Metatron
Metatron is an angel whose name does not appear anywhere in the Torah or the Bible, yet who became one of the most discussed and debated figures in Jewish mystical tradition. He sits at the boundary between the human and the divine. He was described as the celestial scribe, the lesser YHWH, the King of the angels, and possibly a man who was once mortal before God took him into heaven and transformed him.
The core puzzle is this: where did Metatron come from, what does his name actually mean, and why did his very existence cause such alarm among the rabbis that one sage had to be physically punished to prove he was not a god? The answers reach into ancient Jewish apocrypha, Talmudic debate, the mystical literature of the Merkabah tradition, and eventually into Islamic heresiography and modern popular culture.
Philip Alexander, one of the scholars who has grappled directly with the name's origins, suggested that if Metatron emerged from Hekhalot literature and Merkabah texts such as 3 Enoch, then it may have functioned as a magical word, the way Adiriron and Dapdapiron did.
Hugo Odeberg, Adolf Jellinek, and Marcus Jastrow proposed a different path, tracing the name to either mattara, meaning a guardian post, or the Hebrew verb memater, meaning to guard or to protect. A text called Shimmusha Rabbah gives early support to this reading: it describes Enoch clothed in light and serving as guardian of ascending souls.
Odeberg also floated a bolder idea: that Metatron was borrowed from the Old Persian name Mithra. He drew on the work of Wiesner to line up parallels between Mithra's position in heaven and the duties assigned to Metatron.
A Greek derivation has also attracted serious attention. The Greek words meta and thronos, meaning after and throne, together suggest the idea of one who serves behind the throne or occupies the throne next to the throne of glory. Critics of this reading point out that the role of celestial throne-servant appears only in later traditions, and that thronos itself does not turn up as a word in Talmudic literature.
The scholar Gershom Scholem dismissed the suggestion that Metatron derived from the Latin word metator, meaning messenger or guide or measurer. Eleazar of Worms, who lived roughly between 1165 and 1230, Nachmanides, and later Odeberg had all raised this possibility. Alexander kept it in play, noting that metator also appears in Greek as mitator, a Roman army officer who acted as a forerunner. Under this reading, Metatron described the angel of the Lord who led the Israelites through the wilderness, guiding them in the way a Roman army metator would guide troops on a march.
Charles Mopsik tied the name to a line in Genesis 5:24, which reads "Enoch walked with God, then he was no more, because God took him", pointing to the Septuagint's Greek rendering of the Hebrew word for took as metethiken. No single etymology has won out.
Genesis 5:24 is brief and strange. Enoch, son of Jared and great-grandfather of Noah, simply disappears. God took him. That sentence became the seed of an enormous tradition.
In Jewish apocrypha, early Kabbalah, and rabbinic literature, the name Metatron is what Enoch received after his transformation into an angel. The Book of Parables in 1 Enoch presents two figures: the son of man and Enoch. Early in the text they appear to be separate beings; Enoch looks up and sees the son of man enthroned in heaven. Then, in passages many scholars regard as a later addition, the two figures converge into one.
3 Enoch, the text where the name Metatron first appears, contains a passage that reads: this Enoch, whose flesh was turned to flame, his veins to fire, his eye-lashes to flashes of lightning, his eye-balls to flaming torches, and whom God placed on a throne next to the throne of glory, received after this heavenly transformation the name Metatron.
The book also shows Metatron as guide. Rabbi Ishmael, named as the narrator, is led through heaven by Metatron, who explains its wonders. Metatron is also identified as the angel who led the people of Israel through the wilderness after the exodus from Egypt, connecting him directly to the passage in Exodus 23:21 where God says his name is in the angel.
In 2 Enoch, the figure who will become Metatron is given titles that later attach to Metatron directly: the Youth, the Prince of the Presence, and the Prince of the World. There is one telling difference: in 2 Enoch, Enoch is not yet called the Lesser Yahweh. That title appears in 3 Enoch, and its presence there generated a centuries-long debate about what it could possibly mean.
Hagigah 15a in the Babylonian Talmud records the most dramatic scene in Metatron's Talmudic history. Elisha ben Abuyah visits Paradise and sees Metatron sitting down, a posture not permitted in the presence of God. Mistaking this for divine status, he says heretically: perhaps there are, God forbid, two powers in Heaven.
