Journal for

the Study of
Judaism

Journal for the Study of Judaism 44 (2013) 339-355

brill.com/jsj

Folk-Etymology, and its Influence

on Metatron Traditions
Michael T. Miller
Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Nottingham
ain_ani@yahoo.com

Abstract
This paper takes a new approach to the contentious area of the etymology of Metatron, applying the lessons learnt from biblical folk-etymologies which have been
shown to actively influence the writing of narratives. In the first section one such
possible folk-etymology is proposed, based around the sequence TTR as a divine
name in Metatron, along with some suggestions of how this could have influenced
the narratives around the angel, and how this could have become part of the perceived nature of the angel. In the second section, texts from the Hekhalot literature
are analysed to show that similar angelic etymologies which integrate a divine
name into the angels name are commonplace during this period.
Keywords
Metatron, etymology, Hekhalot literature, angelology

1.The Folk-Etymology
The Oxford Guide to Etymology defines the etymological fallacy as the
idea that knowing about a words origin, and particularly its original meaning, gives us the key to understanding its present day use.1 Particularly, this
is understood prescriptively in that a word should not be used other than
its original technical meaning allows. This paper will look at how beliefs
about the nature of etymology have influenced ideas about the angel
Metatron.
After roughly one hundred years of academic research on the angel
Metatron, we are still no closer to explaining the origin of his name. Many
1)Philip Durkin, The Oxford Guide to Etymology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 27.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013

DOI: 10.1163/15700631-12340382

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theories have been advanced, each of which has their own merits,2 the
most important and oft-repeated being that it derives from the Greek metathronos, implying the one who serves beside the throne. There is some justification for this theory in the Hekhalot literature, which often presents
Metatron as enthroned, and the Youth, who is often identified explicitly
with Metatron,3 is said to come from behind or beneath the throne.4 Possibly the earliest recorded etymology relates the name to the Latin metator,
this being given by Nachmanides,5 as well as Eleazar of Worms.6 The most
recent candidate for the origin of the angels name has been developed by
Andrei Orlov,7 who sees a possible relationship between the (otherwise
unattested) term prometaya, a title given to Enoch in ch. 43 of the short version of 2 Enoch, and the term praemetitor, found in Philos QG 4, where it
means measurer. Orlov argues that Metatron thus develops nominally as
well as conceptually from the pseudepigraphic character of Enoch.8
2)See the presentation of nine different theories in Andrei Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 92-96. Hugo Odeberg offers a less comprehensive but
more detailed analysis of several etymologies in 3 Enoch or the Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), 125-42. For the sake of completeness, we could
add to these those of Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis
(London: Cassell, 1964), 106, who see in it a corruption of metadromos, he who pursues with
a vengeance or meta ton thronon, nearest to the divine throne. The most recent general
investigation of the construction of angelic names in Judaism is Saul Olyan, A Thousand
Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (Tbingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1993). Olyan provides several examples of angels derived from biblical terms,
often from hapax legomena and awkward textual constructions which seemingly imply
more than the surface meaning. He is silent on the etymology of Metatron, however, and
while his thesis is well supported in the examples he provides, a claim to be the exclusive
method of angelic name-generation is not his goal and would not be possible.
3)E.g., 3 En. 4:1; 4:10; Sefer Raziel 241; Sefer Haqqomah 160.
4)For example in the Cairo Genizah fragment known as the Ozhayah text. But see below,
n. 44.
5)As attested by a student, I have received from the mouth of the Rabbi that Metatron is a
messenger, and is not a separate thing as his name indicates. Every messenger is called metator according to the Greek. On the attribution of this text, see Daniel Abrams, New Manuscripts to the Book of Secrets of R. Shem Tov bar Simha and the Sources He Possessed,
Asufot 9 (1995): 49-70, here 65-66 [Hebrew].
6)MS Paris, BN850, fol. 83B; see p.9 below. On the history of this interpretation in the Kabbalah, see Odeberg, 3 Enoch, 127-31.
7)The Origin of the Name Metatron and the Text of 2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch, JSP
21 (2000): 19-26; cf. Orlov, Enoch-Metatron, 176-80.
8)This theory is particularly interesting because it ties together not only Enoch and Metatron but also Philos Logos. The recent discovery of a Coptic fragment of 2 Enoch would have

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The intention of this paper is not to offer another hypothesis regarding

