This page is the entry. It says who Raziel is, how the title Archangel is his, how he helps man, and which passages name him. Then it shows what this domain holds.
His name is Hebrew. The letters are ר ז י א ל, pointed רָזִיאֵל. It is built from raz (secret) and El (God). The Jewish Encyclopedia, citing the Amsterdam 1701 book at 21b, quotes the book’s own vocation sentence: each angel is named by his work, “as Raziel, because he transmitted the Book of Secrets.”
The King James Bible does not print his name. The Aramaic Targum on Ecclesiastes 10:20 does. The Zohar calls him the holy angel appointed over the holy supernal secrets. The printed book that bears his name is Sefer Raziel ha-Malakh, Amsterdam 1701: “the book of Raziel the angel.”
Tradition is marked as tradition. A verse is quoted as a verse. Where a famous book does not name him, that is said too.
How he is called Archangel
The Hebrew sources call him an angel. They do not tell a story in which he is promoted. The archangel title is printed in Latin, in the book-name Liber Razielis Archangeli — of Raziel the archangel. That title belongs to the Latin compilation associated with the circle of Alfonso X (Vatican Reg. lat. 1300 and related copies).
Agrippa, in the 1651 English of the Three Books of Occult Philosophy, sets the name Raziel in the same list of angelic office-names as Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Haniel. He does not write the two English words “Archangel Raziel.” This house writes Archangel Raziel as one word Archangel, from that Latin book-title.
How he helps man
Louis Ginzberg retells the gift in The Legends of the Jews, Volume I. On the third day after Adam’s prayer outside Paradise, “there appeared to him, in the heat of the day, the angel Raziel, bearing a book in his hand.” Adam falls affrighted. Raziel tells him to arise, take the book, and keep it. When Adam takes it, a flame rises and the angel goes up with it. The book in that story is the Book of Raziel. On this Hall that book is Sefer Raziel ha-Malakh.
The 1701 printing says the same gift in its own voice: Raziel the angel gave the book to Adam. Later tradition in that printing passes the book through Enoch, Noah, and others. That is the book’s tradition, not a history we invented. Read the title page.
The Targum says he proclaims every day from heaven on Mount Horeb, and a voice goes through the whole world. The Zohar says he is the holy angel appointed over the holy supernal secrets, and that the book sent by his hand unfolds many kinds of wisdom. The help the sources name is a book, a voice through the world, and secrets that are not left sealed.
Passages about him
“Curse not the king, no not in thy thought; and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.”
Ecclesiastes 10:20 · King James Version (1769), public domain. This verse does not name him. The Targum on it does.
“Do not curse the king even in your thought in the secret places of your heart, and do not curse the sage in your bedroom, for the angel Raziel proclaims everyday from heaven upon Mt. Horeb and a voice goes through the whole world, and Elijah the High Priest flying through the air of heaven like an eagle with wings and declares matters that are done in secret to all the dwellers of the earth.”
Aramaic Targum to Ecclesiastes 10:20 · English as printed at hebrewbible.app. A Jewish Aramaic paraphrase, not the Hebrew verse itself.
“On the third day after he had offered up this prayer, while he was sitting on the banks of the river that flows forth out of Paradise, there appeared to him, in the heat of the day, the angel Raziel, bearing a book in his hand.”
Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Vol. I, “The Book of Raziel” · Project Gutenberg eBook #1493
“This is the Book of Adam the First (Sifra de-Adam Qadma’ah), which Raziel the angel (רזיאל המלאך) gave to him.”
Sefer Raziel ha-Malakh, Amsterdam 1701, title page · Raziel's Library™
Zohar Bereshit 55b, in the English paraphrase at zohar.com of the same figure Ben-Yehuda cites in Aramaic: the book comes “by the hand of Raziel, the holy angel appointed over the holy supernal secrets.” R. H. Charles’s 1 Enoch does not name him. A full-text search of Project Gutenberg #77935 finds no “Raziel.”
King James Version (1769): Ecclesiastes 10:20.
Targum Qohelet 10:20, English at hebrewbible.app.
Zohar Bereshit 55b, as cited in the Hall’s name notes from Ben-Yehuda and zohar.com.
Sefer Raziel ha-Malakh, Amsterdam 1701, in this Library.
Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews I, Project Gutenberg #1493.
Ginsburg, The Kabbalah, Project Gutenberg #69243, on the 1701 printing.
Liber Razielis Archangeli, Latin book-title; Agrippa, Three Books of Occult Philosophy, English 1651, for the office-name list.
Charles, The Book of Enoch, Project Gutenberg #77935 — the name is absent.
This domain
What is found here
The Hall is the door. The shelves are Raziel's Library™. One RUEZALS page sits beside the Hall and is only linked from here: Raziel's Mercy™.
Every shelf: the Gutenberg Bible, 1 Enoch, Jubilees, the Book of Giants, Sefer Raziel ha-Malakh, the Key of Solomon, Agrippa, and the Hindu and Buddhist shelves, with more traditions named as still coming.
