Product Code Database
In the Hebrew Bible, the name Azazel (; ʿĂzāʾzēl) represents a desolate place where a scapegoat bearing the sins of the Jews was sent during Yom Kippur. During the late Second Temple period (after the closure of the Hebrew Bible canon), Azazel came to be viewed as a fallen angel responsible for introducing humans to forbidden knowledge, as described in the Book of Enoch. His role as a fallen angel partly remains in Christianity and traditions.
In older English versions, such as the King James Version, the phrase la-azazel is translated as "as a scapegoat"; however, in most modern English Bible translations, it is represented as a name in the text: A baraita, apparently interpreting ʿazazel as ʿaz (rugged) + El (God), understands it to refer to the rugged and rough mountain cliff from which the goat was cast down.Yoma 67b; Sifra, Aḥare, ii. 2; Targ. Yer. Lev. xiv. 10, and most medieval commentatorsFor a delineation of the various Rabbinic opinions here, see R. Aryeh Kaplan's note on "Azazel" (Lev 16:8).
Wilhelm Gesenius translated the name עזלזל as something akin to "the averter", which he supposed to have first referred to an idol, before being lent to a demon in the Enochian texts. However, neither this demon nor the root עזל are attested.
Following the Septuagint, the Vulgate,16:8 mittens super utrumque sortem unam Domino et alteram capro emissario Martin Luther3 Mose 16:8 German: Luther (1545) Und soll das Los werfen über die zween Böcke, ein Los dem HERRN und das andere dem ledigen Bock. and the King James Version also give readings such as Young's Literal Translation: "And Aaron hath given lots over the two goats, one lot for Jehovah, and one lot for a goat of departure'". According to the Peshitta, Azazel is rendered Za-za-e'il "strong one against/of God" in Syriac language. The Pesher on the Periods A (4Q180) reads, "on Azazel (some read Uzael) and the angels". If the name is in fact Azazel's, it is spelled עזזאל, equivalent to the Peshitta's version.D.J. Stökl in Sacrifice in Religious Experience ed. Albert I. Baumgarten p. 218 The Targum Neofiti reads עזזל, without the aleph.
This prayer was responded to by the congregation present. A man was selected, preferably a priest, to take the goat to the precipice in the wilderness; and he was accompanied part of the way by the most eminent men of Jerusalem. Ten booths had been constructed at intervals along the road leading from Jerusalem to the steep mountain. At each one of these the man leading the goat was formally offered food and drink, which he, however, refused. When he reached the tenth booth those who accompanied him proceeded no further, but watched the ceremony from a distance. When he came to the precipice he divided the scarlet thread into two parts, one of which he tied to the rock and the other to the goat's horns, and then pushed the goat down ( Yoma 6:1–8). The cliff was so high and rugged that before the goat had traversed half the distance to the plain below, its limbs were utterly shattered. Men were stationed at intervals along the way, and as soon as the goat was thrown down the precipice, they signaled to one another by means of kerchiefs or flags, until the information reached the high priest, whereat he proceeded with the other parts of the ritual.
makes a symbolic allusion to the scarlet thread, and the Talmud states (ib. 39a) that during the forty years that Simeon the Just was High Priest of Israel the thread actually turned white as soon as the goat was thrown over the precipice. This was construed as a sign that the sins of the people were forgiven. In later times the change to white was not invariable: the absence of an observed change in color was taken as proof of the people's moral and spiritual deterioration, which gradually increased until forty years before the destruction of the [[Second Temple]] (l.c. 39b).