the etymology of Metatron. Rather, I intend to investigate the effects of such
etymologies on the character of Metatronthat is, the possibility that
what audiences have thought the word means could have affected their
reading and writing of the traditions. We know that explanations for the
name Metatron have been given since long before the time of academic
analysisthose of Nachmanides and Eleazar of Worms being just two
examples.9 We also know that folk-etymology has a long history in Jewish
thought, apparently shaping even biblical texts and narratives. To give the
most famous example, the name Moshe most likely derives from an Egyptian theophorism based around the word mesu (child), as evidenced also
in the name Thutmoses (child of the god Thoth). However, in the biblical
narrative this information has become lost and we find instead a folk-etymology placed in the mouth of the Pharaohs daughter, who names him
Moshe because she drew him out [meshitihu] of the water (Exod 2:10). In
a recent study on Noah the biblical text is found to be separable into two
distinct etymological strands from different periods, one of which is obviously technically incorrect yet has still served to influence the biblical
narrative.10 Given this, we can suppose that interpretations of the name
Metatron, probably unrelated to the original meaning (if there was one)
may also have been written into the traditions that surround him, influencing the nature of his character as it developed in the texts we now have.
In particular, there is one such meaning that I would like to investigate.
We may note that contains the string , a sequence which intimates the Greek term tetra.11 This is interesting in that tetra seems to invoke
the most holy name of God, the four-lettered name YHWH which itself is
often referred to as the Tetragrammaton. One of the most famous dicta
helped clarify its veracity, but for its stopping at 42:3, just short of the passage in question.
For translation and analysis of the fragment, see Joost L. Hagen, No Longer Slavonic Only:
2 Enoch Attested in Coptic from Nubia, in New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic
Only (ed. Andrei A. Orlov and Gabriele Boccaccini; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 7-34.
9)The obtuse nature of Metatrons name could account for the amount of attempted explanations: there is no single, easily accepted candidate.
10)Herbert Marks, Biblical Naming and Poetic Etymology, JBL 114 (1995): 21-42.
11)Joseph Dan, The Ancient Jewish Mysticism (Tel Aviv: MOD, 1993), 110, has also noticed
this. He remarks, It appears that the reference here is to the letters tetra, i.e., the number
four in Greek, a four letter word in the middle of the name Metatron, but this has not been
clarified sufficiently. However, he concluded that the thesis cannot be explored sufficiently
to warrant its validity, and it has not subsequently been taken up by any other scholars.

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regarding Metatron is that he shares the name of God, or has Gods name
in him.12 Moreover, Metatron is frequently characterised as being confused with or in some sense exchangeable with Godas in the famous
story, recited in both the Bavli and the Hekhalot literature, wherein R. Elisha
b. Abuya ascends to heaven, where he sees Metatron and proclaims Perhapsheaven forfendthere are two deities! In response to this heresy
he is renamed Aher (other).13
Here then we have, uniquely, a possible connection between the name
Metatron and the Talmudic reference of Exod 23:21 to Metatron as the angel
who has Gods name in him. The justification for the association of the
passage with Metatron has previously only been possible via an identification of Metatron with Yahoel (who clearly does bear the name of God
within his), supported by the appearance of Yahoel as a name of Metatron
in 3 En. 48d:1.14 There is otherwise no compelling reason, as far as we can
perceive, behind the use of Metatron in this debate, or indeed the ascription of the verse to Metatron at all.15
It therefore seems that the presence of tetra in Metatron deserves more
analysis than it has so far attracted. I will propose that Metatron has at
some point during the writing of his narratives fallen foul of an etymology
which focuses on the presence of tetra within his name, and endeavour to
establish whether this could be the case and, if it is, how it may have affected
the Metatron traditions we now have before us.

12)In b. Sanh. 38b, a min (heretic) challenges R. Idi to explain Exod 24:1, where God seems
to use the name YHWH of another; Idi replies that the name in this instance refers to Metatron, whose name is like that of his master, utilising Exod 23:21s claim that the divine name
is in the Angel of the Lord.
13)This proclamation is seen as a type of the Two Powers heresy. See Alan F. Segal, Two
Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports About Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: Brill,
1977).
14)Most famously in Scholems Encyclopedia Judaica article on Metatron, reprinted in Kabbalah (Jerusalem: Keter, 1974). Scholem saw Yahoel as a precursor to Metatron and whose
qualities were later absorbed into him; he later claimed that Yahoel is the oldest name of
Metatron. The Origins of the Kabbalah (ed. R. J. Werblowsky, trans. Allan Arkush; Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1987), 89.
15)The famous association of Metatron with Shaddai (by gematria both equal 314) is not
relevant here, for two reasons: firstly, gematria only really came into prominence in the thirteenth century with the mystical writings of the Ashkenazi Hasidim and Kabbalists, long
after the name-sharing tradition emerged; secondly, and more importantly b. Sanh. 38b specifically refers to the Tetragrammaton, not Shaddai.

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First, we must establish whether TTR itself is used as a divine name

