303

The Origin of Aramaic 'fr, Angel

Robert MURRAY

In 1964 a pupil of Mitchell Dahood, R. Serra, in a discussion of the

case for recognizing a Hebrew root •'yr related to a Ugaritic root •gyr
with the sense "protect", ended with a brief and undeveloped suggestion
that the Aramaic word 'fr in Dan 4,10.14.20, usually rendered "watcher"
and derived from 't1n, "wake", might be better explained in the light of
this putative root (Serra, "Una Raiz", 1964, p. 175). Though Dahood,
with his characteristic generosity to pupils and colleagues, thereafter
quoted this article as if it had authority in its own right, it is clear that he
was its chief inspirer. In Psalms I (1966) 56, while arguing that the 'artm
in Ps 9,7 are not cities but (protecting) divinities, he added baldly "The
Syriac word for 'angel', 'ira, is most suitably derived from this root",
but unfortunately he never tried to substantiate the suggestion. Already
in 1914 A. Ehrlich had declared the etymology and meaning of 'fr uncer­
tain (Randgl-Ossen VII 137), while J. A. Fitzmyer has wondered if the
usual rendering, "watcher" (one who keeps awake) is more than a popular
etymology (Genesis Apocryphon• 80). There is still room for a critical
examination of Dahood's suggestion, and this is attempted here in grateful
memory of his friendship.
The task before us is like a tunnel which must be bored from both
ends. The Aramaic/Syriac end has been neat and tidy for over two thou­
sand years; it seems a shame to pick holes in that nice brickwork. The
Ugaritic/Hebrew end has been worked intensively for only a generation.
By now there is some fairly good brickwork there too. But what is there
in between the two ends, and is there an ancient passageway to be re­
opened? The investigation is complicated by multiple possibilities at some
points and by gaps in our knowledge at others. In the end, 011 the lines
of a fashion current among novelists, we shall have to be content with
alternative conclusions: for the sober, non liquet; for those who like their
scholarship laced with imagination, an exciting possibility which would
vindicate Dahood's intuition but, ironically, only by methods uncongenial
to his philological principles.
304 R. Murray

