The Book of ENOCH

CHAPTER 12

And previous to all these things Enoch was hidden, and not one of the children of men knew where he was hidden, and where he was, and what had become of him.
2. And all his deeds were with the holy ones and with the watchers in his days.
3. And I, Enoch, was praising the great Lord and the King of the world, and, behold, the watchers called to me, Enoch, the scribe, and said to me:
4. “Enoch, thou scribe of justice, go, announce to the watchers of heaven, who have left the high heaven and the holy, eternal place, and have contaminated themselves with women, and have done as the children of men do, and have taken to themselves wives, and are contaminated in great contamination upon the earth.
5. But upon earth they shall have no peace, nor forgiveness of sin; for they will not enjoy their children.
6. They will see the murder of their beloved ones, and they will lament over the destruction of their children, and will petition to eternity, but mercy and peace will not be unto them.”

CHAPTER 13

And Enoch, departing, said to Azâzêl: “Thou wilt have no peace; a great condemnation has come upon thee, and he [i.e. Rufael, cf. 10:4] will bind thee;
2. and alleviation and intercession and mercy will not be unto thee, because thou hast taught oppression, and because of all the deeds of abuse, oppression, and sin which thou hast showed to the children of men.”
3. And then going, I spoke to them all together; and they were all afraid, fear and trembling seized them.
4. And they asked me to write a memorial petition for them that they thereby might attain forgiveness, and to carry their memorial petition before God into heaven.
5. For they could not, from now on, speak with him, nor could they raise their eyes towards heaven from shame on account of their sins for which they were being punished.
6. Then I wrote this memorial petition, and prayed with reference to their souls and for each of their deeds, and for that which they had asked of me, that they thereby might obtain forgiveness and patience.
7. And going I sat down near the waters of Dan in Dan, which is to the right [i.e. south] of the evening side [i.e. west] of Hermon, and read their memorial petition till I fell asleep.
8. And, behold, a dream came to me, and visions fell upon me, and I saw the vision of chastisement to show to the sons of heaven, and to upbraid them.
9. And having become awake I went to them, and they were all sitting assembled lamenting at Ublesjâêl, which is between the Lebanon and Sênêsêr, with their faces covered.
10. And I related before them all the visions that I had seen in my sleep, and commenced to speak those words of justice and to upbraid the watchmen of heaven.

CHAPTER 14

This writing is the word of justice and the admonition of the watchers, who are from eternity, as the Holy and Great One commanded it in this vision.
2. I saw in my sleep what I now will relate with a tongue of flesh and with my breath, which the Great One has given to the mouth of men that they might converse with it and understand it in their hearts.
3. As he has created and given to men the power to understand the word of knowledge, thus also he has created me and given to me the power to upbraid the watchers, the sons of heaven.
4. “I have written your petition, and in my vision it appeared to me thus, that your petition will not be granted in all the days of the world, and that judgment has been passed over you, and nothing will be granted unto you.
5. And from now on ye will not ascend into heaven to all eternity, and upon earth, it has been decreed, they shall bind you for all the days of the world.
6. But before this ye will have seen the destruction of your beloved children, and ye will not be able to possess them, but they shall fall before you by the sword.
7. Your petition for them will not be granted unto you, nor the one for yourselves; and while ye are weeping and praying ye cannot speak a single word from the writing which I have written.”
8. And the vision appeared to me thus: behold, clouds in the vision invited me and a fog invited me; and the course of the stars and lightning drove and pressed me, and the winds in the vision gave me wings and drove me.
9. And they lifted me up into heaven, and I went till I approached near a wall which was built of crystals and a tongue of fire surrounded it; and it began to cause me to fear.
10. And I went into the tongue of fire and approached near to a large house, which was built of crystals, and the walls of this house were like a floor inlaid with crystals, and the groundwork was of crystals.
11. The ceiling was like the course of the stars and of the lightning, and Cherubim of fire were between them, and their heaven was water.
12. A flaming fire surrounded the walls, and its doors burned with fire.
13. And I went into this house, and it was hot like fire and cold like ice, and there was nothing pleasant and no life in it: fear covered me, and trembling seized me.
14. And as I was shaking and trembling, I fell down on my face and saw in a vision.
15. And behold, there was a second house, larger than the other, all whose doors stood open before me, and it was built with a tongue of fire.
16. And in all things it excelled in grandeur and magnificence and size, so that I cannot describe to you its magnificence and its size.
17. Its floor was fire, and above it was lightning and the course of the stars, and its ceiling was also a flaming fire.
18. And I looked and saw therein a high throne; its appearance was like the hoar-frost, and its circuit like a shining sun and voices of the Cherubim.
19. And from under the great throne came streams of flaming fire, and it was impossible to look at it.
20. And he who is great in majesty sat thereon; his garment shone more brilliantly than the sun, and was whiter than any hail.
21. None of the angels were able to enter, nor any flesh to look upon the form of the face of the Majestic and Honored One.
22. Fire of flaming fire was round him, and a great fire stood before him, and none of those who were around him could approach him; ten thousand times ten thousand were before him; but he required not any holy counsel.
23. And the holy ones who were near him did not leave day or night, nor did they depart from him.
24. And I had had so long a veil upon my face, and I trembled; and the Lord called me with his own voice and said to me: “Come hither, Enoch, and to my holy word!”
25. And he cause me to arise and I went to the door; but I bent my face downwards.