in any of the surrounding literature of this period. There is one particular name of God, used repeatedly in the Hekhalot literature, which may
have bearing on this: Totrosiai ( )appears often and throughout
Hekhalot Rabbati, as well as in Hekhalot Zutarti (six times between 414 and
418)16 and Maaseh Merkavah (590 contains several variations including
and ). We find at 650 (a passage attested only in
N8128). We also find the presumably related form in 3 En. 18:8-9,
and a few mangled variations in a Cairo Genizah fragment.17 Finally there is
a mention in The Sword of Moses, which has so far only been dated between
the fourth and thirteenth centuries.18 Surprisingly little has been written
on Totrosiai in the Hekhalot literature: the only dedicated study thus far
is Wolfgang Fauths Tatrosjah-Totrosjah und Metatron in der Jdischen
Merkabah-Mystik.19 It is accepted that the name contains the Greek tetra,
although the rest of its construction is less obvious.20 The transliteration of
16)Synopse numbers follow those of Peter Schfer, Margarete Schlter, and Hans Georg von
Mutiu, Synopse zur Hekhalot Literatur (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1981).
17)T.-S. K 21.95.G, 1a line 8 (Peter Schfer, Geniza-Fragmente zur Hekhalot-Literatur [Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984], 185) gives us ( the damaged beginning of the line has
also kept just ), as does line 20; line 17 has .
18)Sword of Moses 1.4 names , although here as one of four angels, suggesting that
this came significantly after the other texts where the name fairly unequivocally indicates
God. We also find at 5.26.
19)JSJ 22 (1991): 40-87.
20)David Blumenthal, Understanding Jewish Mysticism (New York: Ktav, 1978), 60, translates
it as tetra+ousion, meaning the essence of the four (lettered name), while Rebecca Lesses,
Speaking with Angels: Jewish, Egyptian and Greek Revelatory Adjurations, HTR 89 (1996):
41-60, here 53 has provided tetras+IAI, the latter being a reference to the divine name. Neither seems entirely satisfactory, and it is especially clear that IAI should rather be IAO. Fauth
(Tatrosjah-Totrosjah, 41) offered a similar reading to Lesses, though without reference to
the Hebrew spelling, only his transliteration as Tatrosjah, which masks the difficulty somewhat. However, the initial tetra is corroborated by Philip Alexander (3 [Hebrew Apocalypse
of] Enoch, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. James Charlesworth; 2 vols.; New York:
Doubleday, 1983-1985), 1:272; hereafter OTP), Michael Swartz (Mystical Texts, in The Literature of the Sages vol. 2: Midrash and Targum, Liturgy, Poetry, Mysticism, Contracts, Inscriptions, Ancient Science and the Languages of Rabbinic Literature [ed. Shmuel Safrai at al.;
Assen: van Gorcum, 2006], 393-420, here 405) and Peter Schfer (Origins of Jewish Mysticism
[Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck 2009], 272). It is worth mentioning here the suggestion that
Abrasax, itself a Greek name of God, refers to the Hebrew arba (four). See A. A. Barb, Abrasaxstudien, in Hommages Waldemar Deonna (Collection Latomus 28; Brussels: Latomus,
1957), 67-86.

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Greek names in the Hekhalot literature is common practice,21 so this semietymology is very plausible.22 However, as a construct itself, this name falls
short of evidencing TTR as a divine name.
Hekhalot Zutarti 357-367 compiles a long list of titles for God which
includes his biblical appellations and ends with Gabriel, Raphael, Metatron, and Shaddai. Roughly halfway through one manuscripts recension
(New York 8128, 362i), we find the name , which Morray-Jones has
interpreted as the Greek tetra, four.23 As we know that a larger version of
this sequence is utilised as a divine name almost certainly related to the
tetragram, we are safe in assuming that TTR here may operate as either an
abbreviation of Totrosiai, or as an intimation of the Tetragrammaton generally. Here then we are able to conclude that the sequence TTR is used,
apparently as a name of God, in one manuscript tradition of Hekhalot
Zutarti.24
21)As pointed out initially in Jochanan Hans Lewys classical study Remains of Greek Sentences and Names in the Book Hekhalot Rabbati, Tarbiz 12 (1941): 163-67 [Hebrew]. Most
famously, the phrase , given at several places including 230, 301, 415, 417,
etc., may be a transliteration from Greek of air-earth-water, although Gideon Bohak,
Remains of Greek Words and Magical Formulae in Hekhalot Literature, Kabbalah 6 (2001):
121-34, has cast doubt on this reconstruction, arguing that it could equally be the Greek air
and water or even a construction using the Hebrew ( knight, hero) and ( beauty,
grace). See also the collection of examples in Daniel Sperber, Rabbinic Knowledge of
Greek, in Literature of the Sages vol. 2, 627-40, here 636-38. In fact there are even Hebraic
transliterations of Greek versions of familiar Hebrew terms. See Gershom Scholem, Jewish
Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (2d ed.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965), 75-83.
22)The presence of Greek transliterations and loan-words in the Hekhalot literature also
supports the possibility of readers interpreting part of the Hebrew name Metatron as a
Greek term. Often it seems that the fact that such words are borrowed is forgotten and so a
phrase could be interpreted as a Greek term which has become commonly used in Jewish
circles of the time.
23)Christopher Rowland and Christopher R.A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 285.
24)Of the nine obvious variants in Maaseh Merkavah 590, five contain the initial string
TTR. It is also worth mentioning that the eighth name of Metatron in the later addition to
3 Enoch, chapter 48d:1 is Tatriel, a name also used much later in an anonymous work from a
member of the Ashkenazi Hasidim, which equates it by gematria with nivreu, we created,
for everything that was created in heaven and earth and its fullness is borne by him (MSS
Cambridge Heb. Add. 405, fol.301a; Guenzberg 90, fol.126a; Oxford Bodleian 2286 fol.155a).
See Elliot R. Wolfson, Metatron and Shiur Qomah in the Writings of the Haside Ashkenaz,
in Mysticism, Magic and Kabbalah in Ashkenazi Judaism: International Symposium Held in
Frankfurt a.M. 1991 (ed. Karl Erich Grzinger and Joseph Dan; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995), 60-92,
here 78.