Maimonides (1134–1204) in his Guide for the Perplexed says that as sins cannot be taken off one's head and transferred elsewhere, the ritual is symbolic, enabling the penitent to discard his sins: "These ceremonies are of a symbolic character and serve to impress man with a certain idea and to lead him to repent, as if to say, 'We have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, cast them behind our backs and removed them from us as far as possible'."Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 3:46, via Internet Sacred Text Archive
The rite, resembling, on one hand, the sending off of the basket with the woman embodying wickedness to the land of Shinar in the vision of Zechariah (), and, on the other, the letting loose of the living bird into the open field in the case of the leper healed from the plague (), was, indeed, viewed by the people of Jerusalem as a means of ridding themselves of the sins of the year. So would the crowd, called Babylonians or Alexandrians, pull the goat's hair to make it hasten forth, carrying the burden of sins away with it (Yoma vi. 4, 66b; "Epistle of Barnabas", vii), and the arrival of the shattered animal at the bottom of the valley of the rock of Bet Ḥadudo, twelve miles away from the city, was signalized by the waving of shawls to the people of Jerusalem, who celebrated the event with boisterous hilarity and amid dancing on the hills (Yoma vi. 6, 8; Ta'an. iv. 8). Evidently the figure of Azazel was an object of general fear and awe rather than, as has been conjectured, a foreign product or the invention of a late lawgiver. More as a demon of the desert, it seems to have been closely interwoven with the mountainous region of Jerusalem.
English versions, such as the King James Version, followed the Septuagint and Vulgate in understanding the term as relating to a goat. The modern English Standard Version provides the footnote "16:8 The meaning of Azazel is uncertain; possibly the name of a place or a demon, traditionally a scapegoat; also verses 10, 26". Most scholars accept the indication of some kind of demon or deity,Wright, David P. "Azazel." Pages 1:536–37 in Anchor Bible Series. Edited by David Noel Freedman et al. New York: Doubleday, 1992. however Judit M. Blair notes that this is an argument without supporting contemporary text evidence.Judit M. Blair De-demonising the Old Testament: An Investigation of Azazel, Lilith, Deber p. 23–24
Ida Zatelli (1998)Ida Zatelli, "The Origin of the Biblical Scapegoat Ritual: The Evidence of Two Eblaite Texts", Vetus Testamentum 48.2 (April 1998):254–263) has suggested that the Hebrew ritual parallels pagan practice of sending a scapegoat into the desert on the occasion of a royal wedding found in two ritual texts in archives at Ebla (24th C. BC). A she-goat with a silver bracelet hung from her neck was driven forth into the wasteland of 'Alini' by the community.David Pearson Wright, . Scholars Press, University of Michigan, 1987. There is no mention of an "Azazel".Blair p. 21
According to The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Azazel is the Hebrew word for scapegoat. This is the only place that the Hebrew word is found in the whole Hebrew Old Testament. It says that the Book of Enoch, (extra-biblical Jewish theological literature, dated around 200 B.C.) is full of demonology and reference to fallen angels. The EBC (Vol 2) says that this text uses late Aramaic forms for these names which indicates that The Book of Enoch most likely relies upon the Hebrew Leviticus text rather than the Leviticus text being reliant upon the Book of Enoch.
The Book of Enoch brings Azazel into connection with the Biblical story of the fall of the angels, located on Mount Hermon, a gathering-place of the demons of old.Enoch xiii.; compare Brandt, Die mandäische Religion, 1889, p. 38 Here, Azazel is one of the leaders of the rebellious Watchers in the time preceding the Flood; he taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of mail, and taught women the art of deception by ornamenting the body, dyeing the hair, and painting the face and the eyebrows, and also revealed to the people the secrets of witchcraft and corrupted their manners, leading them into wickedness and impurity until at last he was, at Yahweh's command, bound hand and foot by the archangel Raphael and chained to the rough and jagged rocks of Ha Dudael (= Beth Ḥadudo), where he is to abide in utter darkness until the great Last Judgment, when he will be cast into the fire to be consumed forever.Enoch viii. 1, ix. 6, x. 4–6, liv. 5, lxxxviii. 1; see Geiger, Jüdische Zeitschrift 1864, pp. 196–204
According to the Book of Enoch, Azazel (here spelled ‘ăzā’zyēl) was one of the chief Grigori, a group of fallen angels who married women. Many believe that this same story (without any mention of Azazel) is told in the Book of Genesis 6:2–4:
These "sons of God" have often been thought of as fallen angels, and are sometimes equated with the Nephilim. (On the other hand, it has also been argued that the phrase refers only to pious men, or else that it should be translated "sons of the rulers".)