I. Aramaic/Syriac 'ir(a)

The word is best known in Dan 4. Here verses 10 and 14 describe

a 'ir w•qaddi§ corning down from heaven to pronounce judgement on the
tree in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Verse 14 has the two words in the plural
and in parallelism. To discuss their meaning we must distinguish deno­
tation and connotation. Clearly both words denote angels as agents of
Ood, Qaddi§ doubtless refers to the same being as its Hebrew cognate
qad6f in 8,13 and, long before, the q•dostm of the heavenly assembly in
Ps 89,6.8 etc. Its developing connotation has recently been traced by
A. van Selrns (1982)in a way which fits well with the thesis explored in
the present article. But what is the connotation of 'tr? This is the
question which Dahood and Serra opened. Apart from Theodotion. who
cautiously transliterated the word, ancient translators thought they knew:
as an annotator of the Chigi Theodotion wrote, -ro dp &ypult'lov, unsleep­
ing. In Greek 'fr was usually rendered eypljyopo,, keeping awake, though
in Dan 4 the LXX took the two words as a hendiadys and rendered &"("(tAo,.
This remains the position as regards all early instances of Aramaic
'fr, well summarized by J. A. Fitzmyer on lQGen Ap col. 2,1 (op. cit.,
p. 80). The denotation is clear, as some kind of angelic being; if, as R.
H. Charles maintained, it is associated particularly with either archangels
or the rebel angels (1 Enocb» 6), these relationships seem extrinsic rather
than constitutive of the essential meaning of 't«. Now any word which
denotes an "angelic" being might be expected to connote either a charac­
teristic of its nature (spiritual. undying. holy, mighty, luminous etc.) or
a characteristic function, e.g. (a) acting as agents for God, especially as
messengers,(b) maintaining perpetual praise of God or (c) guarding man­
kind, in its nations or as individuals. When all appropriate "notes" have
been enumerated, we have a fair picture of the word's semantic field, though
by then we shall also see how this field overlaps or is connected with others,
e.g. with the stars (the "host of heaven"), with other ideas of divine beings,
or with humans (especially kings) who have been regarded as related to
some of the angelic functions. Thinking about 'ir in the light of these
general expectations, if it really means "unsleeping" (i.e., if the ancient
translators really knew what it meant) it would seem to connote a charac­
teristic of nature, though in some contexts it may relate to function (b),
perpetual praise. Neither kind of characteristic, however, makes an im­
mediate claim to be the right one. There is a familiar range of predicates
of "nature" (those mentioned above and doubtless a few more); the words
for them in Hebrew, Aramaic and Syriac are sufficiently transparent in
a way in which 'fr is not. As for function, 'fr in Dau 4 exercises function
 The Origin of Aramaic 'tr, Angel 305
(a), but no one seems ever to have thought that it was a perfect synonym
of mal'iik. In fact Charles (Daniel 91), besides repeating his classification
referred to above, explains 'fr mainly in relation to function (c), guardian­
ship of the nations, referring to the som•rim in Isa 62,6 but also to the dis­
obedient gods in Pss 82 and 58, the "host of heaven" who are to be punished
iu Isa 24,21­22 and the rebel 'irim in I Enoch etc. Thus Charles antici­
pates the direction of this article, though without a philological argument.
The term occurs some fifteen times in I Enoch, attested now in Ara­
maic a few times (see Index of Milik's edition), and rendered in Greek by
£yp+,yo~ and in Ethiopic by taguh •. The occurrences are all in the
early section which is now commonly called the "Book of the Watchers"
(in fact, after 1,5, all are between 10,7 and 16,2) except for Eth. t~guhan
in 91,15. We cannot trace any earlier instance of the Aramaic word than
these. Unlike Daniel, 1 Enoch contains an explanatory phrase, "the
holy angels who keep watch" (20,1, where the Eth. uses the related verb
liighii, vigilare, insomnem esse), while in the Parables we find "those who
do not sleep" at 39,12.13 and 61,12, though the verb is nomii (cf. Heb.
mom); but while these passages aim to tell us about angels, they do not
say they are giving us the meaning of 'lrftaguh, and the Parables are presum­
ably from a period when the assumption that 'tr means "unsleeping"
had long become established. In Syriac, of course, this became un­
questioned, and it was reinforced by the idea of the consecrated ascetic
life as "angelic" •.
In the other early instances besides Dan 4, 'fr is paired with qaddt!
in 1 Enoch 10,2, 4Q Mess ar 2,18 (.llfPAT 28) and IQGenAp 2,1 (MPAT
29). Another repeated phrase is "Watchers of heaven", extant in Aramaic
and Greek at 1 Enoch 13,10, in Eth. also ibid. 12,4, 15,2 and in Hebrew
in CD 2,17­18. "Heaven" here may simply define their origin, as "sons
of heaven" (I Enoch 14,3 (Gr. but not Eth.) and lQGenAp 2,16); but in
Jub 8,3 (Eth.) the phrase is used in connexion with the astronomic teach­
ing they gave to men, and this may suggest that "Guardians" might be a
better translation. By far the most frequent association, of course, is
with the rebel angels in the context of their fall through lust: besides
I Enoch 10­16, it occurs in Jub 4,15.22. 7,21 and 10,5 (Eth.), in Greek

1 I am grateful to Dr M. A. Knlbb for help with details of the Ethiopic

text.
1 Cf. P. Nagel, Die Motivierung der Askes« in der aue« Kirche und der

Ursprung des Monchl14ms (TU 95; 1966) 41­44; but note that he is mistaken
in saying (p. 43) that Aphrahat ~resses the simililudo ange/.orum only by
mal'akd, not '£ra; this is disproved 1n Dem. VI (PS I.I. col. 309.22­24) and
Dem. XVIII (PS I. t. col. 841.23­26). the passage quoted at the end of the
present article. A fuller and sounder picture is given by Cramer,Enge/Qorslel-
lwnge« 49­50.
306 R. Murray

in T. Rub. 5,6.7 and T. Naph. 3,5 and in CD in this connexion. The latter
work is in Hebrew and so, it is agreed, was the original of Jubilees; does
this mean that the Aramaic word was borrowed, or that CD attests it as a
word existing in Hebrew as well as Aramaic? If so, could this reflect a
stage in its history? In any case, the Aramaic word seems to belong
entirely to Jewish (and then Christian) literature, as much as mal'iik.
Might 'Ir nevertheless have a non­ Jewish prehistory in Aramaic?
The present writer was so rash as to assert that "Aramaic 'fr is from
Accadian eru, vb. and adj., '(be) wakeful'; see CAD 4, E (1958), 326, which
quotes a striking prayer to the (personified) watches of the night" (Murray,
Symbo/1$ 14, n. 1). Though there is a considerable Akkadian element in
Aramaic, this assertion was unverifiable; it finds no support in S. A. Kauf­
man's The Akkadian Influences on Aramaic (Chicago 1974). Never­
theless the Akkadian prayer or incantation referred to is of interest for
our present inquiry, both in its vocabulary and its content. The important
phrases run: "(You) three watches of the night, you the wakeful, watchful,
sleepless, never sleeping ones ­ as you are awake, watchful, sleepless, never
sleeping, (and as) you give a decision to the waking and the sleeping (a­
like). ... "•. However unjustifiable the statement that '£r is "from" b·u,
the Akkadian text not only contains this cognate of 'wr and maHartu
(from M$aru, cognate with words to be discussed below) but also ascribes
to the "watches" a certain surveillance of human life. If non­Jewish
antecedents are to be sought, this text gives us a more plausible back­
ground than does any appeal to the Iranian heptad of divine spirits, the
Amaila Spantas (most recently supported by W. Cramer, Engelvorslellun-
gen 13­14) ­.
To conclude this section, (a) we have reasonable certainty about the
denotation of 'ir, but for the connotation we have assumptions without
certain foundations; (b) 'Ir cannot be traced in Aramaic earlier than the