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Having established this, we can now examine what the word Metatron
could seem to mean to one who sees in it the divine name TTR. In this
case, it would be logical to interpret the name as consisting of the central
element TTR, plus a prefix and a suffix. There are two possibilities for the
prefix. The prefix, Mi- may be a concatenation of min, meaning from; or it
may be the word mi, meaning who, as in the name Michael.25 The ending
-on is often found in angels in the Hekhalot literature, e.g., Adiriron, Sandalfon, etc.,26 and it may have diminutive connotations27either way, its
use as a suffix is well established. It is worth noting here that the thirteenthcentury Ashkenazi Hasid Eleazar of Worms, in his own attempted etymology, derives -ron from RNN, song or praise. He writes:
He is called Metatron, which is metator in a foreign language, meaning one
who leads, as in Bereshit Rabbah, the Holy One became a metatron for them
and a leader. Therefore he is called Metatron because he governs the world.
And it says ron [i.e., to utter praise] each day . . . The great name is inscribed
upon his heart, for my name is in him.28

Thus we have two very close possibilities for the name Metatron. It could
mean either from-Tetragrammaton or (the one) who is lesser-Tetragrammaton. I will return shortly to consider the latter meaning, though it is
notable that the former interpretation could be related to the Kabbalistic
appropriation of the cutting the shoots motif. Talmudically this implies
heresy generally, the famous usage of this phrase is in the story of Elisha
ben Abuyas fateful journey into heaven whereupon he sees Metatron and
25)Metatron can be spelled either with or without the yod. Scholem (Kabbalah, 380) notes
that the earliest manuscripts evidence the longer, seven lettered variant. Interestingly, the
Genizah Hekhalot fragments usually prefer this too, though the Ashkenazi manuscripts
have the shorter version in its place.
26)Scholem, in his own speculation on the name Metatron (Kabbalah, 378) refused the
need to explain the element due to its frequency as a feature of angelic names. This of course
does not abrogate any further explanation, but the knowledge of it as a common ending can
be assumed for the audience and writers of these traditions.
27)In Ancient Greek, the suffix -on can certainly function as a diminutive, for example the
word bblos (papyrus) becoming biblon (book), and xphos (sword) becoming xiphdion (dagger). R. David Kimchi, possibly influenced by this feature of Greek, makes the
claim that ishon (pupil of the eye) literally means small man (ish-on) (Commentary to
Tehillim 17:8). There is no other precedent I could find in Hebrew sources. Biblically, the suffix usually modifies a verb into a denominative, one who does x, e.g., Zebulon, one who
dwells, or the place of x.
28)MS Paris, BN850, fol. 83B, see Wolfson, Metatron and Shiur Qomah, 77.

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suggests that there are Two powers in Heaven.29 By the time of the first
kabbalists however, the phrase came to be used quite specifically, to signify
the separation of the sefirot either from each other, or from the source, En
Sof. We should note again the previously mentioned student of Nachmanides who wrote, I have received from the mouth of the Rabbi that
Metatron is a messenger, and is not a separate thing as his name indicates.30
Here once again the nature of Metatronand specifically his continuity
with Godis related to an interpretation of his name. The name Metatron
is interpreted as specifically designating his non-separation from God.
Scholem had argued that Yahoel is the oldest name of Metatron31his
reasoning being that Yahoel had the strongest claim to bear Gods name in
his own as Yahoel contains the letters YHW of the Tetragrammaton. What
then is the relationship between Yahoel and Metatron, and why would a
group choose to ascribe the name-angel role of Exod 23:21 to Metatron,
rather than the existing and obvious Yahoel? The answer is that Yahoel
appears only sparingly in Jewish literature of the time. Other than three
very brief uses of the name Yahoel, once as a title of God on an Aramaic
incantation bowl, dated between the third and seventh centuries C.E.,32
once in a Cairo Genizah fragment,33 and once as a name of Metatron in
a late addition to 3 Enoch,34 we find only a single appearance of the angel,
this being in the Apocalypse of Abraham.35 Here, both God and Yahoel himself associate him with the divine name: God describes him as Yahoel of
the same name (10:3) and Yahoel claims to bear His ineffable name in me
29)b. ag. 14b. For a bibliography of research on the original meaning of the phrase, see
Daniel Abrams, The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead, HTR 87 (1994): 291-321, here 295-96, esp. n. 14.
30)Abrams, Boundaries, 313, my emphasis.
31)Origins, 89.
32)See Philip S. Alexander, The Historical Setting of the Hebrew Book of Enoch, JJS 28
(1977): 173-80.
33)As part of long angelic lists in T.-S. K 21.95.P, 2a line 5 (Schfer, Geniza-Fragmente, 143),
T.-S. NS 322.21, 1a line 1 (ibid., 153) and Heb. a.3.25a, line 23 (ibid., 156).
34)3 En. 48d.
35)There are also possible variants of Yahoel in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve 29:4 (M. D.
Johnson, Life of Adam and Eve, in OTP 2:249-95, see 285, n. 29b), Apoc. Mos. 29:4, 33:5, 43:5,
Lad. Jac. 2:18 and Sepher Ha-Razim 2:140 (trans. Michael A. Morgan, Chico: Scholars Press,
1983, 56). In one manuscript of Maaseh Merkavah 562 (O1531) we find , but this is
almost certainly a scribal error for ( compare D436 which preserves the spacing).
Yahoel is definitely present in the Sword of Moses (4.18) but as mentioned this text is virtually
undatable to any useful degree.

