Azza appears in the Hebrew Book of Enoch, commonly called 3 Enoch. The work gives the name more than one narrative setting: an angel who objects to Enoch’s admission to heaven, and a figure associated with forbidden teaching. Reading those passages separately preserves a difference the text itself presents.
Azza and Enoch’s elevation
In Odeberg’s translation of 3 Enoch 4:6, Uzza, Azza and Azzael bring charges against Enoch in the high heavens. They recall the earlier objection that humanity should not have been created. God nevertheless establishes Enoch as a ruler among the ministering angels, and the angels ultimately acknowledge his favored position.
In this scene Azza belongs to the heavenly company opposing the elevation of a human being. It would misrepresent the passage to insert a punishment or descent that the scene does not describe.
Forbidden teaching in chapter 5
Chapter 5:9 gives a different setting. Uzza, Azza and Azziel teach sorceries used in the generation of Enosh to bring down the heavenly bodies for the service of idols. Odeberg’s notes discuss both the spellings and the tension between the heavenly accusers of chapter 4 and the harmful teachers of chapter 5.
The names vary between witnesses. In particular, the presence of both Uzza and Azza in the printed three-name list cautions against silently treating the spellings as interchangeable there. The pair Uzza and Azael in Yoma 67b provides a related comparison, but not permission to turn every list into the same pair or a single harmonized story.
Explore related entries
Read Azael, Metatron, Azazel, the fallen-angel catalogue, or the guide to source traditions.