When I first started to study this, I had a thought it could be just wishful thinking, but the more I have continued the study and research, the more convinced I have gotten. Of what? That those mountains that Bileam used to visit and were brought from, to curse Israel, was the same as the mountain range, who's highest peak, is Mount Hermon.
You might think, just as I did at first, that Mt. Hermon is not east of Israel, but lies north of Israel. It is even referred to in that way, several times in the Bible.
But let's see what is told about Bileam:
"And he took up his parable, and said, Balak the king of Moab hath brought me from Aram, out of the mountains of the east..." (Num. 23:7)
Earlier in the same story, it says:
"He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people..." (Num. 22:5)
In Deut. 23:4, Pethor is said to be of Aram-Naharaim, which is translated, or rather interpreted, in King James, as Mesopotamia.
Well, all this seems to make my idea, to be totally wrong. Just wishful thinking, to be able to connect the story of Bileam, or Balaam, to Mt. Hermon and the Book of Enoch.
But then there is an old Jewish tradition, that actually does connect Bileam with the Book of Enoch. Here it is:
Now when God saw that these fallen angels were seducing the world, He bound them in chains of iron to a mountain of darkness. Uzza He bound at the bottom of the mountain and covered his face with darkness because he struggled and resisted, but Azael, who did not resist, He set by the side of a mountain where a little light penetrated. Men who know where they are located seek them out, and they teach them enchantments and sorceries and divinations. These mountains of darkness are called the “mountains of the East”, and therefore Balaam said: “From Aram has Balak brought me, from the mountains of the East”. Because they both learnt their sorceries there. Now Uzza and Azael used to tell those men who came to them some of the notable things which they knew in former times when they were on high, and to speak about the holy world in which they used to be. (Zohar 3:208a)
In which place and from whom did Balaam derive all his Magical practices and knowledge? Rabbi Isaac replied: “He learned it first from his father, but it was in the “mountains of the East”, which are in an eastern country, that he obtained a mastery of all the arts of magic and divination. For those mountains are the abode of the [fallen] angels Uzza and Azael whom the Holy One cast down from heaven, and who were chained there in fetters. It is they who impart to the sons of men a knowledge of magic. (Zohar 1:126a)
As we notice here, the rabbis are not quite sure, where the mountains of east are. And the text seems to indicate why - it is a secret. Only "men who know where they are located seek them out (Uzza and Azael)...".
So, the Jewish rabbis connects the Watcher story with Bileam, and makes him a follower of the descended angels, or what he thought were those angels.
Now, many things can be said here. First, considering the burial place of Uzza (Semjazah) and Azael (Azazel). If they were buried in the place where tradition places Pethor and the mountains of the east, you have to look away from the fact that there are no mountains in that place. The highest ground level in that area is about 400 meters, which hardly can be called a mountain, at least compared to the mountains in Lebanon and southern Syria. No one would refer to those hills, as the mountains of the east, anyway. So, if Bileam really lived in the northern part of Syria, the moutains in the text must refer to some other location, where he also used to dwell. Or, the placing of Pethor, is wrong.
Some believe it is somewhere in Jordan, but there are no specific mountains in that area either.
Another thing to consider, is that those angels lived on or nearby the Hermon mountain range. This is told in Enoch, where he places their dwelling between Lebanon and Seneser, Seneser being the same as Senir, which is the Aramaic name for mt. Hermon.
Now, my father lived his last years in a town called Trollhättan. That is in Sweden. Where was he buried? In Germany? Denmark? No, he was buried where he had lived, in Trollhättan, Sweden, of course. He wasn't even buried in another part of Sweden.
So, why would these angels, who had descended and become like us, and who were to die like men, be buried somewhere else than where they had lived? People get buried where they have their homes. So why would Uzza and Azael be buried in the northernmost part of Syria, when they lived in the southwestern part of Syria?
I think it is possible that Pethor may be that place in Jordan, or some other place now unknown to us, but that the mountains of the east, are mt. Hermon.
They are located in Aram, says Numbers. Aram is Syria. West of Syria is Lebanon. The Lebaneese call the Hermon range, the mountains of the east. Exactly the same words, as found in the Bible.
Going on. To shorten this, I skip some of what more could be said, and just go to the description of the burial places of the two angels. Uzza was buried at the bottom of the mountain and covered with darkness. Azael was buried by the side of the, or a, mountain, where a little light penetrated. What is at the bottom of mt. Hermon? There is a big cave, called Pan's Grotto,
where divination has been going on of old. That fits very well with what the rabbis told of Uzza's burial. And what lies by the side of the mountain? Gilgal Refaim, from where mt. Hermon can be seen as a big panorama, not far away. Gilgal Refaim fits perfectly with the description in the Book of Enoch, of Azazel's burial site. And it fits quite well with that of the rabbis, too. Also Gilgal Refaim has been a cultic site, for thousands of years. Those two places would have been sought out, for rituals and sorcery and for obtaining occult wisdom.
Mt. Hermon itself, has been a Middle East Olympus, as long as history remembers. It is called Mountain of the Gods in Psalms 68. That is, mountain of the angels. It is littered with old temple ruins, more than any other place in the Middle East (perhaps except from a few others).
So, mt. Hermon is called the Mountains of the East. It is in Aram. It has at its bottom a dark cave, and at its side the largest stone circle in the Middle East (and the oldest one, in fact it is the same age as when Enoch lived). It is a very prominent place of divination.
It is where Jesus spoke to his disciples about the gates of Hades, and remark the word gates, which is a plural. One gate, which tradition has connected with Hades, is the Grotto of Pan, at the bottom of Hermon. And Gilgal Refaim is, as I have shown in other articles and a little book called Enoch and the Pleiades, the gate to the abyss. Was it those two sites Jesus was thinking of, when he said that they would not prevail against his disciples?
Mt. Hermon seen from inside Gilgal Refaim.
I have no doubt it was. There is so much more that can be said of this, so many connections, so much that gets clear when all this is considered. Just think of the two possessed men who lived nearby Gigal Refaim, who had end-time knowledge superior to the disciples at that time. Think of the paralell between Azazel's burial, and Satan's burial. It will be the same place! It will also be from where the spirits of the descended angels will return to earth. No wonder the ancients who knew about this, and they did, sought out those sites, in the hope of connecting to these ancient gods.
___
Notes
* Someone might say: But Paddan-Aram, is clearly situated by the river Euphrate, so the mountains of the east cannot be a place many miles south of that. To answer that, I just refer to the book, "Origenes Biblicae", by Charles Tilston Beke, where he from page 122 proves convincingly that Paddan-Aram (the Aramaic Plain), is to be found near to Damascus.
___
(Please excuse my poor English here and there. I am aware of it, but it is better to leave the text as it is, than to go in and try to make it look better. Also, the spiritual flow in it will be broken.)
___