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(10:8). Although we cannot be certain about the chronology, Apocalypse of

Abraham is accepted as late first or second century C.E.,36 and therefore
this tradition of Yahoel likely pre-dates the mentioned borrowing of the
name as title for God or Metatron (as well, we shall soon see, as the first
appearance of the name Metatron). This does not mean that the groups
responsible for the bowl or 3 Enoch had any knowledge of the former: it is
possible that Yahoel was originally designated, by one group, as the obvious candidate for the role of an angel who bears the name of God, but as
the tradition was absorbed into Metatron by a later group, the name Yahoel
also became attached to him. Whatever the case, we are safe to conclude
that Yahoel was not an extremely common or popular angel around the
time of the Talmud and Hekhalot literature, so could easily have been
passed over in favour of another angel who appeared to bear the name
of God.
We have seen already that there is a possible connection between the
name Metatron and the Bavli use of Exod 23:21s name-angel. Above I gave
two possible meanings based on the presence of TTR in Metatrons name,
the second being (One) who is the lesser-Tetragrammaton. According to
this variation, we havealso for the first timea possible ground for the
statement in 3 Enoch that Metatron is called the little YHWH (3 En. 12:5).
This appellation has previously been taken for granted, requiring no explanation other than that of Metatrons nature as the grandest angel. Scholem
claimed that the use of lesser YHWH is undoubtedly puzzling and was
almost certainly current before the figure of Metatron crystallized; he also
found the explanation given within 3 En. 12 far from satisfactory . . . it is
obvious that they are an attempt to clarify an earlier tradition, then no longer properly understood.37 Thus we have here a justification for the emergence of an important feature in the Metatron mythology which has
previously been unexplained. According to the arguments made herein,
YHWH ha-qaan appears to be an explanation ofin fact an extrapolation
fromthe name Metatron.38
After suggesting his original etymology, Joseph Dan decided that the
thesis could not be explored sufficiently to warrant its validity. Given that
36)R. Rubinkiewicz, Apocalypse of Abraham, in OTP 1:680-705.
37)Kabbalah, 378; cf. Jewish Gnosticism, 51.
38)Fossum notes that the Greek equivalent, Little Iao, appears in the third-century Gnostic
text Pistis Sophia, ch. 7, which presumably pre-dates 3 Enoch (Jarl E. Fossum, The Name of
God and the Angel of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and the Origins of Gnosticism [Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985], 301).

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the phrase tetra has been used within the Hekhalot literature as an appellation of God, likely connected to Totrosiai, and that the name Metatron can
be interpreted accordingly in a way that helps to explain two of the most
striking traditions in the literature, it seems highly plausible that other
groups earlier in the history of Metatron came to similaror even somewhat strongerconclusions.

2.Angelic Name-Sharing in the Hekhalot Literature

The etymological theory as I have presented it above provides some connections between the name of Metatron and two of the most central defining traditions in the literature surrounding the angel. Not only is there a
possible connection between the name Metatron and the Bavli reference to
Exod 23:21 and the angel who had Gods name within him; but also according to the second variation of the names meaning, we havefor the first
timea possible ground for the statement in 3 Enoch that Metatron is
called the little YHWH (3 En. 12:5).
The motif of Metatron somehow sharing in the name of God is so often
repeated as to be an integral part of his characterisation and possibly even
his defining feature39by the time of the medieval mystics it is cited by
almost everyone who mentions Metatron, including R. Asher ben David,
who quotes his grandfather Abraham ben David, calling Metatron the
Prince of the Countenance whose name is like the name of his master,40
and by R. Eleazar of Worms, who gematrially equates that is Metatron and
for my name is in him.41 In fact Metatron is more commonly referred to as
the angel who shares in Gods name than as the Prince of the Presence, or
any other qualification.
The two earliest datable references to Metatron, apparently from the
fourth century, both associate Metatron with the divine name: The Visions
of Ezekiel42 lists several names for a mysterious Heavenly Prince, giving
39)Odeberg writes that The most important element or complex of elements which gave
life and endurance to the conception [of Metatron] was the notion of the angel of YHUH,
who bears the divine name and the angel of the Face, the Divine Presence (3 Enoch, 144).
40)Otzar Nehmad 4:37; see Scholem, Origins, 212.
41)MS Paris BN772, fol. 110b, see Wolfson, Metatron and Shiur Qomah, 71.
42)Scholem (Kabbalah, 379; cf. Jewish Gnosticism, 44-45) and Alexander (The Historical
Setting of the Hebrew Book of Enoch, 164) agree on this as the earliest text. On the dating of
Visions, see David J. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish Responses to Ezekiels
Vision (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 268-77.

