How accurately can 使い be translated as "angel"?


On jisho.org, 使い is translated with words such as "errand", and the same holds
true on translate.google.com. Neither site is offering "angel" as a
suggestion. Yet in Matthew 1:20, the phrase:

> ・・・主の使いが夢に現れて言った。

is found in English as:

> . . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said . . .

Does it mean "angel" or not? Is the Japanese saying something slightly
different than "God no angel"? Thanks!




使い doesn't mean angel in all contexts, but _does_ mean "messenger/bearer/...".
In particular, the usual word for "angel" is [天使]{てんし} or [天]{てん}の使い =
"messenger from heaven". Here you don't have 天, but 主 "Lord/God".

As snailplane points out in the comments, the phrase "Angel of the Lord"
should appear frequently. Wikipedia
[writes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_the_Lord):

> The **Angel of the Lord** (or the **Angel of God** ) is one of many terms in
> the Hebrew Bible (also: Old Testament) used for an angel. The Biblical name
> for angel, מלאך _malak_ , which translates simply as "messenger," obtained
> the further signification of "angel" only through the addition of God's
> name, as ("angel of the Lord," or "angel of God", Zech. 12:8).

The same in Japanese. 使い translates simply as "messenger" and only obtains the
further signification of "angel" only through the addition of God's name (or
through the honorific prefix [御]{み}, as in ssb's answer). In that sense, the
Japanese 主の使い seems to be faithful to the original Hebrew.




使い refers to someone sent to a specific place to fulfill a certain objective
for someone else. In this purely semantic sense 主の使い would be an angel just
because that's the role it is describing.

[御{み}使い](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BE%A1%E4%BD%BF%E3%81%84) seems to be
the "right" (or at least most direct) translation for angels in a
Christian/biblical sense:

> 御使い（みつかい、 ヘブライ語: מלאך‎、ギリシア語: ἄγγελος）は、使者を意味する語であり、キリスト教で主の使いである

Notice that the definition above uses the term 主の使い itself. It appears that it
is also a standard way to phrase things in a Christian context.

[天使{てんし}](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9%E4%BD%BF) applies more
broadly to the concept of an angel in a faith-agnostic sort of way. 使い on its
own also seems to have roots in Japanese traditional religions as a term for
beings/animals acting as representatives of gods.

