Who IS the Beast?

We saw in Part 2 that “the Beast will ascend out of the Abyss.” Rev. 17:8; 11:7 So then, we need to discover WHO is presently in the Abyss, and WHY. These questions have been answered by Jude, Peter, Enoch, and also in Hebrew and Greek mythology:

Jude 6 The angels who did not keep their place of authority, but left their habitation, [God] has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.

2 Peter 2:4 …God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and delivered them into chains of darkness [or, pits of gloom], to be reserved for judgment…

Tartarus is a term from Greek mythology, referring to the lowest pit (the Abyss) of Hades/Hell, wherein the Titans – very powerful but rebellious spirits/“gods”/elohim of old – anciently had been cast down by the “good” elohim: that is, the biblical archangels.

The Book of Enoch, quoted in Jude 14-15, provides more details. Briefly, angelic Watchers (cf. Dan. 4:13, 17, 23) – “the sons of God” (Gen. 6:2) – became enamored by the beauty of human women, and came down – “left their habitation” (Jude 6) – to have God-forbidden intercourse with them. Genesis 6:1-2 paraphrases Enoch 7:1-2:

Genesis 6:1 And it came to pass when men began to multiply upon the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took them wives of all whom they chose.

Enoch 7:1 And it came to pass after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. 2 And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamored of them, and said to one another, “Come, let us choose wives from among the children of men, and let us beget children.”

These angels and their hybrid progeny, the latter being the Nephilim/giants of Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33, soon corrupted mankind with sorcery, the arts of harlotry, and the arts of war. After “all flesh had corrupted their way” (Gen. 6:12), God decreed the Flood “to destroy from under heaven all flesh” except for Noah and his family. Gen. 6:17 At that time, God sent archangels to bind the rebellious Watchers, and to seal them into great pits rent in the earth:

Enoch 87:5 [They] cast them into the cavities of the earth. 10:15 “ind them for 70 generations underneath the earth, even to the day of judgment… 9 …and in the great day of judgment let [them] be cast into the fire.”

So, these are the ones who are in the Abyss/Tartarus. Enoch tells us that they had two primary leaders:

Enoch 9:5 “You have seen what Azazel has done, how he has taught every species of iniquity upon Earth… 6 Shemhazai has also taught sorcery…” 10:12 “All the earth has been corrupted by the teaching of the work of Azazel. To him therefore ascribe the whole crime.”

(If interested, you can go online to find the Midrash of Shemhazai and Azazel, which provides more Hebraic lore about these two fallen spirits.)