The Watchers

The term 'Watchers' (Aramaic: ʿirim; Hebrew: ʿîrîn) appears most prominently in the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36) and in the Aramaic sections of Daniel (4:13, 17, 23), where it designates a distinct order of heavenly beings assigned to observe and, in some traditions, to govern human affairs on behalf of the divine council. In 1 Enoch, two hundred Watchers are said to have descended upon Mount Hermon under the leadership of Semyaza and Azazel, bound by a mutual oath to take human women as wives. Their offspring—the Nephilim—became giants who devoured the earth's resources and shed innocent blood, while the Watchers themselves taught humanity illicit arts: metallurgy, sorcery, astrology, and the manufacture of weapons. The resulting corruption is presented as the proximate cause of the great flood, with God dispatching the archangels Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel to bind the fallen Watchers beneath the earth until the final judgment.