Dumah (angel)

For other uses, see Dumah (disambiguation).

Dumah (Heb. דומה "silence") is an angel mentioned in Rabbinical literature. Dumah is a popular figure in Yiddish folklore. I. B. Singer's Short Friday (1964), a collection of stories, mentions Dumah as a "thousand-eyed angel of death, armed with a fiery rod or flaming sword". Dumah is the Aramaic word for silence.

The angel

Duma(h) or Douma (Aramaic) is the angel of silence and of the stillness of death.[1]

Dumah is also the tutelary angel of Egypt, prince of Hell, and angel of vindication. The Zohar speaks of him as having "tens of thousands of angels of destruction" under him, and as being "Chief of demons in Gehinnom [i.e., Hell] with 12,000 myriads of attendants, all charged with the punishment of the souls of sinners."[2] In the Babylonian legend of the descent of Istar into Hades, Dumah shows up as the guardian of the 14th gate.[3]

Other references

References

  1. Definition partly taken from Gustav Davidson
  2. Müller, History of Jewish Mysticism
  3. Faiths Of Man: A Cyclopedia Of Religions. by James George Roche Forlong, 1904
  4. Gallagher, 1999, p. 56.
  5. Hoyland, 2001, p. 68.
  6. (edit.) Boustan, Ra'anan S. Reed, Annette Yoshiko. Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Bibliography

  • Gallagher, William R. (1999), Sennacherib's campaign to Judah: new studies (Illustrated ed.), BRILL, ISBN 9789004115378, ISBN 90-04-11537-4 
  • Hoyland, Robert G. (2001), Arabia and the Arabs: from the Bronze Age to the coming of Islam (Illustrated, reprint ed.), Routledge, ISBN 9780415195355, ISBN 0-415-19535-7 
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