a J maf§drtitu la mu.llti tridi tta$riile dalpdte la §tililti.ti kima a.J.tina. irtitena

na$rdlina dalpalina la ~Milatina ana iri u ~a/Ii purussd lanandinna (KAR 58
r. 12­15, see Ebeling, Die akkadische Gebetsserie "Handerhebwng" [Berlin 1953)
40).
Werner Mayer, S.J., has kindly suggested another apposite reference,
in the Old Babylonian "Juste soullrant" poem first published hy J. Nougayrol
in RB 59 (1952) 239­50, at p. 246, ix. 2. W. von Soden studied this text in
Or 26 (1957) 315­9. at p. 319, and gives his translation of this and other parts
of the poem in J\,flJOG 96 (1965) 41­59, at p. 47: strophe 9 begins: "Ich bin dein
Gott, dein Schopfer, deine Hille; es wachen fiir dich meine Wachter, und stark
sind die .. [ ..... ] " (lrukum •naHaruya u dannu ku[ .•... -ya?)).
• On the Amasa Spantas see M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastr;anism l (Hand­
buch Mr Orientalistik VIlI. I; Leiden 1975) ch. 8. I do not at all mean to
oppose suggestions that Iranian theology influenced Jewish and Christian
angelology; but only to dissent from theories based on imperfect understanding
of the Zoroastrian divine spirits.
 The Origin of Aramaic 'fr, Angel 307

"Book of the Watchers" in I Enoch; (c) the Akkadian prayer contains

suggestive features which could be related to an otherwise unattested non­
Jewish background. We may usefully bear in mind as we proceed that
the English verb "watch" combines the ideas of "look at", "guard" and
"keep awake", and all these are functions which have been ascribed to
angels. Dahood's suggestion is more for an adjustment in a broad field
than for a radical re­definition.

2. The Approach from Ugaritic ngrJ-'yr

It is not necessary here to re­examine the Ugaritic lexical data and

the proposals for finding in Hebrew a misunderstood •'yr. See Serra
(1964), Hartmann (1967), Stamm (1979) and Dahood in RSP I (1972)
II 452: Ill (1981) 1 25, 65, 254 and 1 Suppl. 88. It has long been disputed
whether the verb evidently meaning "protect" in the epistolary formula
ilm tgrk IS/mk is ngr (giving lagguruka) or gyr (giving tagiruka). The
former undoubtedly exists. since its participle is frequent (Gordon, UT
Glossary 1670); the latter is perfectly possible. but the case for it depends
on the case for finding •'yr "protect" in Hebrew. If Ugaritic had such a
pair of verbs meaning "protect", it might seem like those pairs in Hebrew
in which respectively two consonants are preceded by n or have a medial
w{y, e.g. np!>fpw};, np~ ll/pw~ - except that g must represent two distinct
phonemes in Proto­Semitic (Gordon, UT Grammar §5.8, 10, 13), which
are again distinct in the cognate languages:

