The Name and Its Place Among the Seventy-Two

Reiyel stands at number 29 of the seventy-two angels of the Shem ha-Mephorash, the "divided" or "explicit" Name of God. The seventy-two names are produced by an arithmetical procedure applied to three consecutive verses of the Exodus account of the crossing of the sea, Exodus 14:19, 14:20 and 14:21, each of which contains exactly seventy-two Hebrew letters.

Written out in three rows and read in alternating directions (the first verse forward, the second in reverse, the third forward), the letters yield seventy-two three-letter groups, and to each group is added a divine suffix, either -el ("God") or -yah (from the Tetragrammaton), to form the angelic name. In the zodiacal scheme each angel governs a five-degree "quinance" of the circle, since three hundred and sixty degrees divided by seventy-two is exactly five. Reiyel rules the segment from 20 to 25 degrees of Leo. Each ten-degree decan holds two such quinances; as the first quinance of its decan, Reiyel is reckoned the ruler of the day.