WATCHERS. Sometimes this Name is given to the Angels: Vigil & sanctus de cælo descendit, saith Daniel.1 And a little afterwards, sententia vigilum decretum est. The Chaldee Word Hir, or Ir, which is translated by Watchers, according to the Opinion of St. Jerome,2 might well enough have given Original to Iris, the Messenger of the Gods. The Chaldeans conceived these Angels, or Watchers, as a Company of Judges, who determined the Fate of Men. This appears from these Words; This matter Dan. iv. 17.is by the decree of the Watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones. The Holy Ones, and Watchers, are the same in these Passages.
The Septuagint in the Lamentations,3 have read Hirim, The Watchers, instead of Hi-verim, The Blind, as we now have it. The Author of the Apocryphal Book of Enoch, often speaks of the Egregoroi, or Watchers; and the Syrians owned an Order of Angels in Heaven, which they called Egregoroi. It was these Watchers who espoused the Daughters of Men, and who became Fathers to the famous Giants before the Deluge.
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