The rabbis' response was precise and public. Metatron received sixty strokes with fiery rods, a punishment designed to demonstrate that Metatron was not a god but an angel and could be disciplined. The explanation offered for why Metatron was permitted to sit at all was that he served as the Heavenly Scribe, recording the deeds of Israel.
Sanhedrin 38b records a separate confrontation. A sectarian tells Rabbi Idith that Metatron deserves worship because he shares a name with his master. Rabbi Idith replies with Exodus 23:21, arguing that Metatron's status as an angel means he holds no power to pardon sins and cannot even serve as a messenger of forgiveness.
Avodah Zarah 3b takes a different angle. The Talmud speculates about how God spends His day and suggests that in the fourth quarter, God teaches school children. Before the destruction of the Temple, the text suggests, Metatron may have taken God's place in that activity.
The tenth-century Karaite scholar Jacob Qirqisani, who regarded rabbinic Judaism as the heresy of Jeroboam, quoted a version of Sanhedrin 38b that he claimed contained an explicit reference to the lesser YHWH. Scholem believed the name was deliberately removed from later copies of the Talmud. Mystical texts outside the Talmud, such as Sefer Hekhalot, speak openly of a lesser YHWH, grounding the concept in the same verse from Exodus 23:21.
Gershom Scholem identified what he saw as a fundamental split running through the entire Metatron tradition. Two separate streams of thought had been stitched together into one figure, and the Hebrew spelling of the name itself preserved the seam.
One spelling uses six letters, the other seven. Scholem argued that the six-letter spelling belonged to the transformed Enoch, who became the Prince of the Countenance within the divine palace. The seven-letter spelling pointed to a different and older figure: the Primordial Metatron, a pre-existing angelic being rather than a transformed human.
Scholem connected this second Metatron to Yahoel, a figure in the Apocalypse of Abraham who is assigned duties normally reserved for Michael. Yahoel's name functioned, in many traditions, as a substitute for the Ineffable Name of God. Scholem also linked Yahoel and Michael, pointing to the Apocalypse of Abraham as evidence that these roles overlapped.
In 3 Enoch 48D1, Metatron is called both Yahoel Yah and Yahoel, placing both names on the same figure. Aramaic incantation bowl inscriptions, which record practical magical use, also link the names Yahoel and Metatron.
The Maaseh Merkabah text explains Metatron's title of Lesser YHWH through Hebrew gematria: Metatron's numerical value equals that of Shaddai, another name for God. Scholem found this explanation unconvincing. His own view was that the Lesser YHWH title was originally a reference to Yahoel and migrated to Metatron through the fusion of the two traditions.
The Merkabah text Re'uyot Yehezkel extended this further by identifying the Ancient of Days from the Book of Daniel as Metatron, tying the figure to yet another layer of Jewish apocalyptic writing.
Moses ben Jacob Cordovero, writing in his Zohar commentary Ohr Yakar, placed Metatron at the head of Yetzira, one of the four kabbalistic worlds. This reading aligned closely with Maimonides' description of the Talmudic Prince of the World as the core Active Intellect.
The Zohar itself called Metatron the King of the angels and associated him with the divine name Shaddai. It also described him as represented not by a person but by the structure of the tabernacle itself, explicitly distinguishing him from Michael, who is represented by the High Priest.
Several biblical figures appear in the Zohar as metaphors pointing toward Metatron: Enoch, Joseph, Eliezer, and Joshua among them. The word youth is used for both Joseph and Joshua as a quiet signal that the text is pointing at Metatron. The role of servant, associated with Eliezer, also serves as a reference. The Staff of Moses appears in the Zohar as a further Metatron symbol. Even the two tets in the Hebrew word totafot, meaning phylacteries, are described in the Zohar as a reference to Metatron.
In the later Ecstatic Kabbalah, the figure took on a messianic dimension. In the Apocalypse of Zerubbabel, Metatron appears not as the transformed Enoch but as the archangel Michael. That text also records that Metatron in gematria equals Shaddai, repeating the numerical equivalence that Scholem had set aside.
Al-Kindi and al-Masudi, both writing in Arabic, are among the earliest Islamic scholars to attest the name Metatron. Al-Suyuti identified him as the angel of the veil, a figure who alone knows what lies beyond.
Ahmad al-Buni mentioned Metatron frequently in his magical works, describing the angel as wearing a crown and a lance, which al-Buni connected to the Staff of Moses. In practical Islamic magical tradition, Metatron was invoked to ward off evil jinn, devils, sorcerers, and other threats.
