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The Angel Who Learned the Secret Name and Watched Her Ascend

Shemhazai came to earth for a woman who tricked him into revealing God's name, then rose beyond his reach. He has hung between worlds ever since.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Angels Who Demanded a Test
  2. Istehar and the Name She Demanded
  3. What Shemhazai Did With His Guilt
  4. The Penance Between Heaven and Earth

The Angels Who Demanded a Test

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Before the flood, two angels pressed their case before heaven. Shemhazai and Azazel had watched humanity drown in corruption, and they were not inclined to be patient about it. They reminded God that they had warned against creating human beings in the first place. Now the evidence was in front of Him. Every generation more rotten than the last.

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God asked what they would do instead, if they were put down among human flesh, subject to desire, subject to temptation. They answered: \"we would sanctify your name.\" Descend, God said. And He allowed the evil inclination to sway them.

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This was not a trick. It was a demonstration. They had claimed they were better. They needed to find out they were not.

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Istehar and the Name She Demanded

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Shemhazai descended and saw a young woman named Istehar. She was one of the daughters of men the tradition names, beautiful and deliberate, and she understood exactly what he was. He told her what he wanted. She said she would not agree until he taught her the Ineffable Name, the divine name by which angels ascend and descend, the name that is the engine of heaven.

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He taught it to her.

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She spoke it immediately, and rose. Not slowly. Not reluctantly. She rose and was placed among the stars, and God honored what she had done. The seven stars that became the Pleiades are her memorial. She had refused to be corrupted. She had turned the angel's desire into a ladder and climbed it.

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What Shemhazai Did With His Guilt

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Shemhazai's two sons were different. Hiwa and Hiya, the sons he fathered with human women after Istehar was beyond him, dreamed before the flood. In the dream, an angel with a great stone block came down and another angel told them to inscribe every living thing they knew on the face of the stone. They did. Then a third angel came with a knife and erased everything they had written except four letters. When they woke, they understood: a flood was coming. Everything their names touched would be erased.

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They wept. They told their father. Shemhazai wept with them, and what he felt was not grief for himself but something closer to understanding. He had seen the full weight of what he had chosen. He had come to earth claiming he would sanctify the divine name. He had taught it to a woman to satisfy his desire, and she had used it to flee him into the sky, and now his children were weeping because the world that had corrupted him was about to end.

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The Penance Between Heaven and Earth

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Shemhazai repented. The tradition is specific about the form his repentance took: he hung himself between heaven and earth, suspended upside down, and there he remains. Not in heaven, because he fell. Not on earth, because he returned to his guilt. Hanging between the two, visible if you know where to look, a figure of suspended consequence.

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Azazel did not repent. He continued in his corruption and taught human beings the arts of war and beauty and vanity, and the tradition treats his case as closed in a different way. His guilt was bound to the rocks of a wilderness on the Day of Atonement, the scapegoat's destination, the place where what cannot be redeemed is sent to wait.

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The two angels who had argued they were better than human beings ended, one suspended between worlds in penance, the other bound to a desert cliff. Istehar's stars still turn overhead. She rose; they fell. The test God permitted answered the question they had asked.

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ShemhazaiAngelsWatchersIsteharPleiadesRepentanceNephilimFlood
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From the tradition

Sources

3 sources

The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Chronicles of Jerahmeel XXVChronicles of Jerahmeel (Gaster, 1899)

Two angels told God not to create humanity. When the generation of the flood proved them right, Shemhazai and Azael stood before God and reminded Him: "Did we not say, 'Do not create man'?" God answered with a challenge. "If you lived on earth, the evil inclination would sway you just as it sways humans. And you would be even more stubborn." The angels insisted. "Let us descend, and You will see how we sanctify Your name." According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, God let them go.

They failed immediately. The moment Shemhazai and Azael beheld the daughters of men, they could not restrain themselves. But one woman outsmarted them. A girl named Estirah refused Shemhazai unless he taught her the Ineffable Name of God. He did. She spoke the Name and ascended straight to heaven. God said, "Since she has departed from sin, set her among the stars." She became the brightest star in the Pleiades.

After that humiliation, both angels took wives and fathered children. Shemhazai's sons, Heyya and Aheyya, were giants, each consumed a thousand camels, a thousand horses, and a thousand oxen daily. Azael became chief over all cosmetics and ornaments used to entice men to sin. When God sent Metatron to warn Shemhazai that a flood was coming, Shemhazai wept for his children.

His sons dreamed prophetic dreams. One saw a great stone tablet covered in writing, and an angel descended to erase everything except one line with four words. The other saw a garden of trees, and an angel chopped them all down except one tree with three branches. Shemhazai interpreted both: the world would be destroyed, leaving only one man and his three sons. He comforted his children with a strange promise, their names would live forever, because whenever people lift heavy burdens, they groan "Heyya! Aheyya!" Shemhazai himself repented and hung suspended between heaven and earth, head downward, too ashamed to face God. Azael never repented. He became the Azazel of the Day of Atonement, the one onto whom Israel's sins were cast.

