The angel said to me: 2[“A braham!” A nd I said: “Here am I, thy servant.” And h e said: “Know from henceforth that the Eternal One hath chosen thee, (He) whom thou lovest; be of good courage and use this authority, so far as I bid thee, against him who slandereth truth; 3 should I not b e ab l e to put him to shame who hath s cat t ered over the earth the secrets of heaven 4 and h ath rebelled 5 against t h e M i g h t y One?6]7 Say to him: ‘Be thou the burning coal of the Furnace of the earth;8 go,

Azazel, into the inaccessible parts of the earth;9[for thy heritage is ( t o be) over those existing with t hee being born with th e stars and clouds,10 with the men whose portion thou art, and (w h o) t h r o ug h t hy b ei n g exist;11 and thine enmity is justification. On this account by thy perdition disappear from m e.” A n d

Azazel has thus lost his “garment of life,” o r robe of immortality, and become mortal, while A braham gains it. S, Abraham. Cf. John viii. 44 (“h e [th e Dev il] is a liar and the father thereof”). Satan—here Azazel—is par excellence “the slanderer” (Ò *4V$@8@H), “he who slandereth truth.” The fallen ang el s ( 1 E noch vii., lxix. 6 ff.), and especially Azazel (1 Enoch viii. 1), are represented as having brought moral ruin upon the earth by teaching men t h e use of m agic, astrology, and science (including the use of warlike weapons). A close parallel to ou r t ext exists in 1 Enoch ix. 6: “See what Azazel hath done, how h e hath taught all unrigh teousness on earth and revealed th e s ecret things of the world which were wrought in the heavens.” So Samm ael, “th e great prin ce in heaven,” is reproach e d b y the Torah for rebellion against God (Pirke de R. Eliezer xiii.: “Th e T or ah b egan to cry aloud saying: Why, O Sammael! now that the world is created, is it the time to rebel against the Omnipresent? Is it like a time when thou shouldest lift up thyself on high (Job xxxix. 18)?”). Thus the two chief sins of Azazel consist in “scattering the secrets of heaven upon the earth,” and in devising rebellion against the Most High. = probably LXX. Ò ÊFPLD`H (Heb. h~ ’‘l); see chap. viii. note1. Kohler suggests Heb. ’abâr, “Mighty One” (of Jacob), Gen. xlix. 24 (LXX, Ò *L<VFJ0H), Is. xlix. 26 (LXX, ÆFPbH). Bracketed clause attested by A K, omitted by S. Azazel is condemned to be in h imself the fire of Hell; cf. xxxi. (“burnt w i t h th e fire of Azazel’s tongue”). Thus wherever he goes he, as it were, carries Hell with him—a conception tha t ap p e ar s t o b e peculiar to our Apocalypse in early apocalyptic literature (cf. Volz, p. 291). i. e. i n t o t hose parts of the earth reserved for him till the fin al judgement. In 1 Enoch x. 4 Azazel is condemned to be bound and placed in Dudâêl, i n t h e d es er t, and there to be imprisoned in darkness till the final judgement. This expression is obscure. It apparently refers to the m e n w h o b el o ng (? by birth) to Azazel, whose lot h as been pre-determin ed (see next note). The wicked are Azazel’s “portion,” i.e. they h av e been assigned to him from the beginning. The idea seems to be predestinarian; cf. Wisdom ii. 24 (“by the envy of the devil death entered into th e world, an d they that are his portion make trial thereof”), Ap. Bar. xlii. 7 (“for corruption will take th ose th at belong to it, and l i f e t h o s e t h a t b elon g to it”); 1 En och xli. 8. [Does the phrase in the previous clause, “being born with the stars and clouds,” mean those who by birth and creation belong to the s phere of night and darkness, as opposed to the righteous, who belong to t h e re al m o f l ig h t? See 1 Enoch xli. 8 and Charles’s note.]

I uttered the words which the an gel had taught me. And he said: “Abraham!” And I said: “Here am I, thy servant.” ]1

And the angel said to me: “Answer him not; for God hath given him power (lit. will) over those who do answer him.”2 [And the angel spake to me a second time and said: “Now rath er, however much he speak to thee, answer him not, that his will may have no free cours e i n t h ee, because the Eternal and Mighty One h at h given him 3weight and will;3 answer h im not.” I did what was commanded me by the angel;]4 and however much he spake to me, I answered him 5nothing

whatsoever.5 Abraham and the Angel ascend on the Wings of the Birds to Heaven (Chapters XV.-XVI.).