Dudael

A desert hole in the ground where Raphael chains Azazel and waits for the end of the world.

Where 1 Enoch puts it

In 1 Enoch 10:4–6, the archangel Raphael gets a specific instruction: bind Azazel hand and foot, open a hole in the desert in Dûdâêl, throw him in, pile jagged rocks on top of him, and leave him there in darkness until the day of judgment, when he'll be cast into fire.

That's the only place the name appears.

Where is it, actually

We don't know for certain. There are three guesses, ranked by how much support they have in scholarship:

1. A real place in the Judaean wilderness. The most popular reading. The Talmud (BT Yoma 67b) discusses the Yom Kippur scapegoat ritual and mentions a place called Bêt Ḥadudo — possibly the same name — as the rocky desert destination where the scapegoat was sent. 1 Enoch may be deliberately echoing this Yom Kippur geography to make Azazel the Watcher into the source of the sins that the Levitical Azazel-goat carries away.

2. A symbolic place. The Aramaic word dûdā'ēl can be read as "cauldrons of God" or "kettles of God" — a name suggesting a bubbling, fiery hole. This reading goes with the symbolic geography of 1 Enoch in general, which is interested in mythical-cosmic locations more than political ones.

3. A scribal error. Some manuscripts read Beth Hadudo, others Doudael, others Dadouel. The name was unstable in transmission, which suggests later copyists also didn't know where it was.

Why it matters

The choice of location is theologically charged. Lev 16:8–10 sends the Yom Kippur goat into the wilderness "to Azazel." 1 Enoch 10 sends the angel named Azazel into a wilderness hole. The text is saying: the place the goat is sent is the same place the cause of sin lives. Reverse the ritual — instead of sins on the goat, sins back on their source.

That kind of literary echo — taking a verse from the Torah and writing the source story underneath it — is what 1 Enoch does everywhere. Dudael is one of the clearest examples.

Cross-references

• 1 Enoch 10:4–6 — the binding scene
• Azazel — the one chained here
• Lev 16:8–10, 21–22 — the Yom Kippur scapegoat ritual, sent "to Azazel" in the wilderness
• BT Yoma 67b — Talmudic discussion of the scapegoat's destination

Further reading

• G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (Hermeneia, 2001), comm. on 10:4–6.
• B. Janowski, Sühne als Heilsgeschehen (Neukirchen, 1982) — the standard study connecting the Levitical scapegoat to ancient Near Eastern banishment rituals.