Indeed, his role expands so dramatically in later midrash that he dominates all angels , although often he is accompanied by Michael, Uriel, and others in marvelous exploits. In Islam Gabriel is revered for having dictated the Koran to Mohammed. In George Eliot's narrative poem The Death of Moses, based on haggadic Jewish sources, Gabriel does not have the heart to carry the soul of Moses to God when commanded to do so. Gabriel the seraph had come to the virgin's chamber. He is parodied as an ineffectual suitor in Katherine Anne Porter's Old Mortality , where Amy has kept her second cousin, Gabriel, waiting for five years.
Traditions are what traditions are.
The Bible is always the last word. Here then is the biblical Gabriel as he appears in the word of God. Each of these appearances, in both the Old Testament and New Testament, is connected in some way with the promise of Immanuel, the coming Messiah. God thinks highly of you, and at the very moment you started praying, I was sent to give you the answer. God has decided that for seventy weeks, your people and your holy city must suffer as the price of their sins.