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366 Azazel

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Azban

Most modern scholars, after having i'or some time indorsed the old view, have accepted the opinion mysteriously hinted at by Ibn Ezra and expressly stated by Nahmanides to Lev. xvi, 8, that mentators).

Azazel belongs to the class of "se'irim," goat-like demons, jinn haunting the desert, to which the Israelites were wont to offer sacrifice (Lev. xvii. 7 [A. V. "devils "] compare "the roes and the hinds," Cant, ii. 7, iii. 5), by which Sulamith administers an oath to the daughters of Jerusalem as if thinking of a

Roman

faun.

Far from involving the recognition of Azazel as a deity, the

sending of the goat was, as stated by Nahmanides, a symbolic expression of

Azazel

the idea that the people's sins and their evil consequences were to be sent back to the spirit of desolation and Impurity, ruin, the source of all impurity. The very fact that the two goats were presented before Ynwn before the one was sacrificed and the other sent into the wilderness, was proof that Azazel was not ranked with Yiiwfi, but regarded simply as the personification of wickedness in contrast with the righteous government of Yhwh. The rite, resembling, on the one hand, the sending off of the epha with the woman embodying wickedness in its midst to the land of Shinar in the vision of Zachariah (v. 6-11), 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 (Lev. xiv. 7), 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. "Epistle of Barnabas," vii.), and the arrival 4, 66* of the shattered animal at the bottom of the valley of the rock of Bet Hadudo, 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 Ta'an. iv. 8). Evidently the hills (Yoma vi. 6, 8 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. Nay, more as a demon of the desert, it seems to have been closely interwoven with the mountainous region of Jerusalem and of ancient pre-Israelitish origin. This is confirmed by the Book of Enoch, which brings Azazel into connection with the Biblical story of the fall of the angels, located, Leader obviously in accordance with ancient folk-lore, on Mount Hermon as a sort of the Rebellious of an old Semitic Blocksberg, a gathering-place of demons from of old Angels. (Enoch xiii. compare Brandt, " Man-

Personification of



366

the Lord's command, bound hand and foot by the archangel Raphael and chained to the rough and jagged rocks of [Ha] Duduael (= Beth Hadudo), where he is to abide in utter darkness until the great Day of Judgment, when he will be cast into the fire to be consumed forever (Enoch viii. 1, ix. 6, x. 4-6, 5, lxxxviii. 1; see Geiger, "Jlid. Zeit." 1864, The story of Azazel as the seducer pp. 196-204). of men and women was familiar also to the rabbis, as may be learned from Tanna d. b. R. Yishma'el: " The Azazel goat was to atone for the wicked deeds of 'Uzza and 'Azzael, the leaders of the rebellious

liv.

hosts in the time of Enoch " (Yoma 676) and still better from Midrash Abkir, end, Yalk., Gen. 44, where Azazel is represented as the seducer of women, teach;

ing them the art of beautifying the body by dye and paint (compare "Chronicles of Jerahmeel," According to Pirke R. trans, by Gaster, xxv. 13). El. xlvi. (comp. Tos. Meg. 31a), the goat is offered to

Azazel as a bribe that he who is identical with Samael or Satan should not by his accusations prevent the atonement of the sins on that day. The fact that Azazel occupied a place in Mandssan, Sabean, and Arabian mythology (see Brandt, "Jlandaische Theologie," pp. 197, 198; Norberg's "Onomasticon," p. 31; Reland's"De Religione

medanarum,"

Kamus,

p. 89;

s.v.

Moham-

"Azazel" [demon

with Satan] Delitzsch, " Zeitsch. f Kirchl, Wissensch. u. Leben," 1880, p. 182), renders it probable that Azazel was a degraded Babylonian deity. Origen ("Contra Celsum," vi. 43) identifies Azazel with Satan; Pirke R. El. (I.e.) with Samael; and the Zohar Ahare Mot, following Nahmanides, with the spirit of Esau or heathenism; still, while one of the chief demons in the Cabala, he never attained in the doctrinal system of Judaism a position simSee articles Atonement and ilar to that of Satan. identical

.



Atonement, Day

or.

Kalish, Coram, on Leviticus, ii. 293 et seq., 326 et seq.; Cheyne, Dictionary of the Bible; Hastings, Diet. Bibl., Eiehm, H. W. B. ; Hauck, B. E. ; Winer, B. B.

Bibliography

Hamburger, B. B.

T.

i.

s.v.







Azazel is repredaische Theologie," 1889, p. 38). sented in the Book of Enoch as the leader of the rebellious giants in the time preceding the flood he taught men the art of warfare, of making swords, knives, shields, and coats of mail, and women the

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 art of deception



In Talmudical Literature



The Rabbis took

the term " Azazel " to be the name of a mountain or precipice in the wilderness from which the goat was thrown down, using for it as an alternative the word "Zok " (pix) (Yoma vi. 4). An etymology is " Azazel " (7TNW) regarded as a compound of "az" The Name, (TJ?), strong or rough, and " el " (^N), mighty, therefore a strong mountain. This derivation is presented by a Baraita, cited Yoma 67b, that Azazel was the strongest of mountains. Another etymology (ib.) connects the word with the mythological "ITza" and "Azael," the fallen angels, to whom a reference is believed to be found In accordance with this etymology, in Gen. vi. 2, 4. the sacrifice of the goat atones for the sin of fornication of which those angels were guilty (Gen. I.e.). Two goats were procured, similar in respect of appearance, height, cost, and time of selection. Having one of these on his right and the The Rite, other on his left (Rashi on Yoma 39«), the high priest, who was assisted in this rite by two subordinates, put both his hands into a wooden case, and took out two labels, one

found to suit

this interpretation. is