In the Hebrew Bible, the name Azazel (; ʿĂzāʾzēl) represents a desolate place where a scapegoat bearing the sins of the Jews was sent during Yom Kippur. During the late Second Temple period (after the closure of the Hebrew Bible canon), Azazel came to be viewed as a fallen angel responsible for introducing humans to forbidden knowledge, as described in the Book of Enoch. His role as a fallen angel partly remains in Christian and Islamic traditions.
Bible Torah
In the Hebrew Bible, the term is used three times in Chapter 16 of the Book of Leviticus, where two male goats were to be sacrificed to Yahweh and one of the two was selected by lot, for Yahweh is seen as speaking through the lots. One goat is selected by lot and sent into the wilderness , "for Azazel". This goat was then cast out in the desert as part of Yom Kippur. The scapegoat ritual can be traced back to 2400 BC Ebla, whence it spread throughout the ancient Near East.
The Tyndale Bible, a translation written by William Tyndale as the first English language translation of the Bible, he interpreted the verse regarding the goat sent to Azazel in Leviticus 16 as the "escapegoat", whose first letter was later omitted.Sacks, Jonathan. "The Scapegoat", RabbiSacks.org. Accessed June 9, 2026. "In 1530 William Tyndale produced the first English translation of the Hebrew Bible, an act then illegal and for which he paid with his life. Seeking to translate Azazel into English, he called it 'the escapegoat,' i.e. the goat that was sent away and released. In the course of time, the first letter was dropped, and the word 'scapegoat' was born." In older English versions, such as the King James Version, the phrase la-azazel is translated "as a scapegoat"; however, in most modern English Bible translations, it is represented as a name in the text: A baraita, apparently interpreting ʿazazel as ʿaz (rugged) + El (God), understands it to refer to the rugged and rough mountain cliff from which the goat was cast down.Yoma 67b; Sifra, Aḥare, ii. 2; Targ. Yer. Lev. xiv. 10, and most medieval commentatorsFor a delineation of the various Rabbinic opinions here, see R. Aryeh Kaplan's note on "Azazel" (Lev 16:8).
Wilhelm Gesenius translated the name as something akin to "the averter", which he supposed to have first referred to an idol, before being lent to a demon in the Enochian texts. However, neither this demon nor the root are attested.
In the Septuagint and later translations The translators of the Greek Septuagint understood the Hebrew term as meaning "the sent away" (apparently reading either "goat that leaves" or "the mighty sent" or v.s.), and rendered Leviticus 16:8-10 in the following terms:
Following the Septuagint, the Vulgate,16:8 mittens super utrumque sortem unam Domino et alteram capro emissario Martin Luther3 Mose 16:8 German: Luther (1545) Und soll das Los werfen über die zween Böcke, ein Los dem HERRN und das andere dem ledigen Bock. and the King James Version also give readings such as Young's Literal Translation: "And Aaron hath given lots over the two goats, one lot for Jehovah, and one lot for a goat of departure'".
According to the Peshitta, Azazel is rendered Za-za-e'il "strong one against/of God" in Syriac. The Pesher on the Periods A (4Q180) reads, "on Azazel (some read Uzael) and the angels". If the name is in fact Azazel's, it is spelled , equivalent to the Peshitta's version.D.J. Stökl in Sacrifice in Religious Experience ed. Albert I. Baumgarten p. 218 The Targum Neofiti reads , without the aleph.
In Judaism Rabbinical Judaism The Mishnah (Yoma 39aYoma 39) follows the Hebrew Bible text; two goats were procured, similar in respect of appearance, height, cost, and time of selection. Having one of these on his right and the other on his left, 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 inscribed "for Yahweh" and the other "for Azazel". The high priest then laid his hands with the labels upon the two goats and said, "A sin-offering to Yahweh" (thus speaking the Tetragrammaton); and the two men accompanying him replied, "Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever." He then fastened a scarlet woolen thread to the head of the goat "for Azazel"; and laying his hands upon it again, recited the following confession of sin and prayer for forgiveness: "O Lord, they have acted iniquitously, trespassed, sinned before Thee: Your people, the house of Israel. O Lord by Thy name, forgive the iniquities, transgressions, and sins that Thy people the house of Israel committed before Thee, as is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant, 'for on this day He will forgive you, to cleanse you from all your sins before the Lord; ye shall be clean.