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the fifth name as, Metatron, like the name of the Power. Those who make
use of the name say: slns is his name, qs bs bs qbs is his name, like the name
of the creator of the world (emphasis mine). The other is the famous passage described above from b. Sanh. 38b, which is ascribed to the fourthcentury sage R. Idi.
Standing at the opposite end of the Hekhalot literatures development,
3 Enoch is quite different. Although Metatron sharing Gods name is important to the text, the meaning herein is different to the other, earlier, references. Whereas the earlier texts mention that Metatron has Gods name in
him, or his name is like his masters, in 3 Enoch the quality is likened to the
seventy angelic princes who rule the nations, the text seeming ambivalent
as to whether these are ruled by Metatron, or are subsumed within him.43
Presumably by this point the original meaning of the angelic name-sharing
has been forgotten, and Odebergs frequent assertion may be correct, that
in this text divine name-sharing means nothing more than the use of the
letters of the Tetragrammaton appended to the angels own name.44
Although crucial to the figure of Metatron this name-sharing is never
explained, and the reason for it has been left to generations of readers to
speculate. However, there is evidence in the Hekhalot literature which suggests that the literal integration of a divine name into an angels name is
common practice.
Divine name-sharing generally is a common feature of angels in the Hekhalot literature: in Hekhalot Rabbati, we learn that Anafiel the Prince is a
servant who is called by his masters name (244). We also find several
43)3 En. 3:2, where Metatron has seventy names corresponding to the seventy nations of
the world, and 4:1, where Ishmael asks Why are you called by the name of your Creator
with 70 names? At 10:4 we meet the eight great, honored and terrible princes who are
called YHWH by the name of their king (cf. 30:1) and at 17:8, the 72 princes of kingdoms in
the height, corresponding to the 72 nations in the world. Likewise the Watchers have seventy names corresponding to the seventy languages that are in the world, and all of them are
based on the name of the Holy One, blessed be he. (29:1). This tradition is also found in
Hekhalot Rabbati: as for the door-keepers of the seventh palace, by the sound of their names
is a man terrified and is not able to touch them, inasmuch as the name of them is called
according to the name of the king of the world. (240) In fact, even in the Bavli we find
mention of Akatriel Yah YHWH Tzvaot, who is sighted enthroned in the holy of holies by
R Ishmael (b. Ber. 7a), although it is unclear whether this being is an angel or God Himself.
44)See especially Odeberg, 3 Enoch, 104 n. 1, where he states, It seems to have been a general
assumption, that the highest circle of angels were marked out from the other angels by the
common distinction of the Tetragrammaton as part of their name, whereby their names
were based upon the name of the Holy One.

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times the formula applied to the Youth, who may or may not be automatically subsumable within the figure of Metatron:45 the Sar Torah text 396,
applies Exod 23:21 to the Youth before identifying him with Metatron at
397. At 400 he is the servant who is named after his master, and the two
Shiur Qomah texts preserve a passage that says The name of the Youth is
like the name of his Master, as it is written: for my name is in him (Exod
23:21).46
In two separate texts we meet the angel MGYHH,47 who is labelled
second in rank after God, their names being one.48 It is difficult at first
to fathom why this figure is claimed to share in the namethe Tetragrammaton is not appended to him, and nor is any further etymologi45)Morray-Jones (in Rowland and Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God, 518-27) argues for the
initial separation of the Youth and Metatron, although their argument is based on the
absence of Metatron from a single text (Siddur Rabbah) which, on the basis of that absence,
they assume to be prior to the identification and therefore to pre-date the other texts. The
circularity of this argument works against it, and in absence of any other evidence we are
left unable to decide the point at all. In basic agreement though, see also James Davila, who
argues that the Youth may in fact descend from Melchizedek, Melchizedek, the Youth, and
Jesus, in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity:
Papers from an International Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (ed. J. R. Davila; Leiden: Brill,
2003), 248-74. In favour of their initial identification are Orlov (Enoch-Metatron, 222-26),
who sees Youth as a title which evolved from its use in 2 Enoch, and Daniel Boyarin, Beyond
Judaisms: Metatron and the Divine Polymorphy of Ancient Judaism, JSJ 41 (2010): 323-65,
who sees Metatron as developing from the matrix of late Second Temple figures of which
the Youth was a potent aspect.
46)From two manuscripts of Sefer Raziel and four of Sefer Haqqomah, as noted by MorrayJones, Mystery of God, 523. A similar implication is also made in Siddur Rabbah 14-33. See
Martin Samuel Cohen, The Shiur Qomah: Texts and Recensions (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1985), 39-41. A curious feature of some Hekhalot texts, most notably Maaseh Merkavah, are
lists of descriptions or attributes of God which are repeated and inverted, often including
reference to his name, such as he is his name and his name is he. It is usual to interpret
these as being circular descriptions of God. However, in the light of the present discussion it
appears to me that there are two different hes being discussed here: God, and an angel.
Read in this way, the passages become: his name is like His might and His might is like his
name. He is His power and His power is him and his name is like His name (557); He is His
name and His name is him. He is in him and His name is in his name (588). The phrases
his name is like his name and he is in him and his name is in his name otherwise are
extremely useless and not even in the same spirit or formula as the preceding claims.
47)420. This name varies across the manuscripts ([ D436] or [ N8128]),
but is the most common. In a Genizah fragment which duplicates this section (8.
T.-S. K 21.95.C 2b, Schfer, Geniza-Fragmente, 105) it is given as ( line 37), and
(line 38).
48)This part of the tradition extant only in the Genizah fragment.

