Samyaza


Samyaza, also Shemhazai, Azza or Ouza, is a fallen angel or Sethite of apocryphal Abrahamic traditions that ranked in the heavenly hierarchy as one of the Watchers.

Etymology

The name "Shemyaza" means "the name has seen," "he sees the name," or "I have seen." It is also spelled "Sahjaza", "Semihazah", "Shemihazah", "Shemyazaz", "Shemyaza", "Sêmîazâz", "Semjâzâ", "Samjâzâ", and "Semyaza".

Book of Enoch

In the Book of Enoch, one of the apocryphal writings, Samyaza is portrayed as the leader of a band of rebellious 'fallen angels' or renegade 'sons of God' called the Watchers, or grigori, who, because they became consumed with lust for mortal women and entered into machinations against heaven in order to consummate their sinful desires, fell. In the Qumran Book of Giants, Samyaza, through this forbidden prostitution, fathers two half-breed "giant" sons, Ohyah and Hahyah.
When the rebel angels first meet upon Mount Hermon to organize their secret society of 200 members, Samyaza, as their recognized chieftain, initially doubts the initiates' resolve to forswear heaven. This they had planned to achieve through dark combinations and clandestine oaths under penalty of death, thereby binding themselves to that treachery in which they would use their heaven-acquired knowledge to create a counterfeit religion on earth to satisfy their lusts and carnal desires:
Thus having convinced the other Watchers to join him in fornicating with women, Samyaza continues to collude and to plot with these other sinful grigori to seduce females from the human tribes. The resultant offspring from this unnatural prostitution and breeding are called "giants". Together, they dominate, murder, and exploit the inferior races of men — beginning in the days of the righteous Sethite patriarch Jared, the father of the prophet Enoch — their debauchery thereafter rising to new heights: "And there was great impiety and much fornication, and they went astray and all their ways became corrupt". Enoch, in his sleep-vision that has been called the 'Animal Apocalypse', "saw heaven above, and behold:
... a star fell from heaven , and it arose and ate and pastured amongst those oxen . And after this I saw the large and the black oxen , and behold, all of them changed their pens and their pastures and their heifers , and began to moan , one after another. And again I saw in the vision and looked to heaven, and behold, I saw many stars , how they came down and were thrown down from heaven to that first star , and amongst those heifers and bulls ; they were with them, pasturing amongst them. And I looked at them and saw, and behold, all of them let out their private parts like horses and began to mount the cows of the bulls , and they all became pregnant and bore elephants and camels and asses . And all the oxen feared them and were affrighted at them, and began to bite with their teeth and to devour, and to gore with their horns. And they began, moreover, to devour those oxen ; and behold all the children of the earth began to tremble and quake before them and to flee from them...

But perhaps the Watchers' most grievous sin was to teach and instruct humankind, blasphemously, in various forbidden arts, sciences, and celestial "secrets" or "mysteries" of the true heavenly gnosis or knowledge — especially that Wisdom possessed by Azazel, who taught them also the secrets of war — all of which ultimately, though not surprisingly, brings down the wrath of Heaven.
God commanded the angel Gabriel to cause the Watchers and giants to wage civil war:
Finally, the judgement of the Watcher-associates of Samyaza is described.
Once the archangels and the host of the righteous had rained war and destruction upon the Watchers and giants, God caused, after several generations, the Great Flood of Noah to wipe out the corrupt remnant of the earthly races. For when the "eternal covenant" and eternal law had been broken, in the fallen angels' revelation to the profane creatures of the earth of heaven's sacred knowledge, lawlessness ensued, which corrupted and destroyed. But after the diluvial judgment, God removed the lawlessness that came from the perverted knowledge and restored again His covenant with Noah and his sons, returning fertility and harmony back to the creation.

Book of Giants

In the Book of Giants, Shemyaza begets two sons, who together battle the Leviathan. However, they are not portrayed as heroic, but as boasting about their own victory; a symbol of royal failure to keep one's power in this world, as after the defeat of the Leviathan, Shemyaza and his offspring are slain by the four punishing angels.

Other traditions

In legend, he is the seraph tempted by the maiden Ishtahar to reveal to her the Explicit Name of God. Often it is speculated that a main reason for Azza's expulsion from heaven is that Azza objected to the high rank given to Enoch when the latter was transformed from a mortal into the angel Metatron. In Solomonic lore the story is that Azza was the angel who revealed to the Jewish king the heavenly arcana, thus making Solomon the wisest man on earth. Of the 2 groups of angels headed by Metatron, one of the groups, the angels of justice, were under the rulership of Azza, who at this time had not yet fallen. Uzza is the tutelary angel of the Egyptians.
Azza, according to the rabbinic tradition, is suspended between Heaven and Earth along with Azazel as punishment for having had carnal knowledge of mortal women. He is said to be constantly falling, with one eye shut and the other open, to see his plight and suffer the more. It is said that he now hangs, head down, and is the constellation of Orion.
Before the fall, Ouza was of the rank of Seraphim.

In Islam

It is also worth mentioning that Ouza was one of the major items of worship in the pagan Arabic culture, before the rise of Islam. Al Ouza and Al Lat were considered the Daughters of God and were prayed for. However, with the appearance of the monotheistic religion of Islam, the worship of any other god beside God was defeated. The mention of Al Lat and Al Ouza was made in the Chapter of the Star in the Quran:
19. Have ye seen Lat and 'Uzza,
20. And another, the third, Manat?
21. Shall the male gender be yours and the female be His?
22. Behold, such would be indeed a division most unfair!
23. These are nothing but names which ye have devised,- ye and your fathers,- for which Allah has sent down no authority. They follow nothing but conjecture and what their own souls desire!- Even though there has already come to them Guidance from their Lord!

Samyaza in popular culture

Video games