PS ? " /Htb. $ Aram. ! Akk. $

PS g/
Ug. g
<,
. .
a)'ln
. .
aym

Cognate with ngr are Heb. n~. Aram. 11/r (also found in Heb.) and Akk.
t1a~aru; the case for •gyr/Heb. •'yr is not established with like certainty,
and on it seems to depend Dahood's hypothesis regarding Aramaic 'fr.
Unfortunately a number of factors complicate the situation in which
the hypothesis has to be developed. To review these at this point, how­
ever, would delay the essential argument too much and make readers likely
to lose the thread; I shall come back to them. but first let us recall some
salient Old Testament examples which support the existence in Hebrew
of •'yr, "protect". I agree with Stamm (1979, pp. 7­8) that the strongest
instances for the verb are the imperfect ya'tr of the eagle in Dent 32,11
(k•neser ya'£r qit1n6 'al g6zalaw y•ra!tep) and of God in Job 8,6 (ki 'atlah
ya'£r 'tiUka w•sillam t1•111at ~idqeka), where the parallel verb recalls the
Ugaritic formula. Not all the cases urged by Dahood and Serra are con­
308 R. Murray
vincing, but several involving 'ar£m, 'iireka (etc.) are plausible. In Isa
14,21, bal yaquma w<yiir•§u 'are~ umal•'a p•ne tebel 'iirim, surely hostile
gods fit the context better than cities; likewisein Mic 5,13, w•niila§t£ '•§btka
miqqirbeka W'hi§madti 'iirekii. The same understanding of the latter word
in Jer 2,28 and 11,13, ki mispar 'iireka hiiyu '•lohtka y•hadd, seems to me
a strong example if we understand a word­play (cities/gods) as Dahood
did in Psalms I, p. 56.• but exegetically far less plausible if it only means
gods, as he later proposed in RSP III, I 25. (The above expressions of
preference are made in awareness that G. R. Driver, following Dussaud
and Gaster, found in several of these places a putative •'areh, understood
in the light of sacrificial stones of the pagan Arabs; we shall return to this.)
These examples suggest that there was a noun (or participle) related
to the verb •'yr, denoting a kind of guardian divinity which was honoured
in Israel under Canaanite influence, but whose appearances in the Hebrew
text later suffered the fate foretold by Micah. Dahood suggested (RSP
III, 1 65) that this is the meaning of the 'Ar of Moab, which in Num 21,28
is mentioned with the ba'•lt bii1116t 'Arnon; the consensus of scholars has
been for "city of Moab", but the suggestion is well worth considering.
If the word we are investigating was in fact pronounced 'iir, it would be
a participle, its plural, 'iir1m, being a perfect homonym of 'iir£m, cities,
which word has most often concealed it in the MT. B. Hartmann, however
(1967, pp. 104­5), suggested 'er, analogous to ger from gwr, and proposed
to find it in the obscure 'tr W''aneh in Mal 2,12 ­ a solution welcomedby
Stamm (1979, p. 8), who further suggested that this could explain the
name of Judah's ill­fated son (Gen 38,3).
Does this word bring us to the point of seeing light in the tunnel?
Did these guardian­gods survive their suppression, to be redefined as an­
gelic beings (as certainly happened to the q•do§im and the b•·nt 'el/' elim/
'•lohtm) and to be transplanted into Aramaic ­ where, however, a new
etymology took over and shifted understanding of the connotation from
protection to wakefulness, so that the word was read •ir? The hypothesis
is attractive, but if we stop at Dahood's hint, it must remain an unsubstan­
tiated hunch ­ a hope of a glimmer in the tunnel. If we are to make a
real case, we have to undertake the discussionwhich was postponed above,
and face the factors which complicate the task of identifying and tracing
•'yr in Hebrew; we must also look at the evidence(especiallyin the versions)
for texts having been garbled in many more places where 'r­gods occurred.
In this we shall have to stray from Dahood's fierce loyalty to the conso­
nantal text, though not beyond the limits of the game which became 'al
tiqrt. Let us start with the "complicating factors". They are not all
equally relevant, let alone insurmountable; but they may impede our
progress if we do not face them.
 The Origin of Aramaic •tr. Angel 309

3. The Difficultiesof Rediscovering Hebrew 'r, "Guardian"

The difficulties are of various kinds. For a start, there is an embar­

rassing multitude of similar words too closely crowded together, as when,
of an evening, you try find a radio frequency on the medium wave band.
Beside ngr/1'$1'/ntr there is a root n~r in which the sad« is constant through
all the languages we are considering,giving words connoting various kinds
of noise (Healey, 1976). This reminds us how complexthe range of possible
equivalencesis. Again, since our inquiry centres on the noun •'r, we dare
not ignore that tangled knot, Ugaritic gr, which J. M. Sasson calls "prob­
ably the least defined vocable in Ugaritic" (RSP I, 94), and its possible
relations in Hebrew. which made J. Barr choose the latter to introduce
the problems of homonymity (Comparative Phi/.olcgy 125­6). Among the
suggestions that have been made it is the bloodstained stones which call
for some attention; it will be argued below that, if this meaning existed
in Hebrew,it can be incorporated in the theory defended here, but it cannot
be said to be adequately substantiated.
Besidesthe abundanceof possiblehomonyms,we have to face questions
as to whether we are certainly lookingin the right place, in seeking to estab­
lish Ug. *gyr/Heb. •'yr, parallel to ngr/11$r. Ugaritic has its own 'ayin,
and bas the word 'yr, city, identical to the Hebrew word which in the MT
often conceals the "Guardian" we are looking for+. Thus it is not self­
evident a priori that we should be looking for a word which has g in Uga­
ritic. To press this further: the traditional understanding of Aramaic
'fr as "watcher" appeals to a root which is attested right across our lin­
guistic field: Ug. 'yr III, Heb. 'wr, Aram. 'wr, Akk. em. A defender of
"watcher" could argue that no new suggestion is needed for 'yr, for it
connotes an easily imaginable characteristic of supernatural beings which
could be expressed through the known resources of any of the languages
under consideration. The real answer to this argument is not that it is
unlikely, but that the connotation of 'tr is not in fact certain, that the
evidence for a Hebrew 'r is solid and that a credible case can be made for
a development from it to •;, as "angel".
Another objection from a similar direction: since the relationship
t1gr/11v is certain, if Ugaritic had gyr, why is the Hebrew word standing
beside it and Aramaic 'fr not recognized, in accordance with regular prin­
ciples, in $fr? After all, this word is understood to mean "messenger"
and therefore it must have at least some semantic overlap with mal 'iik,