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cal explanation given. The answer may be provided by a similar case in

Maaseh Merkavah, where we find the character QDHWZYH Your servant . . . Whose name is exalted because of the name of his creator.49 This
angel is not appended with the Tetragrammaton, but has the letters of the
name integrated into its own. There is also the far more common ZHWBDYH, found in various forms in the Genizah fragments, the Shiur Qomah
texts, Hekhalot Rabbati and Merkavah Rabbah, which contains the letters
YHWH. Although this name is not explicitly combined with a claim of
divine name-sharing, it is often ascribed to the Youth or to Metatron, who
as we know are themselves frequently held to carry the divine name.50 This
presents the possibility that the former name MGYHH also incorporated
the letters YHWH, but has since become corrupted. One candidate would
be MWYHH, and not being extremely different, and with the remaining
letters being, rather logically, M: name.
Here we have three different examples of angelic names in the Hekhalot literature which appear to be constructed as convoluted theophorisms
which incorporate the divine name YHWH. This offers strong support for
the possibility of interpreting Metatron in a similar way, i.e., as a theophorism which incorporates a textual string which is, or indicates, a divine
name.51
If, as I have suggested, the attribution of the divine name to Metatron is
nothing more than an accidental (mis)reading of his own name, how did
this tradition come to be writ large across the Hekhalot literature and from
49)562; also given as ( QDHWZAI); ( QDAWZYH);
(QRAWZYH).
50)Moshe Idel, Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism (London: Continuum, 2009), 141-44,
argues that this name is a theophorism based on YHWH and ZBD; however, compare Morray-Jones different reconstruction of the name as this is the shoot/stalk of God (Mystery of
God, 524-25).
51)Further, Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 252, has claimed that the Hebrew transliteration of Helios, HLYWS, contains the three letters of the Tetragrammaton, and therefore can be seen as containing the
name of God. Thus, he writes, some ancient Jews may have identified the figure of Helios
with Gods famous promise to send an angel to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, and
His insistence that they must obey this angel and not rebel against him, for My name is
within him. Although beyond the scope of this paper, this should be seen in the light of Jodi
Magness, Heaven on Earth: Helios and the Zodiac Cycle in Ancient Palestinian Synagogues,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 59 (2005): 1-52, who claims that Helios and Metatron are identified
in an ancient synagogue mosaic. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of JSJ for drawing
my attention to this article.

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there so powerfully influential on the Kabbalah? Of course, the angel who

bears the name of God is an established tradition from the Torah.52 The
name of God also is held in special regard in the Torah as well as in the
Ancient Near East generally, where the name is understood as going proxy
for the being named.53 Recent research has also found that this tradition of
name-sharing played a role in early Christianity, where Jesus was often seen
as bearing the name of God, or even being the manifest name.54
Although the etymologies given in biblical narratives have been subjected to intensive analysis in order to disentangle the different threads of
tradition, little of the work done in that field has been used to inform the
discussion of etymology in the angelological traditions of late antique Judaism. Usually the approach to angelic etymology has been to focus on the
form of the name as expressing the initial concept of the angel. This indicates a concealed belief in the primacy of the name, that the name is originally coeval with the concept of the angelin other words, that the name
began as a description of the angel, capturing and communicating its essential nature. From this nominal description, the traditions and narratives are
then assumed to have developed in increasingly loose association as new
material is accumulated into the description: for example, Scholem argues
that Metatron absorbed the character of Yahoel after the initial emergence
of both as separate figures.55 The new material being incorporated would
expand and reshape the figures identity, until the name became worn down
into a label, devoid of input due to its eventual achievement of simply
conventional status, and at which point the traditions surrounding the
angel have become more crucial than any new interpretation based on a
suspected etymology. Thus, we find a curious mirroring of the texts own
essentialist approach to etymology in modern scholarly analysis.56 The
52)For a deep and comprehensive analysis of this see Fossum, Name of God.
53)For a recent investigation of this, including an analysis of current debates, see Michael
Hundley, To Be or Not to Be: A Reexamination of Name Language in Deuteronomy and the
Deuteronomistic History, VT 59 (2009): 533-55. Hundleys conclusion is that the name in
the Ancient Near East is used as part of the complex nexus that constitutes a person which
can denote presence, even at times functioning as a full, substitute presence (550).
54)Charles A. Gieschen, The Divine Name in Ante-Nicene Christology, VC 57 (2003):
115-58.
55)Kabbalah, 378.
56)Suggested by the remark in b. ag. 14a, that From every utterance that goes forth from
the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, an angel is created. However, Gen. Rab. 78.4
seems to contradict this identity, asserting that there is no [permanent] name, but a [continuous] change, the present name [of an angel] not being the same as it may be later on.