In the Book of Enoch, Azazel is responsible for teaching people to make weapons and cosmetics, for which he was cast out of heaven. The Book of Enoch 8:1–3a reads, "And Azazel taught men to make swords and knives and shields and breastplates; and made known to them the metals of and the art of working them; and bracelets and ornaments; and the use of antimony and the beautifying of the eyelids; and all kinds of costly stones and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways." The corruption brought on by Azazel and the Grigori degrades the human race, and the four (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel) "saw much blood being shed upon the earth and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth ... The souls of men made their suit, saying, 'Bring our cause before the Most High; ... Thou seest what Azazel hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were in heaven, which men were striving to learn. God sees the sin brought about by Azazel and has Raphael "bind Azazel hand and foot and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert – which is in Dudael – and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there forever, and cover his face that he may not see light." Azazel's fate is foretold near the end of Enoch 2:8, where God says, "On the day of Apocalypse he shall be cast into the fire." He will be delivered to the angels of punishments (Satan).
Several scholars have previously discerned that some details of Azazel's punishment are reminiscent of the scapegoat rite. Thus, Lester Grabbe points to a number of parallels between the Azazel narrative in Enoch and the wording of Leviticus 16, including "the similarity of the names Asael and Azazel; the punishment in the desert; the placing of sin on Asael/Azazel; the resultant healing of the land".Andrei Orlov (2009), " Azazel as the Celestial Scapegoat". An excerpt (pp. 79-111) from his contribution "The Eschatological Yom Kippur in the Apocalypse of Abraham: Part I: The Scapegoat Ritual" to A. Orlov and B. Lourié, eds., Symbola Caelestis. Le symbolisme liturgique et paraliturgique dans le monde Chrétien. Daniel Stökl also observes that "the punishment of the demon resembles the treatment of the goat in aspects of geography, action, time and purpose." Thus, the place of Asael's punishment designated in Enoch as Dudael is reminiscent of the rabbinic terminology used for the designation of the ravine of the scapegoat in later rabbinic interpretations of the Yom Kippur ritual. Stökl remarks that "the name of place of judgment ( Dudael) is conspicuously similar in both traditions and can likely be traced to a common origin."
Azazel in 1 Enoch has been compared to Greek mythology Titan Prometheus. He might be a demonized counterpart of a heavenly creature, who provided knowledge for people to make weapons, thus causing bloodshed and injustice. The latter might be identified with Greek kings and generals, who suppressed the Jews with military forces, but learned how to make their weapons by this specific expelled creature.George W. E. Nickelsburg. "Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6-11". Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 96, no. 3, 1977, pp. 383–405
In the fifth-century 3 Enoch, Azazel is one of the three angels (Azza Shemhazai and Uzza Ouza are the other two) who opposed Enoch's high rank when he became the angel Metatron. Whilst they were fallen at this time they were still in Heaven, but Metatron held a dislike for them, and had them cast out.
Abraham elsewhere says that the wicked will "putrefy in the belly of the crafty worm Azazel, and be burned by the fire of Azazel's tongue" (Abraham 31:5) and, to Azazel himself, "May you be the firebrand of the furnace of the earth! Go, Azazel, into the untrodden parts of the earth. For your heritage is over those who are with you" (Abraham 14:5–6).
The implicit notion is that God's heritage (the created world) is largely under the dominion of evil – i.e., it is "shared with Azazel" (Abraham 20:5), who is arguably identified with the devil (whom Jesus called "the prince of this world"). ( NIV)
In the Apocalypse of Abraham
In the Biblical canon text the Apocalypse of Abraham (1st century CE), Azazel appears as an unclean bird who came down upon the sacrifice which Abraham prepared. (This is in reference to Genesis 15:11: "Birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away"
See also
|
|
