberg’s The Legends of the Jews, volume III, uses the spelling Hadarniel for the formidable angel who challenges Moses and then becomes his guide.
Meeting Moses in heaven
In Ginzberg’s account, Moses first encounters Kemuel, the porter who tries to prevent his passage. After overcoming that obstacle, Moses meets Hadarniel. The angel is described as towering above his fellows, with fiery lightning flashes issuing from each word.
Hadarniel’s challenge terrifies Moses, who weeps and almost falls from the cloud carrying him. God rebukes the angelic opposition and explains that Moses has been invited to receive the Torah for Israel. On learning this, Hadarniel offers to go before Moses as a disciple before a master.
A guide with limits
Hadarniel accompanies Moses as far as the fire of Sandalfon, the spelling Ginzberg uses for Sandalphon. At that point the guide can proceed no farther without being scorched. The narrative thus makes a powerful angel subordinate to God’s purpose while also showing limits to his access within heaven.
Ginzberg presents a scholarly retelling assembled from Jewish legendary sources. It is evidence for this version of the Moses story, rather than a verbatim translation of one named midrash. The cited episode supports the encounter, rebuke and guidance; it does not itself identify Hadarniel as the ruler of a numbered heaven. A full comparison with other spellings and mystical catalogues requires their own passages rather than attaching every similar name to this story.
Hadriel in later reference works
Davidson’s A Dictionary of Angels (1967), p. 132, includes Hadriel among the forms of Hadraniel. Its separate Hadriel entry also compares the name with Pusiel in a report about the Revelation of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi. This is an explicit later-reference connection, rather than a claim that every use of the names is interchangeable.
Schwab’s Vocabulaire de l’angélologie (1897), p. 109, lists Hadri El and Hadarni El as separate headwords. Among the offices it reports for Hadri El is an eastern heavenly gatekeeper assignment, citing Sefer Raziel. These lexicon notices remain distinct from the Hadarniel episode in Ginzberg’s Moses-ascent narrative above; they do not amount to direct inspection of every work cited by Schwab.
Explore related entries
Read Kemuel, Sandalphon, Zagzagel, the angel names A–Z index, or the guide to source traditions.