Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
When the angels came to earth, and beheld the daughters of men in all
their grace and beauty, they could not restrain their passion.
Shemhazai saw a maiden named Istehar, and he lost his heart to her. She
promised to surrender herself to him, if first he taught her the
Ineffable Name, by means of which he raised himself to heaven. He
assented to her condition. But once she knew it, she pronounced the
Name, and herself ascended to heaven, without fulfilling her promise to
the angel. God said, "Because she kept herself aloof from sin, we will
place her among the seven stars, that men may never forget her," and
she was put in the constellation of the Pleiades.
Shemhazai and Azazel, however, were not deterred from entering into
alliances with the daughters of men, and to the first two sons were
born. Azazel began to devise the finery and the ornaments by means of
which women allure men. Thereupon God sent Metatron to tell Shemhazai
that He had resolved to destroy the world and bring on a deluge. The
fallen angel began to weep and grieve over the fate of the world and
the fate of his two sons. If the world went under, what would they have
to eat, they who needed daily a thousand camels, a thousand horses, and
a thousand steers?
These two sons of Shemhazai, Hiwwa and Hiyya by name, dreamed dreams.
The one saw a great stone which covered the earth, and the earth was
marked all over with lines upon lines of writing. An angel came, and
with a knife obliterated all the lines, leaving but four letters upon
the stone. The other son saw a large pleasure grove planted with all
sorts of trees. But angels approached bearing axes, and they felled the
trees, sparing a single one with three of its branches.
When Hiwwa and Hiyya awoke, they repaired to their father, who
interpreted the dreams for them, saying, "God will bring a deluge, and
none will escape with his life, excepting only Noah and his sons." When
they heard this, the two began to cry and scream, but their father
consoled them: "Soft, soft! Do not grieve. As often as men cut or haul
stones, or launch vessels, they shall invoke your names, Hiwwa! Hiyya!"
This prophecy soothed them.
Shemhazai then did penance. He suspended himself between heaven and
earth, and in this position of a penitent sinner he hangs to this day.
But Azazel persisted obdurately in his sin of leading mankind astray by
means of sensual allurements. For this reason two he-goats were
sacrificed in the Temple on the Day of Atonement, the one for God, that
He pardon the sins of Israel, the other for Azazel, that he bear the
sins of Israel.[10]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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