About a Possible Meaning of “666” and Azrael’s Name
by Nick Besher
“666” is spoken of as being a bad number, because it associates with the Devil (“666 is the Number of the Beast”), who may be mythologically the strongest evil demon in Hell. Some people associate “666” with evil demons and Hell, but not with “strongest,” yet I wonder if “666” could represent “strongest,” talking about power ratings, and not necessarily mean anything about evil demons or Hell.
Mythologically, Azrael, Angel of Death, is good, and because maybe the most important thing could be management/etc of Life and Death (and the Afterlife, hopefully), maybe only the most powerful good Angel could be the Angel of Death (also, Wikipedia’s article about Azrael says “Islam elaborated further narratives concerning the relation between Azrael and Death. One account explains death and its relation to Azrael, representing Death and Azrael as former two separate entities, but when God created Death, God ordered the angels to look upon it and they swoon for a thousand years. After the angels regained consciousness, death recognized that it must submit to Azrael”), so maybe Azrael could be the most powerful. I looked at the name of Azrael, Archangel of Death, and I found some things:
The name “Azrael” could etymologically derive from pieces “az” + “r” + “ael”. A and Z are the first and last letters of the alphabet, so maybe “Az” could represent “for A through Z” or “everything”. “R” is the 18th letter of the alphabet, and 18 = 6+6+6, or three 6’s, so “R” could represent “666,” or “strongest”. I looked up “Ael” in the wikipedia article for the demon “Belial” to mean “Virtue/Goodness/Lord/God/Angel/etc” (“Beli-“ the prefix means “not”, so “Belial” means “Not Virtue/Etc”). So, the name “Azrael” could mean “For A through Z, a Maximum 666 Power-Rating Virtue/Goodness/Lord/God/Angel/Etc”. It appears both mythological analysis and etymological analysis suggest that Azrael could be the most powerful.
Mythologically, the Devil in Hell could be strongest in Hell for maybe one or a few things, like physical strength. Yet wherever the Angel of Death Azrael could be, Azrael could be strongest for all things, for A through Z, for being able to defeat the Devil in all contests, including physical ones.