• Consequently I do not understand bow H. J. van Dijk can suggest

that Hebrew 'fr, city, ls related to Ug. /yr, protect (Ezekiel's Propheoy on Tyre
(BibOr 20; Rome 1968] 105).
310 R. Murray

with which in fact it appears in Isa 18,2 and Prov 13,17 {though in both
places, as in Prov 25, 13, the denotation seems definitely this­worldly and
human). The suggestion has, of course, been made before as regards
$tr and 'fr, e.g. by E. Kautzsch (Grammatik, p. 27, 2.a), but it is no longer
in favour (though now see van Selms, 1982, p. 265, n. 3). Yet there is
no satisfying account of the derivation of sir, and we may wonder whether
the LXX npfo~uc; is exhaustive of its connotation. Its applicability to
this­worldly envoys might have been no more than that of mal'iik. In
Jer 49,14 //Ob I, $fr is an agent of God (the LXX strangely rendered the
latter occurrence by ntpLOX~); in Isa 57,9 $frfm are to be seut to Sheol,
and in Isa'63,9 the LXX rendered $iir by npta~uc;, where mal'iik (fyye>­oc;)
follows immediately ­ but that text must wait to be approached from
another angle. Finally, in Isa 45,16 disgrace is accounced for ~iirrist
$irim, now always understood as "makers of idols", $fr being from $W1 JV,
almost a hapax. But the LXX had no such idea. What if that master
of word­play meant "those who utter incantations to guardian­gods"
as well as "engravers of images"? (On such word­play in Second Isaiah
see further below.)
Thus a case might still be made for $fr; but I am not inclined to pursue
it. Let it remain a rare, imperfectly explained word for "messenger",
occasionally on behalf of God. Nevertheless there is more to say about
sr, but in relation to 'r, and by a different approach, namely an examina­
tion of how Ute MT has often been jumbled where the context or even the
versions suggest that divine beings occurred.

4. The Guardian­gods, their Suppression and Transformation

Guardianship of mankind is clearly a divine activity, directly or

through agents. "He neither slumbers nor sleeps, Ute Guardian of Israel"
(Ps 121,4); "He gives his angels charge of you, to 'guard you in all your
ways" (Ps 91,11). From fuir, used in the above verses, we find som•rim
set by God on the walls of Jerusalem (Isa 62,6), surely no merely human
watchmen. (We shall see shortly what this term probably replaced.)
Nsr, the cognate of Ugaritic 11gr, occurs at least 16 times with God as sub­
ject; I. F. M. Brayley (1960) has argued plausibly that n$r mJ' in Isa 60,21
is not "the shoot (ni$er) of his planting" but is a participial phrase referring
to YHWH as Guardian, and exactly parallel to Ugaritic ngr mdr". Further,
if YHWH the somer Yisrii'el promises the service of s6m•r!m, is it possible
that the enigmatic n6$'r·£m in ]er 31,6 have a similar function?
These examples lead us into our problem area. We glanced above
at the case for a verb 'yr, the subject of which can be God (Deut 32,11 and
 The Origin of Aramaic 'Ir, Angel 311

