Magical Mystery

 While looking at a few Aramaic texts at the excellent Princeton Geniza Project, I came across an amulet that begins like this:    

אשבעית עליכון אף וחימא משביר וקצף וחרון ומשחת אתון מלאכיא דממניין למחבלא כל בני בישרא 

"I adjure you, Anger and Wrath, Shatterer, and Fury and Rage and Destroyer, you angels that are appointed to destroy all the sons of flesh." The words in italics are all Hebrew words. Five of them are found in other Jewish texts (e.g., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to Deut 9:19 (אף וחימה וקצף ומשׁחית וחרון, Anger and Wrath and Fury and Destroyer and Rage). But the sixth, משביר, does not, as far as I can tell. The stem/binyan must be Pi'el (meaning to "shatter, destroy"); but as far as I can tell, is not elsewhere used as the name of a destroying angel. 

 However, we do find in Qohelet Rabba the following list: חֲמִשָּׁה מַלְאֲכֵי חַבָּלָה, קֶצֶף, וּמַשְׁחִית, וְהַשְׁמֵד, אַף, וְחֵמָה, "five angels of destruction, Fury and Destroyer and Annihilation, Anger, and Wrath." The second list doesn't have חרון (Rage) but does have השמד "Annihilation." So either (1) the list is not fixed in form or (2) משביר in the first text is a corruption of משמיד "Annihilator." Of course, both could be true. 

In another Geniza magical text there is a parallel to the amulet cited above, with the same five angels mentioned in Pseudo-Jonathan, אף וחמה וקצף וחרון ומשחית, "Anger and Wrath and Fury and Rage and Destroyer" (T.-S. K 1.56, 2a:7-8), but again without משביר or the like. Anyone out there have any citations to add to these?

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Peter Schäfer and Shaul Shaked, Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza, Band I (Tübingen, 1994), pp. 32, 38.