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In 1 Enoch, the angel Raphael ties Azazel's hands and feet and throws him into darkness. In Tobit, Raphael similarly binds Asmodeus so he cannot harm Tobias and Sarah. Both follow Jewish apocalyptic traditions about judging rebellious divine beings.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Enoch 10:4
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
2 'Go to Noah and tell him in my name to hide himself and reveal to him that the end is near: the entire earth will be destroyed, a deluge is about to cover the whole earth and will wipe out everything on it. 3 And now instruct him so that he may escape and his descendants may be preserved for all future generations.' 4 And the Lord also said to Raphael: 'Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: make a hole in the desert in Dûdâêl, and throw him in. 5 Place upon him rough and jagged rocks, cover him with darkness, and let him remain there forever, and cover his face so he may not see light.
Date: 300 BCE – 100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Tobit 8:3
Deuterocanon
1 And when they had finished eating and drinking, they desired to sleep, and they led the young man away and brought him into the chamber. 2 And Tobias remembered the words of Raphael, and took the liver of the fish and the heart - out of the bag which he had, and put them on the ashes of the incense. 3 And the smell of the fish baffled the demon, and he ran away into the upper parts of Egypt; and Raphael went and fettered him there and bound him at once. 4 And they went forth and shut the door of the chamber. And Tobias rose up from the bed, and said to her, Sister, arise; let us pray and make supplication to our Lord that he may work mercy and deliverance for us.
Date: 225–175 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Binding a demon renders him powerless. This seems to be a technical term for binding demons. See Montgomery (1913: 52). Compare 1 Enoch 10.4 where God tells Raphael to “bind Azazel by his hands and feet and throw him into the darkness; and split open the desert that is in Dudael and throw him there.” Since the incense was usually used to summon a god, perhaps the original folk tale had the incense and liver used to attack Asmodeus who was bound and taken away by Raphael, and then there has been subsequent confusion in the account ..."
Robert J. Littman, Tobit: The Book of Tobit in Codex Sinaiticus (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 149.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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