Job 8,6), and for guardian­gods ('ar or 'er), presumably members of the
b•nt 'ilim coexisting with YHWH. We must now work further at a hypo­
thesis concerning the process by which these could have been transformed
into "irt«, angelic guardians. But first there is a counter­proposal to
the whole hypothesis which must be faced. Several of the passages
where Dahood (and others working on similar lines) have fouud guardian­
gods are those where others, especially G. R. Driver, proposed that the
word is • 'areh, cognate with Arabic gariy, applied to bloodstained sacri­
ficial stones, as described by Robertson Smith (Driver, CML 142, n. 26).
Driver's authority caused this to be accepted in the New English Bible,
in the text at Jer 19,15, Ez 6,6, Hos 11,6 and lllic 5,14, and in the notes
at Jer 2,28 and 11,13, though the interpretation was far from commanding
the kind of consensus which authorizes adoption of a new identification
of a word in a version destined for public use. Gordon's UT does not
support the hypothesis, nor does J. C. L. Gibson in his revision of Driver's
CML. How open the question remains in Ugaritic is summed up in RSP
I, m 94. The argument based on Arabic depends on rather large anthro­
pological presuppositions (cf. Barr, Comparative Philology 112­4). Also gariy
essentially means "something made sticky" (see Lane I, 6, p. 2254, col. 2);
the connexionwith pagan sacrificeis not intrinsic to the word, and the con­
text of its use is not specified enough for us to compare it with anything
in ancient Israel. If Driver's interpretation of 'arfm has any attractiveness,
it is because several of the passages seem to imply objects to be destroyed.
But since the semantic field of gods and their worship regularly shows
words denoting both deities and their images or cult objects (e.g. '•!erah),
Driver's proposed denotation can be accommodated within that supported
here, while the sticky blood can be left to the imagination, which is where
it belongs.
To return to our hypothesis: I now wish to move on to a method less
congenial to l\litchell Dahood ­ but one without which his case might
remain for ever unprovable ­ by arguing that the word we seek can be
recovered from deliberate concealment in the MT. It cannot be denied
that this happened quite often to divine beings; for example, the b•ni 'u
in Deut 32,10 (accepted in almost all modern versions), where the Qumran
fragments confirm the LXX against the MT, as again in 32,43. Not in­
frequently the ancient versions give the game away; other such passages
remain unintelligible in detail, though unmistakable in their reference
(e.g. the q•dd§im passage in Ps 16,3­4a). There was some deliberate garb­
ling or "scrambling" of the text where it acknowledgedthe existence of
beings intolerable to the puritanical new monotheism. This must have
begun by the time of the Qumran interpreters: the Habakkuk pesher
already reveals the practice of reading words with some consonantal changes
31% R. Murray

(especially of gutturals) to obtain a desired sense (see A. Finke,

RQ 1963).
The first instance I wish to propose involves a smaller change and a
different process, namely one of satire. I suggest that 'iirf'er is some­
times concealed under 'iwwer, blind. Recently, in the course of an inter­
pretation of Isaiah 33 (Murray, "Prophecy and the Cult", 1982, p. 213)
I discussed the "blind and the lame" in 2 Sam 5,6, drawing on a theory
based in Jewish tradition, proposed by K. Kohler in 1897 but contemp­
tuously rejected by H. P. Smith (Samu.el 288­9). Without any help from
still­undiscoveredUgarit, Kohler (Anglican [ournal of Theology 1 [1897)
803) suggested that the 'iwrim and pisl;itm which the Jebusites said· would
defend them, and which David said he hated, both refer to protecting
deities. There is a strong case that psl;i in Isa 31,5 and the whole "pass­
over" context is understood better as "protect", quite distinct from the
"limp" and "lame" sense (T. F. Glasson. 1959). A number of considera­
tions support this interpretation of the "blind and the lame". Protecting
gods snit the context, giving a clearer sense than any other interpretation.
This offers an explanation of why the Chronicler omitted this whole aspect
