Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss Samael,
also known as Satan, Samil, Seir, Salmael, and Satanil, an enigmatic
and ambiguous figure in that, depending on the source, he’s portrayed as either a champion
of the light or as an entity of profound evil, comprising two diametrically opposed aspects.
Samael is the angel of the planet Mars and of one of the days of the week,
Tuesday. He’s the angel of death, for which he is known to stand near the heads of those
for whom the end draws near, holding up a sword from which a single drop of poison
falls into their mouths, ending life. He’s described as the angel of Rome,
an epithet with negative connotations given Rome’s invasion of Israel, as a great 12 winged serpent,
and as the serpent who tempts Eve, seducing her and siring Cain, the world’s first murderer.
Let’s get into it.
In some Jewish astrological works, Samael was thought to be the angel who presided
over mars. He also features as the angel who presides over one of the days of the week,
Tuesday. Samael is said to either be the chief of the fifth heaven
or to reside in the seventh. In the Talmud, he’s presented as Esau’s, the twin brother of Jacob's,
guardian angel. Samael is described as the angelic prince guardian of Edom, an ancient name for the
land - what is now southwestern Jordan - that borders Israel. In the Holy Kabbalah, he’s
designated “the severity of God '' and features as the 5th archangel in Beri’ah: the world of
creation, an angelological realm that exists next to Azilut, the plane of divine emanation.
In his capacity as the angel of death, which is expanded upon in rabbinic literature,
he is a servant of God, despite this title conjuring up a dark and disturbing image.
He was dispatched by God to retrieve Moses’ soul after the prophet’s time on earth had drawn to an
end. However, this particular assignment wasn’t without its challenges. As the story goes, Moses
did not go gently into that good night and did indeed rage, rage, rage. He fought tooth and nail,
unleashing an onslaught of blows with his staff and inflicting such a savage beating that Samael
was said to have gone blind from the flurry of impacts. Moses’ incredible resistance forced God
to intervene and compel him to relinquish his soul. In Islamic exegesis, meaning ancillary
works that supplement scripture with explanation and interpretation, it is Azrael, one of the
four Islamic archangels, who confronts and is subsequently repelled by Moses. Some accounts
of Samael carrying out his duties as the reaper of souls describe him as standing at the head of
each dying person with a drawn sword. A single drop of poison beads on the tip of the blade
and then falls into the mouth of the soon to be deceased, hammering in the final proverbial nail
into the coffin. The looks of frozen horror that sometimes twist the faces of the dead have been
attributed to Samael becoming visible to people a brief moment before the separation of their souls,
striking people with fear just before death. Samael’s methods tie into the etymology of
his name: ‘Sam' means poison, so his name is thought to mean something like ‘poison of God’.
The four angels of prostitution, Naamah, Eisheth Zenunim, and Agrat bag Mahlat,
were all described as being the mates of Samael. Naamah, as claimed by Rabbi hiya,
is the great seducer, but not just of men, also including spirits and demons, and that,
in addition to Lilith, was the fell force that afflicted children with epilepsy.
Eisheth Zenunim is a princess of the Qliphoth, the malignant and impure aspects of reality.
Agrat bat Mahlat is “the dancing roof-demon. She haunts the air, and her retinue includes
18 myriads of destruction demons, each of them perilous. And Lilith, whom we just made a video
about, is the bane of infants, seducer of men, mother of demons, and the first wife of Adam.
In rabbinic literature, Samael is presented as the highest - perhaps to say lowest would be
more appropriate - of the Satans, as well as the angel of death, and in Enoch II,
he’s depicted as a magician and as the prince of demons. One description calls him “the great
serpent with 12 wings that draws after him, in his fall, the solar system”. Another source, the
Sayings of Rabbi Eliezer, claims that Samael was the one who garbed himself in scales and coils,
taking the form of serpent, in which guise he slithered into the Garden of Eden to tempt Eve,
seducing her and siring Cain, the world’s first murderer; and given that Cain is suffused with
sin, disposed to both jealousy and violence as he was, that a fallen angel was his father,
as opposed to Adam, the first man, actually seems rather fitting. The Zohar equates Samael with the
dark angel who wrestles Jacob; however, many angels are purported to be this dark angel,
including: Uriel, Metatron, and even Michael. Cornelius Agrippa, a man of many pursuits,
including occult writing and theology, compared Samael to Typhon in one of his works,
Three Books of Occult Philosophy. (Typhon was born to Gaia, the personification of the earth,
and Tartarus, the personification of the great abyss beneath the earth, and was the
most powerful monster in Greek mythology - a fact attested to by some of the accounts of his story,
which include him cutting out Zeus’ sinews and keeping the king of the gods prisoner in a cave,
as well as nearly the entire Greek pantheon disguising themselves as various animals and
fleeing to Egypt. In the Book of Enoch, dubbed Samael the prince of accusers, which signifies
him as one of the malevolent entities in the court of heaven who slung accusations at Israel.
By the same token, it was also said that Samael was the angel of Rome - his presence and influence
helping to found the empire, a precursor to the hardships that would befall Jewish people
under its imperialistic yoke, such as: the conquest of Israel, the Great Temple of Jerusalem
being destroyed in 70 BCE, and the Diaspora, which was the scattering of Jewish people,
forcing them into lands outside of Israel. In aggadah, a division of the rabbinic exegesis,
Samael is said to not know the path to the tree of life despite him flying
through the air. Additionally, his navel is described as having a single long hair,
and that he will continue to rule so long as this hair remains undamaged.
And that’s it for this video!
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