Tool Beta
The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
Shemihazah
The leader who talks the other Watchers into the descent and binds them to an oath.
The one who proposes the descent and makes the others swear an oath so nobody can back out later. He is a leader with a command structure under him, twenty chiefs of ten. He is not in the Bible; he is in 1 Enoch.
The leader who proposes the descent and binds the others to a mutual oath so none can back out. He isn't named in the Bible. 1 Enoch 6:7-8 gives a roster of twenty chiefs of ten under him (Arteqoph, Remashel, Kokabel, and the rest), and 1 Enoch 8:3 credits him personally with teaching spells and root-cutting, separate from Asael's teaching of crafts. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan later names him as "Shamhazai" at Genesis 6, pairing him with Azael as the two fallen angels that Targum is willing to name, where Targum Onqelos avoids the fallen-angel reading altogether.
1 Enoch 6:3-8; 1 Enoch 8:3; 1 Enoch 10:11.
Whether Genesis 6 should be read through him at all. 1 Enoch builds the descent around his oath, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan names him at Genesis 6. Targum Onqelos avoids the fallen-angel reading of Genesis 6 altogether. The Bible itself never names him, so the card reports what 1 Enoch says, not what Genesis says.
- 1 Enoch 6:3-8
- 1 Enoch 8:3
- 1 Enoch 10:11
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/genesis-6-1-4\/","n":"Genesis 6:1-4","s":"The sons of God take wives, and the Nephilim are in the earth.","r":"Genesis 6:1-4"}
- Nickelsburg, *1 Enoch* (Hermeneia)
- Collins, quoted in Heiser, *Reversing Hermon*, ch. 2
- DDD s.v. "Nephilim," 618-619 (the naming in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan)
