Acts 12:15

OLBGrk;

Thou art mad; thou speakest thou knowest not what; thinking her, out of fear, to have been discomposed in her mind. It is his angel: some have thought, that by Peter's angel no other was meant than some messenger from Peter, which they might expect from him in such a case as he was in; now though aggelov (the word here) signifies a messenger or an angel, indifferently, yet how could Rhoda then know it to have been Peter's voice? A messenger's voice being no more like his that sent him than another man s. They did, probably mean some angel that had assumed Peter's shape, and imitated his voice: and the Jews having had a constant opinion, that at least every good man hath a guardian angel which God appoints to him for a means of his preservation, might be apt to imagine that this was that angel whose charge St. Peter was, Matthew 18:10. Though that angel spoken of, Genesis 48:16, most probably was the angel of the new covenant, and not a created angel, being Jacob blesseth in his name; yet the opinion of tutelar angels, though not certain or needful, is to this day thought probable.