Sepharvaim was a pair of twin cities, Sippar Yahrurum and Sippar Amnanum, on the east bank of the Euphrates, captured by the Assyrians, according to the Bible. It was the center of worship for the god Adramelech, who the Jewish Rabbis say had the face of a mule and the feathers of a peacock. 2 Kings suggests that Adramelech received children as human sacrifices, a common criticism levelled against many pagan gods.
An Assyrian God?
While reference to Adramelech does not survive in any surviving Assyrian inscriptions, it is speculated that it could be a reference to “Addir-Melek,” which means “the glorious one is king,” a sun deity. This would also explain the human sacrifices, commonly associated with Moloch (Melek). This god was depicted with the body of a lion, a beard, and wings.
Scholars have also suggested that the reading of the name “Adramelech” is a typographical error and that it should be read “Adadmelech,” which would mean “King Hadad,” suggesting that Adramelech should be identified with the Canaanite god Hadad, known as Adad in Akkadian. He was a storm and rain god who appeared as a bearded man with a crown of bull horns and holding a thunderbolt.
An Occult Demon?
From these mysterious pagan origins, the French occultist Eliphas Levi included Adramelech in his Philosophie Occulte, which he claimed was derived from the Keys of Solomon. He gives Adramelech as the demonic counterpart to the Kabbalistic Sefirot, corresponding to the eighth number, Hod, or eternal order. He says that the spirits of Hod have the Samael or jugglers for adversaries, whose chief is Adramelech.
Chancellor of the Underworld
Adramelech was then adopted into Christian demonology, described in the Dictionnaire Infernal as the Great Chancellor of the Underworld and the President of the High Council of Devils. One of his responsibilities is to oversee the king of demons’ wardrobe.
In Milton’s Paradise Lost, he is a fallen angel vanquished by the archangels Uriel and Raphael. In his follow-up poem The Messiah, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock calls him a “spirit in guile and malice exceeding Satan,” who worked with Satan against God and tried to overthrow Satan.
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