CHAPTER 15

And he answered and spoke to me with his word: “Hear, and fear not, Enoch, thou just man and scribe of justice, approach hither, and hear my words.
2. And go, say to the watchers of heaven, who have sent thee, that thou shouldst petition for them: ‘Ye should petition for men, and not men for you.
3. Why have ye left the high, holy, and everlasting heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men, and taken wives unto yourselves, and acted like the children of earth, and begotten giants as sons?
4. While ye were spiritual, holy, having eternal life, ye defiled yourselves with women, and with the blood of flesh have begotten children, and have lusted after the blood of men, and have produced flesh and blood as they produce who die and are destroyed.
5. Therefore I have given them wives that they might impregnate them and children be born by them, as it is done on earth.
6. Ye were formerly spiritual, living an eternal life without death to all the generations of the world.
7. Therefore I have not made for you any wives, for spiritual beings have their home in heaven.
8. And now the giants, who have been begotten from body and flesh, will be called evil spirits on earth, and their dwelling-places will be upon the earth.
9. Evil spirits proceed from their bodies; because they are created from above, their beginning and first basis being from the holy watchers, they will be evil spirits upon the earth, and will be called evil spirits.
10. But the spirits of heaven have their dwelling-places in heaven, and the spirits of the earth, who were born on the earth, have their dwelling-places on earth.
11. And the spirits of the giants, who cast themselves upon the clouds, will be destroyed and fall, and will battle and cause destruction on the earth, and do evil; they will take no kind of food, nor will they become thirsty, and they will be invisible.
12. And these spirits will not (?) rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them. In the days of murder and destruction.

CHAPTER 16

and of the death of the giants, when the spirits have proceeded from the bodies, their flesh shall decay without judgment; thus they shall be destroyed till that day when the great judgment over all the great world shall be completed over the watchers and the impious.
2. And now to the watchers who have sent thee that thou shouldst petition for them who were formerly in heaven say:
3. ‘Ye have been in heaven, and though the secrets were not yet revealed to you, still ye knew illegitimate mysteries, and these ye have, in the hardness of your hearts, related to the women, and through these mysteries women and men increase wickedness over the earth.’
4. Tell them therefore: ‘Ye have no peace!’”

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CHAP. 12. Enoch was hidden, probably to receive the revelation that now follows, as Noah was to hide himself for a similar purpose, 10:2; based upon Gen. v. 24. The Targums of Jonathan ben Uziel and of Jerusalem both interpret the HTR as a retiring from the earth and associating with higher beings.—2. Holy ones, cf. note on 9:3, and is found in all the three parts of this book. Watchmen, a standard name for all classes of angels, good and bad (for the fallen angels are also called thus, 1:5; 10:9, 15; 12:4; 13:4, 10; 14:1, 3; 15:2; 16:1, 2; 91:15), and strictly confined to this portion of the book, the nearest approach to it in the Parables being those that do not sleep, 39:12, 13; 61:12; 71:7.

They are mentioned first in Dan. iv. 17. For the writer of the Parables the term seems to indicate exclusively one class of angels, viz. the archangels; cf. 71:7; while in the first part it is used in this limited sense in 20 only, a chapter of doubtful authenticity. Cf. the Old Testament statements concerning the prophets as watchmen, Isa. xxi. 11, 12; lii. 8; lxii. 6; Jer. vi. 17; Ezek. iii. 17; xxxiii. 7; Hab. ii. 1; cf. 1 Clem. ad Corinth, 56: 1.—3. King of the world; cf. note on 1:3. The scribe; cf. verse 4; 15:1; 92:1.

The book of the Jubilees remarks that Enoch was the first to teach men writing. This was probably a kind of official title, which is modified 12:4 and 92:1, as scribe of justice, he being just himself, 15:1; 71: 14-16; and announcing the just judgment, 39:2; 81:6; 82:1; 108:1; and writing books for this purpose, 104:13; 108:9; cf. the interesting remarks of Dillmann, in Allg. Enleitung, p. xli. sq.—4. Cf. Jude 6 and En. 15:3 sqq.—5. Cf. 10:9-12. The forbidden union between an Israelite and a heathen could be forgiven, Ezra x. 19, but not that between angel and woman.—6. Cf. on 10:9.

