Angelic · The Watchers · c. 200 BCE
Samsapeel
Also called Samsâpêêl, Shamsiel, Shamshiel
Holds the sun's share of a three-way division of the sky, with Sariel on the moon and Kokabel on the stars. What 1 Enoch condemns is not what the signs foretold but that he explained them at all.
Narrow source base
The sun's share of a three-way division: Sariel is given the courses of the moon and Kokabel the stars, and 1 Enoch 8:3 gives him the signs of the sun. Read together, the three are not separate offences but one curriculum divided between colleagues, which tells you the descent is being described as an organised transfer rather than as a series of lapses. As with the rest of the list, the charge is not that the signs were false. It is that they were explained.
Identity
Where does the name come from?
Where it was actually worshipped
None. The Watchers are names in a list in 1 Enoch, most of them appearing exactly once; nothing was ever built for any of them, and Mount Hermon is where they are said to have come down rather than anywhere they were served.
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
- 1 Enoch (The Book of Enoch) · c. 300–100 BCE
- Named there as
- Samsâpêêl
- Rank
- Chief of Ten
- Order
- The Watchers
- Base of operations
- None. The Watchers are names in a list in 1 Enoch, most of them appearing exactly once; nothing was ever built for any of them, and Mount Hermon is where they are said to have come down rather than anywhere they were served.
- Era
- c. 200 BCE
- Traditions
- Jewish, Enochian
Traits
- Domain
- Solar omens, the reading of the sun
- Named at
- 1 Enoch 8:3
- What he taught
- The signs of the sun
Stats
Known connections
Chain of command
2 attributed
What is it said to do?
Where these powers cluster
The 2 offices attributed to Samsapeel, 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.
- knowledge1
- divination1
1 texts
Which texts say so?

Taught the signs of the sun (1 Enoch 8:3).
“Shamsiêl the signs of the sun”
Connections
What is it connected to?
Answered from the sources
Common questions
Which texts mention Samsapeel?
What rank is Samsapeel?
How else is Samsapeel spelled?
What is Samsapeel said to do?
How old is Samsapeel?
Nearest in the corpus
If Samsapeel 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.
Ananel
Chief of Ten · The Watchers
Of the thirteen chiefs of tens, his is the only name that reaches English in a single form — the rest arrive with two spellings or three. What does not arrive at all is any account of what he did after the descent.
Arakiba
Chief of Ten · The Watchers
Stands second among the leaders, immediately after Semjaza, and the text never returns to him. His name travels worse than any other Watcher's: Arâkîba where Charles translates the Ethiopic, Urakabarameel in the witnesses behind the Greek — barely recognisable as the same word.
Armaros
Chief of Ten · The Watchers
Taught how to break enchantments — the counter-spell to Semjaza's spell, and the only Watcher whose art is purely defensive.
Batarel
Chief of Ten · The Watchers
Batârêl in Charles, Batraal in the lists that reached English through Greek. Under either spelling he swears the oath on Hermon and does nothing further that the text records.
Danel
Chief of Ten · The Watchers
Three unrelated figures carry this name — a Ugaritic king, the biblical prophet, and this Watcher — and only the coincidence connects them. 1 Enoch records his oath and nothing he taught.
Ezeqeel
Chief of Ten · The Watchers
Meteorology is on the charge sheet. He taught men to read the clouds, and 1 Enoch files that beside metalwork and astrology as one of the crimes that brought the flood.
The book behind Samsapeel
Every claim on this profile is attributed to one of these. It is public domain, listed oldest first, and each links to a full text where one is freely available.

1 Enoch (The Book of Enoch)
Anonymous; tr. R. H. Charles · c. 300–100 BCE · Ge'ez (from Aramaic)
Read 1 Enoch (The Book of Enoch) in full ↗Cover: Public domain · 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.