Full source
Legends of the Jews 4:11Legends of the Jews

The ancient tales whisper of such a secret, and of the angels who coveted earthly delights, with consequences that echo through the stars.

Angels, beings of pure light and spirit, descending to Earth and being utterly captivated by the beauty of human women. It's a story ripe with temptation, forbidden desires, and a touch of the divine gone astray. It’s a story told in Legends of the Jews.

Among these angels was Shemhazai, and he, like the others, found himself completely enamored with the daughters of men. But one maiden, named Istehar, particularly caught his eye. Her grace and beauty were unparalleled.

Shemhazai was smitten, utterly head-over-wings in love. He desired Istehar above all else. But Istehar, she was clever. She saw an opportunity. She knew the angels possessed secrets, powers beyond human comprehension, and she wanted a piece of that celestial pie.

She made Shemhazai a bargain, a deal with potentially eternal consequences. "I will surrender myself to you," she said, "but only if you first teach me the Ineffable Name." This Ineffable Name, the Shem Hameforash (שם המפורש), was the secret, the key to his power, the very word that allowed him to ascend to heaven.

He was blinded by his desire, and he agreed. He revealed the secret. He taught her the Ineffable Name.

But Istehar, she had no intention of fulfilling her promise. As soon as she knew the Shem Hameforash, she uttered the sacred words. And just like that, she ascended to heaven, leaving Shemhazai behind, bound by his foolish promise, and consumed by unfulfilled longing.

And what became of Istehar? God, witnessing her cleverness and her resistance to sin, declared, "Because she kept herself aloof from sin, we will place her among the seven stars, that men may never forget her." And so, she became part of the constellation of the Pleiades, forever shining in the night sky as a evidence of her wisdom and purity. A mortal woman, outsmarting an angel, and being rewarded with a place amongst the stars. It’s a powerful reminder that even in the face of overwhelming temptation, virtue and cunning can triumph. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What secrets do we hold within ourselves, and what celestial heights might we reach if we choose wisely?

Full source
Legends of the Jews 4:16Legends of the Jews

We've heard tales of Watchers, haven't we? The ones who dared to defy the divine. One such story revolves around Shemhazai. He, along with others, rebelled and descended to Earth. But Shemhazai eventually repented. Can you picture it? As the legends tell us, he hangs suspended between heaven and earth to this very day, a constant reminder of his transgression.

What about Azazel? He wasn't quite as keen on repentance. He persisted in leading humanity astray, tempting them with earthly desires. This is why, according to tradition, two goats were sacrificed on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. One was for God, asking for forgiveness for Israel's sins. The other? That goat was for Azazel, symbolically bearing the weight of those sins. A powerful image, isn't it?

Not all temptations came from rebellious angels. Naamah, the sister of Tubal-cain, possessed a beauty so potent that, unlike the pious Istehar, she allegedly led angels astray herself! From her union with Shamdon, the legends say, sprang Asmodeus, a powerful demon. The Zohar tells us that the descendants of Cain, Naamah included, were known for their lack of shame and their indulgence in all sorts of depravities.

In Ginzberg's retelling in, Legends of the Jews, both the men and women of Cain's line walked around naked and engaged in lewd practices. It was the beauty and sensuality of these women that tempted the angels from their righteous path. These weren't just passive victims,!

But the angels weren't without their own transformations either. Once they rebelled and descended to Earth, they lost their celestial qualities. They became embodied, making unions with the daughters of men possible. And what came of these unions? Giants.

These weren't just any giants, though. They were known for their immense strength and, crucially, for their sinfulness. They had many names, each reflecting a different aspect of their nature. They were called the Emim, a name that suggests they inspired fear.

They were also known as the Rephaim, because, as the legends say, just one look at them could make your heart grow weak. Or the Gibborim, simply "giants," emphasizing their enormous size – some accounts even claiming their thigh measured eighteen ells! Midrash Rabbah mentions the Zamzummim, acknowledging them as great masters in war. The Anakim, were said to be so tall that they could touch the sun with their necks! Then there were the Ivvim, who, like the snake, possessed a keen understanding of the land.

And finally, perhaps the most well-known name: the Nephilim. This name carries a heavy weight, suggesting that they brought about the world's downfall, and ultimately fell themselves. Quite a legacy, isn't it?

So, what do we take away from these stories? They offer a glimpse into a world where the boundaries between heaven and earth are blurred, where angels can fall and humans can tempt, and where the consequences of sin are felt on a cosmic scale. They remind us that the struggle between good and evil is not just an abstract concept, but a very real and ongoing battle, both within ourselves and in the world around us. And maybe, just maybe, they encourage us to reflect on our own choices and the paths we choose to walk.

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