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Revelation 12:7-17King James Version (KJV) 7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels,

How do angels fight?

All Christian, Jewish and Islamic authors accepted. Canonical, mystical etc.

Here are some cases of binding I know of:

Revelation 20New International Version (NIV) The Thousand Years 20 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. 2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. 3

And in Tobit

3 The reek of the fish distressed the demon, who fled through the air to Egypt. Raphael pursued him there, shackled him and strangled him forthwith.

Binding and shackling does seem to be the main way for an angel to deal with an enemy, but are there others? Has an angel ever used a sword for anything but guarding the way to the Tree of Life?

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    In many popular modern renderings, they fight with anything from swords to machine guns.
    – DukeZhou
    Aug 25 '16 at 19:37
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We know that they do, but we do not know how. Take a look here (Isaiah 37:36-38):

36 Then the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies!

185000 Assyrian slain by one angel. But how? Sword? Mace? Magic? Thermonuclear weapon?

And obviously Jacob vs the angel (Genesis 3-24/25):

24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.

25 And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.

A simple touch and Jacob is beaten. But this is the extend of what the Bible says.

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  • There is a Chinese Martial Art known as Dim Mak which utilizes a single touch to disable or injure. [Note: The Wikipedia Entry is extremely hyperbolic, but there are real practitioners of this art, which I suspect formidable, but less lethal than advertised. It's really more to do with exploiting Acupressure points to disable an opponent. The Angel was likely using Dim Mak on Jacob, although joint dislocation usually involves four stiffened fingers as opposed to one.]
    – DukeZhou
    Aug 25 '16 at 19:43
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    @DukeZhou Unless you have evidence that Dim Mak was in use at the time and place this bible passage is written, it is epistemologically risky to claim that this bible passage represents Dim Mak. If your comment was an answer it would be factually inaccurate.
    – user62
    Dec 13 '16 at 18:26
  • @Hamlet I accept your critique. Full disclosure, I was suggesting the angel used Dim Mak in jest, but I do think it's relevant that there does exist a martial art that focuses on such a technique.
    – DukeZhou
    Dec 13 '16 at 20:14
  • @DukeZhou In retrospect I should have worded that comment differently. I wasn't trying to rebuke you, but to warn a beginner reading your comment who might interpret it as claiming that the angel did use Dim Mak. I think Gibert's comment does a good job explaining the pros and cons of such comments. (reposting this comment: my apologies to Gibert for spelling Gibert's name incorrectly).
    – user62
    Dec 13 '16 at 21:37

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