Isbn Hazm recorded that Jews celebrated Metatron as a lesser god for ten days each year, a reference he may have been connecting to Rosh Hashanah and to the Merkabah tradition that Metatron took part in the creation of the world.
The deeper Islamic engagement with Metatron turned on a broader accusation. Muslim heresiologists charged that Jews, by venerating Metatron, were effectively worshipping an angelic being rather than God. The Quran itself may supply the earliest Islamic thread: Uzair, mentioned in Surah 9:30-31 as a figure venerated by Jews as a son of God, is commonly read as an Arabic form of the Hebrew name Ezra. In Merkabah mysticism, Ezra was identified with Enoch, and Enoch with Metatron. Within Sufism, particularly in esoteric and mystical contexts, Metatron is known as Mitarun and recognized as the angel of the veil.
Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow is among the earliest modern literary appearances of Metatron by name. The witch Geli Tripping invokes him in a love ritual.
Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, published between 1995 and 2000, built Metatron into its central conflict. In Pullman's version, Metatron began as a human named Enoch before ascending to become a high-ranking angel and Regent of the Kingdom of Heaven. The 2019 BBC and HBO television adaptation cast Alex Hassell in the role.
The 1999 film Dogma gave the role to Alan Rickman, who played Metatron as the voice of God. Good Omens, the 1990 novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, also featured Metatron as an angel and the spokesperson of God; the 2019 television adaptation starred Derek Jacobi in that part.
The television series Supernatural, which premiered in 2005, cast Curtis Armstrong as Metatron in the role of scribe of God. The Mars Volta's 2008 album The Bedlam in Goliath includes a track whose title and lyrics both reference Metatron.
Guitarist Carlos Santana stated in 2000 that he had been in contact with Metatron since 1994, describing the angel as a source of messages to him.
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Common questions
Who is Metatron in Jewish tradition?
Metatron is an angel in Judaism, described in the Talmud and in mystical Kabbalistic texts as the celestial scribe who records the deeds of Israel. He is also known as the Prince of the World, the Prince of the Presence, and in 3 Enoch is called the Lesser YHWH. In early Kabbalah and rabbinic literature, Metatron is the name the biblical figure Enoch received after his transformation into an angel.
Where does the name Metatron come from?
The precise origin of the name Metatron is unknown and there is no scholarly consensus. Proposed etymologies include the Latin word metator meaning guide or forerunner, the Greek words meta and thronos meaning one who serves behind the throne, the Hebrew verb memater meaning to guard or protect, and possibly the Old Persian name Mithra. Philip Alexander suggested it may originally have been a magical word, similar to Adiriron and Dapdapiron.
What does the Talmud say about Metatron?
The Babylonian Talmud mentions Metatron by name in three places: Hagigah 15a, Sanhedrin 38b, and Avodah Zarah 3b. In Hagigah 15a, Elisha ben Abuyah sees Metatron seated in heaven and mistakes him for a second deity, prompting the rabbis to have Metatron struck sixty times with fiery rods to demonstrate that he is an angel and not a god. Sanhedrin 38b uses Exodus 23:21 to clarify that Metatron cannot pardon sins or serve as a messenger of forgiveness.
What is the connection between Enoch and Metatron?
In Jewish apocrypha and rabbinic literature, Metatron is the name Enoch received after God transformed him into an angel. The basis is Genesis 5:24, which states that God took Enoch. 3 Enoch, the text where the name Metatron first appears, describes Enoch's flesh turning to flame and his being placed on a throne next to the throne of glory before receiving the name Metatron.
How does Metatron appear in Islam?
Metatron is attested in early Islamic writing by al-Kindi and al-Masudi. Al-Suyuti identified him as the angel of the veil who alone knows what lies beyond. Ahmad al-Buni described Metatron in magical texts as wearing a crown and a lance connected to the Staff of Moses. Muslim heresiologists used belief in Metatron as evidence that Jews venerated an angelic being rather than God, and Ibn Hazm recorded a tradition that Jews celebrated Metatron as a lesser god for ten days each year.
Who plays Metatron in popular film and television?
Alan Rickman played Metatron in the 1999 film Dogma. Derek Jacobi portrayed the character in the 2019 television adaptation of Good Omens. Alex Hassell played Metatron in the 2019 BBC and HBO adaptation of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials. Curtis Armstrong played Metatron in the television series Supernatural, which premiered in 2005.
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