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question what does the name Metatron mean? has been seen as a question which could in principle be given a single definitive answer.
However, it is unlikely that influence fans out as neatly as this. Rather, we
should expect the same kind of development as in the biblical narratives,
so the different textual strata would exhibit an ongoing process of revision
and reappraisal of the significance of the name. Those in later periods who
have inherited the name and some traditions of the angel, but no explanation of the name, find themselves in the same position as modern scholars
in attempting to piece back together the essential nature of the angel
presumably, as revealed in the name. Thus, we find folk etymologies in the
texts which propose particular theories as to the meaning of angelic names:
for example in Hekhalot Rabbati the name Anafiel (which would literally
appear to mean branch of God) is explained as referring to Gods crown,
covering and veiling all the chambers of the palace of arevot raqia (244);57
Dumiel (silence of God) is implicitly related to silence (229), and in
3 Enoch we find the name Soterasiel, which appears to mean who stirs up
the fire of God,58 explained as because he is appointed to serve in the
Divine Presence over the four heads of the river of fire . . . he stirs up the fire
of the river of fire.59 It is highly likely then, that the perceived reason for the
name of an angel will also affect the concept of the being in question and
therefore the way that traditions are developed. An angel could in fact take
on entirely new attributes when one person or generation comes to a new
conclusion about the meaning of the name in question. Therefore, the conspicuous absence of an explicit etymology for the name Metatron could be
accounted for by the two traditions, My name is in him and The lesser
YHWH, both being etymological inferences.
This fascination with etymological explanation continues throughout
Jewish literature: in the Talmud, Epicurus is derived from the Aramaic PQR,
meaning to be free from restraint, i.e., one not bound by Gods commandments (b. Sanh. 38b) and the Hebrew word hen, is interpreted as the Greek
hen, i.e., one (Lev. Rab. 27:7); we also find that the popular image of childlike cherubim stems from a rabbinic interpretation which derives the word
57)Cf. 3 En. 18:18, which although clearly related is a little more obtuse: Why is his name
called Anafiel? Because the bough of his majesty, glory, crown, brilliance, and splendor overshadows all the chambers of Arabot, the highest heaven, like the glory of the Creator of the
World (Alexander, 3 Enoch, 273).
58)From the units ( upset), ( fire), and ( God); see Odeberg, 3 Enoch, 60.
59)3 En. 18:19. Alexander, 3 Enoch, 273.

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from the Aramaic ravia, meaning a child, (b. Sukkah 5b; b. ag. 13b) as well
as many other examples throughout the literature.60

Conclusions
This study has analysed the nature of etymological concern over the name
of Metatron, attempting to place it in the same light as biblical etymology.
I have attempted to show that the perspectives applied by scholars to the
etymology of the name often make the same mistake as ancient interpreters, a mistake known as the etymological fallacy. However, the important
difference is that the ancient interpreters were also involved in transmitting and to a large extent, rewriting the traditions they received. Thus, the
influence of their etymological interpretations could have actively altered
the traditions as we now have them. In the first section I proposed one such
etymology of the name Metatron, and presented a theory as to how this
could have become part of the perceived nature of the angel. In the second
section, I attempted to show that this technique, of writing a divine name
into the name of an angel, was a common and accepted one during the
period of the Talmud and Hekhalot literature.
It has been the argument of this paper that there is an etymological theory behind some of the uses of Metatron in the Hekhalot literature, one
which is not made explicit but which helps to explain some of the most
important traditions with which Metatron is linked. It is not my intention
to claim here that there is any evidence for the genesis of the name Metatron, this being an altogether different matter; and one which may well be
impossibly obfuscated by contradictory threads of evidence. If the theory
herein is correct, then competing etymological theories could have shaped
(and possibly even rewritten) the traditions surrounding Metatron such
that finding an original etymology from the many possibilities so far presented may now be impossible. Instead, I recommend that we replace the
question what does the name Metatron mean? with one which is more
historically sensitive: what has the name Metatron meant, at different
times and to different people?

60)James Barr, Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon,
1968), 45, writes that in rabbinic literature Etymologizing interpretation . . . though found
particularly in connexion with personal names, is to be found in all sorts of other connexions
also. My gratitude extends, again, to my reviewer who provided the first two examples.

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This study has implications for the understanding of how literary or

mythological charactersnot just angelsmay develop in conjunction
with their name. It demonstrates the problems with the common assumption that a name has only a single meaning which determines the characters literary nature from the outset, and that these problems are not
limited to biblical characters. Therefore instead of pursuing a single etymology, we are wise to analyse different possibilities in order to find how
and at what point meanings may have emerged and helped to influence
the characterisation.