The Goat Sent Away, and the Demon It Became

Azazel is a figure built almost entirely out of interpretation, because the text that names him says so little. In the Day of Atonement ritual of Leviticus 16, two goats are chosen: one is offered to the Lord, and the other, the "scapegoat" of English translation, has the sins of Israel confessed over it and is driven into the wilderness "for Azazel." The Hebrew is obscure enough that ancient readers were unsure whether Azazel named a place, the act of removal, or a being.

Later tradition resolved the ambiguity by making him a being. In the Book of Enoch, Azazel becomes a chief of the fallen Watchers, the angel who taught humankind metalworking, weapons, and cosmetics, that is, the arts of violence and vanity, and is bound in the desert as punishment, awaiting final judgement. This trajectory, from an unexplained ritual word to a named demon and teacher of forbidden knowledge, is a compact example of how the demonology of Second Temple Judaism was assembled: by filling the silences of older texts with narrative.