CHAP. 13. Azazel alone is here addressed, in harmony with 10:4 sqq.—3. To them all, i.e. to Semjaza and the other angels.—4, 5. The greatest of the fall is expressed by the fact that they who are of heaven cannot now raise even their eyes upwards out of shame for their deeds, 14:7; 15:3 sqq. Being cut off from the communion with God is one of the most terrible things an Israelite could conceive of, and thus this separation is one of the horrors of the Sheol; cf. Job vii. 7-10; Ps. lxxxviii.

Writing was comparatively rare in the Old Testament, but was evidently a common thing in the time of the author of this book, and the statement here undoubtedly refers also to Enoch’s literary character. Writing instead of speaking the petition is the tribute of reverence paid to the majesty of God, and is taken from the customs of earth’s royalty. Furthermore, it seems that even Enoch could not speak to God, for none of his numerous questions are addressed to him, although God speaks to him, 14:24; 15:1.—6. Patience, i.e. that God should have patience with them. The angels, originally spiritual, 15:4, 6, are represented here after their fall as possessing soul and body, like man; cf. 19:1.—7.

He goes in a south-western direction to the river Dan in the country of Dan. This river, a tributary of the Jordan, is also called the smaller Jordan, Josephus, Antiqq. I. 10, 1; v. 3, 1; viii. 8, 4. The banks of flowing water were favorite places for prayer, Dan. viii. 2; x. 4. As Hermon was a desecrated place, Enoch could not expect to receive a revelation there.—8. Sons of heaven; cf. note on 6:2. Revelations through dreams were frequent in the Old Testament; Gen. xx. 3; xxxi. 10 sqq.; xlvi. 2; 1 Sam. xxviii. 6; 1 Kings iii. 5; Job xxxiii. 15, etc.; and Josephus, Bel. Jud. iii. 8, 3. Philo wrote a special work on this subject, GTR.—9. Ublesjael, being stationed between Lebanon and Sênêsêr, must have been a real, not imagined place, but what one is uncertain.


The same must be said of Sênêsêr. As a mark of their lamentation, they have their faces covered; cf. 2 Sam. xv. 30; Isa. xxv. 7; Esth. vi. 12.—10. Words of justice, i.e. the just punishment. Being important, this vision is farther explained in chap. 14-16.

CHAP. 14, 1. As the following is to be a minute description of the vision, it is very properly preceded by its own superscription. The angels are from eternity, in the sense of the biblical HTR, i.e. not eternity absolutely and metaphysically, but only subjectively, from a time hidden (HTR) to the author; cf. Orelli, Heb. Synonyma d. Zeit und Ewigkeit, p. 69 sqq. and note on 10:4, 10 and 15:3, 4, 6, 7, 10; 12:4; 15:3.—2. Tongue of flesh, to emphasize his privilege as a human being, who is of flesh, to rebuke the angels who are spiritual. The contrast is strengthened by the fact that the author here evidently, as in 15, especially verse 8, and as it is probably done Gen. vi. 3, and Ps. lxxviii. 39, and certainly in the New Testament (cf. Wendt, Fleisch und Geist, p. 42, sqq.), attaches to the idea of flesh the ethical idea of moral weakness; cf. also 84:1; cf. the similar idea in Isa. viii. 1.—4.

The judgment has been passed, i.e. decided upon by the unchangeable God, 65:10, like the biblical HTR.—5. Cf. note on 13:4, 5.—6. note on 10:9.—7. Cf. note on 10:10. Speak, probably from falsely reading GTR for GTR, and should be: ye will not receive. The writing is of course Enoch’s petition. To this and the following Irenaeus refers in adv. Haer. iv. 30, when he says: Sed et Enoch sine circumcisione placens Deo, cum esset homo, legatione ad angelos fungebatur et translatus est et conservatur usque nunc testis judicii Dei, quoniam angeli quidam transgressi deciderunt in terram in judicium, homo autem placens translatus est in salutem.—8. The picture here is evidently taken from passages like Isa. xix. 1 and the places where God is said to descend on a cloud, Ex. xix. 9; xxxiv. 4; Lev. xvi. 2; Num. xi. 25; xii. 5.

In the Ascensio Isaiae, chap. vii., viii., in which Isaiah ascends up to the seventh through the other six heavens, the manner of the ascent is not stated, except that the angels caused it. The statements here are certainly connected with Isa. vi.; Ezek. I. and x.; Dan. vii. 9, 10.—9. These holy places are surrounded by walls of the purest substances. In Zech. ii. 5 the Lord is himself a wall of fire, and fire is the symbol of purity, Prov. xxv. 22; Jer. xxiii. 29; Mal. iii. 2.—10. The picture is taken from the shape of an earthly temple; behind the wall is the HTR or GTR.—11. Water, because transparent.—13. is an expression of his awful feelings in seeing these astounding phenomena.—14. Cf. Ezek. I. 28; Dan. viii. 17, 18; x. 9; Ascensio Isaiae, ix. 1, 2.—15. Now he sees the holy of holies, whose doors are open, which is to explain how in the following he can narrate what was within, although he did not enter; cf. the similar description in Pirke Elieser, c. 4.