of the story (1 Chron 11,5). The interpretation even has traces in Jewish
midrash. G. Brunet (1979) came so near as to suggest that the phrase
is an obscure reference to covenant­curses; it is a pity that he missed the
story in Pirqe d­Rabbi Eliezer (Friedlander, 1916, pp. 276­7) that "the
blind and the lame" were images, on which was engraved the treaty which
Abraham had made with the inhabitants of the land. It may be strange
that a clue should survive so many centuries and reappear in a midrash,
but is it impossible?
In the light of the above, more of the clue may survive in Isa 33,23,
where the MT says that pisl;itm are to divide spoil. The Targum adds
"the blind", surely thinking of 2 Sam 5,6. In the article referred to
(Murray, 1982) I argued that many features of the old temple cult, and
particularly divine beings, both friendly and hostile, are mentioned in
Isaiah 33, which echoes a ritual for the control of hostile forces,both human
and supernatural. Already in 33,Sb 'ar£m are mentioned, together with
mal'•ke §al6m and mysterious "ariels" (?) which Jewish tradition has
always understood as angels. Modern historicizing interpreters, hypno­
tized by the Assyrian invasion theme, usually turn these 'iirfm into • edim
(unless they are satisfied with cities): but guardian deities, proposed by
Dahood (Psalms I, p. 54) and W. H. Irwin (1968, pp. 144­5) fit the context
well, once you put off the historicizing blinkers and think of the cult. The
same divine beings, therefore, once came also at the end of the chapter,
in v. 23.
How did 'iwtm come in? l suggest, as a mocking substitute for
 The Origin of Aramaic 'fr, Angel 313
'iirtmf'irim, to help laugh them out of people's hearts. This would be the
origin of the satirical sequence "they have eyes and see not", etc. (Ps 115,
5­7; 135,16­18). Perhaps it was "Second Isaiah" who began the game.
It is remarkable that every time he mentions 'iwrim (42,7; 42,16­19; 43,8,
and cf. 44,18), immediately adjacent verses contain satire on gods and their
images. We need to look more imaginatively at the implications of this
poet's word­play, so negatively discussed by D. F. Payne (]SS 12 (1967)
207­29). His satire on the gods is 'not limited to mocking at how images
are made, or picturing them as arraigned in a new kind of rib. "Blind",
"lame", "deaf" (!>ires) and "dumb" ('illim) can all enter into the game,
the latter two in relation to ~res (incantation) and 'elim •.
As a final link in the argument that 'iwwer sometimes conceals the
old guardian gods, how did the LXX come to think it appropriate to trans­
late Lam 4,14, nii'u 'iwrim baf:iu~ot as brt<AeU&'/)a«v lyp­lr(opo1 «i>Tii• ... ?
Our previous discussion of a possible relationship between Heb. #r
and Aram. 'tr left us with more to consider in the context of consonantal
changes to conceal 'iirf'ir. In the period when the traces of polytheism
were causing embarrassment, those whose ancestral language was Hebrew
generally knew and used Aramaic, and the equivalence of 'ayin and $ade
would be familiar. We need to examine $iir in relation to supernatural
beings. (Of course, $iirim are quite often God's enemies in the Psalms
and Prophets, but that does not make them necessarily more than human.)
In two passages which still remain obscure, I Sam 28,16 and Ps 139,20,
'iirekii (singular in the former, plural in the latter) is easiest to explain
as an Aramaism,if that was possible; the LXX rendered the word in Samuel
as o &v·d~>JA&; aou. R. Serra (1964, 167­8) tried to make it mean "pro­
tector" (referring to God), but not convincingly. On this we have not
really advanced beyond S. R. Driver's statement of the problem (1913,
pp. 216­7); but let us keep from this brief discussion the apparent inter­
change of 'ayin and sad«, though in the other direction from what we are
looking for.
The most interesting case is Isa 63,9, already mentioned above. The
verse begins b•ll-Ol $iirt'Uiim (which, however, surely belongs to the previous
sentence); then lo $M ilmal' iik piiniiyw h6St' iim, which the LXX rendered
ou npfo~u, oi>ac &yyc).o~ cX>.A' otinb.; fuoo.nv «ino•k Accordingly most
editors read $ir; but it is possible either that ~,;,replaced an original 'iir/
'er or that it would have served to suggest it. This phrase in Isa 63 may

