Demonic · Infernal Court · c. 400 BCE
Adramelech
Also called Adrammelech
A god of Sepharvaim who received child sacrifice, promoted by early-modern demonology to chancellor of hell.
Narrow source base
The Hebrew Bible mentions him once: the people resettled in Samaria from Sepharvaim burned their children to Adrammelech and Anammelech. That is the whole of the ancient evidence, and it is an accusation by an enemy rather than a description of a cult. What happens next is the corpus's standard sequence — a name with a terrible sentence attached to it is exactly what an early-modern demonology wants, and de Plancy gives him the presidency of the high council of hell and the superintendency of the wardrobe. The wardrobe is not a joke made at his expense here; it is in the source, and it is what a god of Sepharvaim ended up being for.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None. Sepharvaim, where 2 Kings says children were burnt to him, has never been securely identified with any site.
A figure with temples and a figure that only ever existed on a page are different kinds of thing, and the difference is easy to lose once both are entries in a list.
At a glance
Vitals
Vitals
Also known as
- First attested
- Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon · c. 900–100 BCE
- Named there as
- Adrammelech
- Rank
- Chancellor
- Order
- Infernal Court
- Base of operations
- None. Sepharvaim, where 2 Kings says children were burnt to him, has never been securely identified with any site.
- Era
- c. 400 BCE
- Traditions
- Folk & Demonological, Canaanite & Ugaritic
Traits
- Domain
- The wardrobe of hell, the order of the fly
- Traditional form
- A mule or peacock with human torso, per de Plancy
Stats
Known connections
Identified with
3 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 3 offices attributed to Adramelech, grouped by kind. Segment width is the share of powers falling in each category.
A bar dominated by one colour means a specialist; an even spread means a figure the sources credit with almost anything.
- social1
- malefic2
2 texts
Which texts say so, and where do they disagree?
When these texts were written
Each dot is one of the 2 texts that names Adramelech, placed at that text's approximate date.
A wide spread means the figure was carried across many centuries and traditions; a tight cluster means a single period produced the whole record.
2 texts spanning roughly 2,263 years
Where the texts differ
- Name: given as Adrammelech, Adramelech
- Rank: given as God of Sepharvaim; Chancellor of hell
The resettled people of Sepharvaim burned their children to him — the sole biblical mention.
Given the office of president of the high council and superintendent of the wardrobe — de Plancy's own bureaucratic invention.
“Adramelech, grand chancelier des enfers, intendant de la garde-robe du souverain des démons, Adramelech président du haut conseil des diables.”Adramelech, grand chancellor of the underworld, keeper of the wardrobe of the sovereign of the demons, president of the high council of devils. — translated for ColossiansOne
Connections
What is it connected to?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Adramelech?
Is Adramelech the same as Baal Hadad?
What rank is Adramelech?
How else is Adramelech spelled?
What is Adramelech said to do?
How old is Adramelech?
Nearest in the corpus
If Adramelech is what you came for, these are next
Chosen by proximity rather than by popularity: the same pantheon first, then the same rank, then the same kind of figure.
Asmoday
King · Goetic Spirit
Commands seventy-two legions, one for every spirit in the book. He is the Asmodeus of Tobit, who killed Sarah's seven husbands and was driven into Upper Egypt by Raphael, and behind that the Avestan Aeshma-daeva, the demon of wrath — one of very few Goetic spirits with an ancestry that can be traced.
Astaroth
Duke · Goetic Spirit
The Canaanite goddess Astarte, three thousand years on, made a male duke of hell with her name intact. The Goetia has him discourse willingly on the fall of the spirits, and warns the operator to hold a ring to his face against the stench of his breath.
Beelzebub
Prince · Infernal Court
'Lord of the Flies' — a Philistine god of Ekron whose name was almost certainly deformed as a Hebrew insult, then inherited by Christian demonology as the second power of hell.
Belial
King · Goetic Spirit
In the Hebrew Bible beliya'al is not a name but a word meaning worthlessness; by 2 Corinthians it is a person, and by the Goetia a king in a chariot of fire handing out senatorships. The text says he was created next after Lucifer and fell among the first, and will not answer truly without gifts.
The Spirits of Affliction
Group of Named Spirits · Deliverance tradition
The remaining 'spirit of X' phrases, grouped because the tradition's whole method stands or falls on how they are read.
Bael
King · Goetic Spirit
First of the seventy-two and, by the Goetia's own account, chief among them — a three-headed thing on spider's legs, ruling in the east and granting invisibility. The name is the Canaanite storm god Baal, three thousand years and one demotion later.
The books behind Adramelech
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. They are public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.
Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon
Various · c. 900–100 BCE · Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek
Read Hebrew Bible & Deuterocanon in full ↗Cover: Public domain · see en:Aleppo Codex; scanned by · Wikimedia file page
Dictionnaire Infernal
Jacques Collin de Plancy · 1818; illustrated ed. 1863 · French
Read Dictionnaire Infernal in full ↗Cover: Public domain · Collin de Plancy · Wikimedia file page
Corpus last revised 29 August 2026. A reference site’s credibility rests on being maintained, so this is the date the sourced records last changed — not the date the page was rebuilt.