His not entering is explained by Ex. xxxiii. 20; Judg. vi. 22 sq.; xiii. 22; 1 Sam. vi. 19 sq.—16. You, i.e. the readers.—17. Cf. verse 11.—18. Hoar-frost, to express the intensity of the whiteness; cf. Dan. vii. 9. Throne, the prophet Isaiah in his ascent finds a throne in each one of the seven heavens; cf. Ascensio Isaiae vii. 14 sqq. and Isa. vi. 1 sqq.—19. Cf. Dan. vii. 10.—20. Ascensio Isaiae ix. 27. Et vidi quendam stantem, cujus gloria superabat omnin, et gloria ejus magna erat et mirabilis.—21. Cf. note on verse 2.

That God’s residence cannot be entered by man is stated also 3 Macc. ii. 14 sqq.; cf. Ascensio Isaiae iii. 8 sqq.—22. The angels are servants, not advisers of God, hence they are not required in his GTR; cf. note on I. 9.—24. Word, not the GTR, but probably the GTR or command of God personified. Dillmann says it is equal to: Come here to hear my holy word; cf. Langen, p. 268, and the personification of the word of God in Ps. cxlvii. 15; Isa. lv. 11.—25. To the door, according to verse 21.

CHAP. 15, 1, 2. Scribe of justice; cf. 12:3. Angels interceding for men is biblical; cf. Job v. 1; xxxiii. 23; Zech. I. 12 sqq. (Tob. xii. 12-15; 2 Macc. iii. 25 sqq.; Philo, De Gig. § 4.); Apoc. viii. 3, and in En. 9:3; 40:6, 7; 47:2; 89:76; 104:1.—3. Cf. 12:4; Jude 6.—4. The contrast lies here between spiritual and eternal on the one hand, and flesh and mortality on the other. The angels, being eternal, did not require propagation as a means of the preservation of their kind, and thus their lust had caused them to step out of their sphere. Their guilt was increased by the result of this unnatural union, the wicked giants.—5. Man, being mortal, did not sin by propagating his kind; cf. Test.

Naphtali, 3.—6. That the angels are spiritual is not definitely stated in the Old Testament, but repeatedly in the New; cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 12, 32; Heb. I. 14; Apoc. xxii. 6; Acts viii. 26, 29, 39.—8, 9. Giants were the product of this lustful connection, and being the children of spiritual fathers, but begotten in sin, they are evil spirits. Syncellus has also 15: 8-16:1, and gives a good text. Justin Martyr (Apol. brev. ii. 5) remarks: GTR, but in his Apol. pro Christ. ad Anton. Pium he calls these angels themselves GTR. Tertul. Apol. 22 adopts the first view: Quomodo de angelis quibusdam sua sponte coruptis corruptio gens daemonum evaserit, etc.; as also do the Pseudo-Clement., 8, 18.—10 is omitted in the Gr., but was undoubtedly in the original, as it suits the connection.—11, 12. The Ethiopic text is evidently not pure here, and departs considerably from the Gr., the latter having the transitive GTR, instead of the intransitive be destroyed, and the negative in verse 12 must be erased, as the sense and the Gr., which has simply GTR, demand.

The sense is, according to the Gr.: The spirits of the giants destroy, practice injustice, cause destruction, make attacks, fight and struggle, throw down on the earth and assault, but eat nothing, assume ghostly forms or produce them, but become thirsty and rush upon mankind. But the acc. of the Ethiopic is better than the GTR of the Gr. On the view of later authorities on the subject of demons, cf. Hoffmann, p. 203 sqq.; Langen, pp. 322, 323.

CHAP. 16, 1. Evidently simply continuation of the preceding. The GTR of Syncellus, which Dillmann calls a müssige sinnsstörende Glosse, does not belong to the text. In this book the judgments, both the first and the final, have many different names, e.g. the great judgment, 19:1; 22:4; 25:4; 100:4; 103:8; or day of the great judgment, 84:4; 94:9; 98:10; 99:15; 104:5; or great day of the judgment, 10:6; 22:11; day of completion, 10:12; while the Parables have, the great day, 54:6; or day of trouble, 45:2.—2. Clemens Alex. refers to this strange statement in his remarks, Strom. V. p. 550 (ed. Sylburg. 1641), cf. Justin. Apol. B.; Epiph. adv. Haer., 1:4; Tertul. De Cultu Fem. 1:10.



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