• I am indebted to Mrs M. Barker for sharing with me her extensive

studies in the whole phenomenon of the concealment of the old divine beinl!;S
in the MT. These form a large part of a book in which she expands the thesis
sketched in her article in ]SOT 1980.
314 R: Murray

well stand at or near the source of what became almost a cliche in midrashic
literature, "not by means of an angel nor by means of a messenger". J.
Goldin (1970) has studied this phrase, tracing its variants and its contexts:
for example, in the Pesah haggadah those whose mediation is denied are
an angel, a seraph and an agent (Siili•b). Goldin finds four typical contexts,
but does not ask what can have been the original motive for emphasizing
so anxiously that it was YHWH who acted, not some other supernatural
being. This question surely arises in connexion with Isa 63,9. Was
the phrase 16' 'ar before it was lo' $cir, $ir or Still•{>? And here I cannot
resist mentioning two other phrases which haunt the ear searching for
echoes. This first is in the famous "Redeemer" passage in Job 19,25­27 ­
which, incidentally, looks like another case of a "scrambled" text. Not
only is '8rt ("skin"?) suspicious; the passage ends "my eyes shall behold
(Eloah) w•lO' zar" - a different sibilant, but within the range of choice
for the word­game. The second, similar phrase is in the Oenesis Apocry­
phon, 2,16, where Lamech assures his wife that her child is from himself,
"and not from any alien (w•lti' mi11 kull Z<ir). nor from any of the 'irin,
nor from any of the sons of heaven". Is it not possible that behind all
this tradition of emphasizing the exclusion of rivals is the anxiety to demote
deities to whom people ascribed protective patronage, but who had come
to be no longer acceptable to the post­Deuteronomic monotheism?
R. H. Charles, in his succint comment on 'fr in Daniel 4 (DaHiel 91),
suggested: "It is not impossible that the word originally occurred in Ps 82,7,
and that for stirim 'princes' we should read 'trfm." His argument is
somewhat of the kind we are considering,but surely it makes better sense
in the psalm if the sii.rlm are human. Yet human princes and kings were
inextricably linked with their divine protectors (cf. Ps 89!), so that at least
some play stirfm/'iirim may be possible. Charles goes on to refer to the
punishment of what he calls "the heavenly patrons of the nations" in Isa
24,21­22, and to the punishment of the "Watchers" in I Enoch !Off. and
Jubilees 5. Thus Charles's brief note anticipates the expositions of Ps 82
by J. Morgenstern (HUCA 14 [1939J 29­126) and M. Tsevat (HUCA 40­41
[1969­70) 123­37), and to some extent the thesis concerning the antecedents
of the Enochian angel myth which M. Barker sketched in her article of
1980 and expounds in detail in her forthcoming book.
It is time to gather up the strands of our argument. There is a case
for a word 'tir or 'ir in Hebrew, meaning a guardian­god, probably both
as object of local devotion and as patron of a people (e.g. the 'Ar of Moab?).
Deut 32,10 acknowledges such patronage by the b•tae 'el and, surprisingly,
so does the probably much later passage Deut 4,19, which allows that
YHWH has allotted the star­cult to other nations, insisting on strict mono­
theism only for the Jews. Ps 82 belongs, perhaps, to the liturgical enact­
 The Origin of Aramaic 'IY. Angel 315
ment of YHWH's superiority over the gods, part of the activity of keep­
ing hostile forces in order which occupies so much of the Psalter. "Second
Isaiah" reflects this liturgical tradition, while Isa 24 is a link between it
and 1 Enoch. The host of heaven must be punished; yet it was unthink­
able to deny that the stars govern human affairs. The Babylonians
had worked out a system which commanded respect as far as the west,
where Diodorus wrote the most coherent description we have (II, 30­31),
with an account of the five planets which are called "interpreters" (tpfl'l)Vt~)
and the thirty stars called "counselling gods" (3eot ~ov),a;foL), which govern
the course of the world (Loeb Classics, Diodorus I, pp. 448ff.). If the old
"guardian gods" as they had been popularly understood in Palestine must
yield to strict monotheism, people still needed to believe that their functions
were being maintained. So the "princes of the host of heaven" became
the angelic princes of the nations (Dan 10,13.20­21 and 12,1). 'Arrer
could denote benevolent beings, and so be applied to good angels, obedient
to God; or it could denote the gods who had incurred punishment, and
who came to be regarded as fallen angels who had abused their charge to
teach mankind wisdom. Like mtd'iik, 'iirf'er was adopted in Aramaic,
where we find it vocalized 'fr and soon understood as "one who keeps
awake". The idea that divine guardians do not sleep was familiar not
only from (e.g.) Ps 121 but, in the area where Aramaic succeeded to Akka­
dian, from even older prayers, perhaps, such as that to the personified
watches of the night. Akk. maHartu, from na~iiru, relates to part of the
word­family we have been examining, and keeping awake belongs to the
same associative field as guarding, not only in English with all the senses
of "watch" '· On the hypothesis we have been considering, 'iirf'er "guar­
dian" did not have to move far afield to become • tr the unsleeping
"watcher", but the development was part of a far greater spiritual
migration.
By such reflexions I have tried to substantiate Mitchell Dahood's
suggestion. It seems appropriate to close with some words of Aphrahat
(Dem. XVIII, 12): wa-l}zayn da-lwiit na$~£}.li 'estakl,lat dmuta hay d-'tri
d-ba§mayya, wa-b'ar'a b-mawllabta 'etqanyat: "we have seen that among
the victorious is found the likeness of the Watchers in heaven, and on
earth it is acquired by (God's) gift."

' Professor J. F. A Sawyer has kindly reminded me how this is exem­

plified again by the range of meaning of Hebrew sqd. Besides Jeremiah's
famous play on the "early­wakinr• almond tree (saqed) and God's watching
(Mqtd) over his word to perform tt (Jer l.ll­12), the sense of "keep awake"
Is clearat Ps 108,8 and Ps 127,1. that of "watch/observe" at jer 5,6 and that
of "guard" at Ezra 8,29.
316 R. Murray

Works referred to

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7­29.
Barr, J., Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford
1968).
Brayley, I. F. M., "'Yahweh is the Guardian of His Plantation'. A Note
on Is. 60,21", Bib 41 (1960) 275­286.
Brunet G., "Les aveugles et boiteux jebuaites", VT Suppl. 30 (1979) 65­72.
Charles, R. H., A Critical and Exegetical Ctmimentary on th« Book of Daniel
(Oxford 1929).
-, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch» (Oxford 1912).
-, The Book of Jubilees (London 1902).
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Fitzmyer, J. A., The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 71 (BibOr !SA;
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 The Origin of Aramaic 'tr, Angel 317

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