This prayer was responded to by the congregation present. A man was selected, preferably a priest, to take the goat to the precipice in the wilderness; and he was accompanied part of the way by the most eminent men of Jerusalem. Ten booths had been constructed at intervals along the road leading from Jerusalem to the steep mountain. At each one of these the man leading the goat was formally offered food and drink, which he, however, refused. When he reached the tenth booth those who accompanied him proceeded no further, but watched the ceremony from a distance. When he came to the precipice he divided the scarlet thread into two parts, one of which he tied to the rock and the other to the goat's horns, and then pushed the goat down (Yoma 6:1–8). The cliff was so high and rugged that before the goat had traversed half the distance to the plain below, its limbs were utterly shattered. Men were stationed at intervals along the way, and as soon as the goat was thrown down the precipice, they signaled to one another by means of kerchiefs or flags, until the information reached the high priest, whereat he proceeded with the other parts of the ritual.
makes a symbolic allusion to the scarlet thread, and the Talmud states (ib. 39a) that during the forty years that Simeon the Just was High Priest of Israel the thread actually turned white as soon as the goat was thrown over the precipice. This was construed as a sign that the sins of the people were forgiven. In later times the change to white was not invariable: the absence of an observed change in color was taken as proof of the people's moral and spiritual deterioration, which gradually increased until forty years before the destruction of the Second Temple (l.c. 39b).
Medieval Jewish commentators The medieval scholar Nachmanides (1194–1270) identified the Hebrew text as also referring to a demon, and identified this "Azazel" with Samael.Israel Drazin, Stanley M. Wagner, . Gefen, 2008. p. 122. . However, he did not see the sending of the goat as honoring Azazel as a deity, but as a symbolic expression of the idea that the people's sins and their evil consequences were to be sent back to the spirit of desolation and ruin, the source of all impurity. The very fact that the two goats were presented before God, before the one was sacrificed and the other sent into the wilderness, was proof that Azazel was not ranked alongside God, but regarded simply as the personification of wickedness in contrast with the righteous government of God.
Maimonides (1134–1204) in his Guide for the Perplexed says that as sins cannot be taken off one's head and transferred elsewhere, the ritual is symbolic, enabling the penitent to discard his sins: "These ceremonies are of a symbolic character and serve to impress man with a certain idea and to lead him to repent, as if to say, 'We have freed ourselves of our previous deeds, cast them behind our backs and removed them from us as far as possible'."Maimonides, Guide for the Perplexed 3:46, via Internet Sacred Text Archive
The rite, resembling, on one hand, the sending off of the basket with the woman embodying wickedness to the land of Shinar in the vision of Zechariah (), 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 (), 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. 4, 66b; "Epistle of Barnabas", vii), and the arrival of the shattered animal at the bottom of the valley of the rock of Bet Ḥadudo, 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 hills (Yoma vi. 6, 8; Ta'an. iv. 8). Evidently the 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. More as a demon of the desert, it seems to have been closely interwoven with the mountainous region of Jerusalem.
In Christianity Latin Bible
The Vulgate contains no mention of "Azazel" but only of caper emissarius, or "emissary goat", apparently reading עז אזל goat which leaves:
English versions, such as the King James Version, followed the Septuagint and Vulgate in understanding the term as relating to a goat. The modern English Standard Version provides the footnote "16:8 The meaning of Azazel is uncertain; possibly the name of a place or a demon, traditionally a scapegoat; also verses 10, 26". Most scholars accept the indication of some kind of demon or deity,Wright, David P. "Azazel." Pages 1:536–37 in Anchor Bible Series. Edited by David Noel Freedman et al. New York: Doubleday, 1992. however Judit M. Blair notes that this is an argument without supporting contemporary text evidence.Judit M. Blair De-demonising the Old Testament: An Investigation of Azazel, Lilith, Deber p. 23–24
Ida Zatelli (1998)Ida Zatelli, "The Origin of the Biblical Scapegoat Ritual: The Evidence of Two Eblaite Texts", Vetus Testamentum 48.2 (April 1998):254–263) has suggested that the Hebrew ritual parallels pagan practice of sending a scapegoat into the desert on the occasion of a royal wedding found in two ritual texts in archives at Ebla (24th C. BC). A she-goat with a silver bracelet hung from her neck was driven forth into the wasteland of 'Alini' by the community.David Pearson Wright, . Scholars Press, University of Michigan, 1987. There is no mention of an "Azazel".Blair p. 21
According to The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Azazel is the Hebrew word for scapegoat. This is the only place that the Hebrew word is found in the whole Hebrew Old Testament. It says that the Book of Enoch, (extra-biblical Jewish theological literature, dated around 200 B.C.) is full of demonology and reference to fallen angels. The EBC (Vol 2) says that this text uses late Aramaic forms for these names which indicates that The Book of Enoch most likely relies upon the Hebrew Leviticus text rather than the Leviticus text being reliant upon the Book of Enoch.
Christian commentators Origen ("Contra Celsum", vi. 43) identifies Azazel with Satan.John Granger Cook The interpretation of the Old Testament in Greco-Roman paganism 299
In Mandaeism Azazel is occasionally mentioned as Azaziʿil in Mandaean texts. In the Right Ginza, Azaziʿil is the name of an uthra (celestial being or angel).
In Islam