[[image:azazel.jpg|right|thumb|A modern interpretation of Azazel, from Collin de Plancy's ''Dictionnaire Infernal'' (Paris,1825)]]
'''Azazel''' is an enigmatic name from the [[Hebrew Bible|Hebrew scriptures]], possibly referring to a place, person, [[fallen angel]] or [[fallen angelSatan]]. The word's first appearances are in [[Leviticus]] 16, when in the ritual for [[Yom Kippur]] the [[scapegoat]] is to be taken to Azazel and cast into the wilderness, but thethis text by itself is unclear as to the actual identity of Azazel.
The [[Talmud]] (Yoma 67b) and later commentators maintain Azazel was the name of the precipitous cliff where the goat met its end. This version is cited by Biblical commentator [[Rashi]] and it's considered the plain meaning of the term by some people.
According to the apocryphal [[Book of Enoch]], '''Azazel''' was a leader of the [[grigori]] (also known as "[[watchers]]"), a group of [[fallen angel]]s who mated with mortal women, giving rise to a race of giantshybrids known as the [[Nephilim]]. Azazel is particularly noteworthy among the grigori because it was he who taught men how to make weapons of [[war]] as well as teaching women how to make and wear [[cosmetics]]. Eventually, Azazel's teachings created such iniquity that [[God]] decided to destroy all life on [[Earth]] with a great [[flood]], sparing only [[Noah]], Noah's family, and seven pairs of each species of "clean" animals, and one pair of each "unclean" species, all of whom escaped destruction by living for forty days and forty nights on an [[Noah's Ark|ark]] that [[God]] instructed Noah to build.
