Metatron מטטרון

Metatron (מטטרון) is the chief angel of 3 Enoch (also called Sefer Heikhalot), the near-divine being enthroned in the celestial court. In that text Metatron is the transformed patriarch Enoch, who “walked with God and was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24): taken up into heaven, his body changed to fire, given seventy names and a throne of his own, and installed as the divine vice-regent and “Prince of the Presence.” Metatron’s transformation from human to chief angel is among the most theologically remarkable developments in Jewish religious literature, and it bears directly on the cross-tradition question of how a strict monotheism handles intermediate or near-divine figures.

Etymology

Disputed, with no consensus. Proposed derivations include Greek meta thronos (“beside the throne”) or metator (a Latin loanword, “one who measures out, a guide or forerunner”); a connection to the Mithras cult; and various internal-Hebrew or angel-name patternings. The absence of a settled etymology is itself a datum: the name functions as a fixed proper-noun rather than a translatable epithet.

Why not “Lesser YHWH”

The controlled rendering is the proper name Metatron, and Lesser YHWH and the lesser god are excluded as renderings. The “lesser YHWH” tradition is a real and important strand — it appears in 3 Enoch 12 and is the background to the rabbinic warning about Elisha ben Abuyah (“Acher”), who on seeing the enthroned Metatron concluded “there are two powers in heaven” (b. Hagigah 15a) — but rendering the name as “Lesser YHWH” would pre-empt the editorial discussion of that strand’s status and theological danger rather than letting the apparatus present it.

Contested meanings

The “two powers in heaven” problem is the live theological issue: Metatron’s near-divine status, his throne, and the “lesser YHWH” epithet pressed against the boundaries of monotheism, and the rabbinic sources record both the tradition and its policing (the account of Metatron receiving sixty lashes of fire to demonstrate his subordinate status). Most of Heikhalot Rabbati does not name Metatron at all; he is the protagonist of the distinct 3 Enoch stratum. The relation between the Enoch-Metatron figure and earlier exalted-mediator traditions (the Enoch of 1 Enoch, the “Son of Man,” the angel Yahoel) is extensively debated.

Primary sources

• 3 Enoch / Sefer Heikhalot, chapters 3-16 (Odeberg trans.) — the transformation of Enoch into Metatron.
• Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 15a — the “two powers” episode and the policing of Metatron’s status.
• Genesis 5:24 — the taking of Enoch, the scriptural seed of the tradition.

Scholarly literature

• Hugo Odeberg, 3 Enoch, or the Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge, 1928) — the foundational edition and translation, in the public domain.
• Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (JTS, 1960) — Metatron and the “two powers” problem.
• Daniel Boyarin and others on the “two powers in heaven” debate and its bearing on the parting of Judaism and Christianity.

Hekhal Editorial. "Metatron." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. Last modified May 2, 2026. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/metatron.

Hekhal Editorial. 2026. "Metatron." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/metatron.

Hekhal Editorial. "Metatron." Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition, May 2, 2026, hekhal.org/lexicon/metatron.

Hekhal Editorial. (2026). Metatron. Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition. https://hekhal.org/lexicon/metatron

@misc{hekhal-lexicon-metatron-2026,
  author       = {{Hekhal Editorial}},
  title        = {{Metatron}},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {{Hekhal: An Open Reference for Esoteric Tradition}},
  url          = {https://hekhal.org/lexicon/metatron},
  urldate      = {[date accessed]}
}