MICHAEL (mirka-e1), (Heb. mee-kaw ale', who is like God ?).
1. The name given to one oi the chief angels, who, in Dan. x :13-21, is described as having special charge of the Israelites as a nation ; and in Jude 9, as disputing with Satan about the body of Moses, in which dispute, instead of bring ing against the arch enemy any railing accusa tion, he only said, 'The Lord rebuke thee, 0 Satan !' Again, in Rev. xii :7-9, Michael and his angels are represented as warring with Satan and his angels in the nfifier regions (tv .3-4; ot)pas4), from which the latter are cast down upon the earth. This is all the reference to Michael which we find in the Bible.
The passages in Daniel and Revelation must be taken as symbolical, and in that view offer little difficulty. The allusion in Jude 9 is more difficult to understand, unless, with Vitringa, Lardner, Macknight, and others, we regard it also as symbolical; in which case the dispute referred to is that indicated in Zech. iii :1; and 'the body of Moses' is a symbolical phrase for the Mosaical law and institutions. (See JuDAs oR JuDE.) A comparison of Jude 9 with Zech. iii gives much force and probability to this conjecture.
2. A man of Asher and father of Sethur, who was sent to spy out the land of Canaan (Num. xiii :13), B. C. before 1657.
3. Son of Izrahiah, a descendant of Issachar, of the house of Uzzi (i Chron. vii :3), B. C. after 1618.
4. A Benjamite, descendant of Elpaal through Beriah (i Chron. viii :16), B. C. after t612.
5. A chief Gadite, son of Abihail, who settled in Bashan (1 Chron. v :13), B. C. after Io93.
6. A Gadite ancestor of Abihail (I Chron. v: 14), B. C. before 782.
7. One of the captains of Manasseh who came to David at Ziklag (I Chron. xii :2o), B. C. io53.
8. A Levite, father of Shimea, of the house of Gershon, and an ancestor of Asaph (I Chron. vi :4o), B. C. before To14 9. Father of Omri, which latter was captain of the people of Issachar in the reign of David and Solomon (i Chron. xxvii :18), B. C. before 1014.
10. Son of Jehoshaphat, slain by Jehoram (2 Chron. xxi :2), B. C. 887.
11. A descendant of Shephatiah; his son, Zeba diah, returned from Babylon with a company of eighty males (Ezra viii :8), B. C. 459.
BlICH.A-11 (mi'kah), (i Chron. xxiv:24,25). See MICAH, 4.