Azazel is the “scapegoat” in Hebrew, a rite of expiation for sins in the Old Testament. The identity of Azazel is not entirely clear, in fact it could be the name of the place where the goat was sacrificed or it could be the name of a kind of evil demon of the desert.

The concept of Azazel may have undergone a similar evolution to that of Lilith, in fact both appear in the Bible as seemingly ordinary but rare words that attracted the imagination of interpreters so much that the corresponding characters were invented and later written as if they had always existed.

Azazel is a word that is commonly translated by our (specially created) “scapegoat.” “In the Ethiopic book of Enoch,” says the Oxford Companion to the Bible, “Azazel is a fallen angel,” while in the Midrash, the ancient homiletic commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures, Azazel is considered a demon.

It is not unusual in the Bible to name spirit-beings (think for example of angels Michael and Gabriel), but that Azazel was probably not a recognized demon/angel is argued from Leviticus 16:8, where two goats are drawn; one goat is for YHWH and the other is either “to be” the scapegoat or is “for” Azazel. If the second goat is “for” Azazel, Leviticus 16:8 would violate a huge array of laws and ordinances, including the First Commandment (Exodus 20:3-6, see also Exodus 22:20, 2Chronicles 34:25, 1Corinthians 10:20, and for a similar ritual that certainly does not involve a secondary character, see the law of the scape bird in Leviticus 14:1-7).

So Azazel is not propitiously a biblical name.