The Book of ENOCH

CHAPTER 17

And they took me to a place where there were images like flaming fire, and when they wished they appeared like men.
2. And he led me to the place of the whirlwind, and on a hill, the point of whose summit reached to heaven.
3. And I saw shining places, and the thunder at the ends thereof; in the depths thereof a bow of fire, and arrows and their quiver, and a sword of fire, and all lightning.
4. And they took me to the so-called water of life, and to the fire of the west, which receives every setting of the sun.
5. And I came to a river of fire, whose fire flows like water, and is emptied into a great sea which is towards the west.
6. And I saw all the great rivers, and came to a great darkness, and went there where all flesh wanders.
7. And I saw the mountains of the black clouds of winter, and the place whither all the waters of the deep flow.
8. And I saw the mouths of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the deep.

CHAPTER 18

And I saw the repositories of all the winds, and I saw how he had ornamented all the creation and the foundations of the earth with them.
2. And I saw the corner-stone of the earth, and I saw the four winds which support the earth and the firmament of the heavens.
3. And I saw how the winds expand the heights of the heavens; and they remained between heaven and earth, and they are pillars of heaven.
4. And I saw the winds which turn the heavens, which lead down the course of the sun and all the stars.
5. And I saw the winds upon the earth which carry the clouds, and I saw the paths of the angels; I saw at the end of the earth the firmament of the heavens above.
6. And I proceeded towards the south; and it burns day and night there where seven hills of precious stones are, three towards the east, three towards the south.
7. But of those towards the east, one of colored stone, one of pearls, and one of antimony; and those towards the south of red stone.
8. But the middle one reached up to heaven, like the throne of God, of alabaster, and the summit of the throne of sapphire.
9. And I saw a burning fire which was in all the hills.
10. And there I saw a place, beyond the great earth; there the waters collected.
11. And I saw a great abyss in the earth, with columns of heavenly fire; and I saw among them columns of heavenly fire, which fall. and are without number, either towards the height or towards the depth.
12. And over that abyss I saw a place which had no firmament of heaven above it, and no foundation of earth beneath it, and no water above it, and no birds upon it; it was a void place.
13. And there I saw a terrible thing: seven stars, like great burning mountains and like spirits, that petitioned me.
14. The angel said: “This is the place of the consummation of heaven and earth; it is a prison for the stars of heaven, and for the host of heaven.
15. And the stars that roll over the fire are they who have transgressed the command of God before their rising, because they did not come forth in their time.
16. And he was enraged at them, and bound them till the time of the consummation of their sins in the year of the mystery.”

CHAPTER 19

And Uriel said to me: “Here will stand the souls of those angels who have united themselves with women, and having assumed many different forms, have contaminated mankind, and have led them astray so that they brought offerings to the demons as to gods, namely on the day when the great judgment, on which they will be judged, shall be consummated.
2. And their women having led astray the angels of heaven, will be like their friends.”
3. And I, Enoch, alone saw this vision, the ends of all; and no man has seen them as I have seen them.

CHAPTER 20

And these are the names of the holy angels who watch:
2. Uriel, one of the holy angels, the angel of thunder and of trembling; 3. Rufael, one of the holy angels, the angel of the spirits of men;
4. Raguel, one of the holy angels, who takes vengeance on the earth and the luminaries;
5. Michael, one of the holy angels, namely set over the best portion of men, over the people;
6. Saraqâel, one of the holy angels, who is over the spirits of the children of men who induce the spirits to sin;
7. Gabriel, one of the holy angels, who is over the serpents and over the Paradise and the Cherubim.

CHAPTER 21

And I went around to a place where not one thing took place.
2. And I saw there something terrible, no high heavens, no founded earth, but a void place, awful and terrible.
3. And there I saw seven stars of heaven, tied together to it, like great mountains, and flaming as if by fire.
4. At that time I said: “On account of what sin are these bound, and why have they been cast hither?”
5. And then answered Uriel, one of the holy angels, who was with me, conducting me, and said to me: “Enoch, concerning what dost thou ask, and concerning what dost thou inquire, and ask and art anxious?
6. These are of the stars who have transgressed the command of God, the Highest, and are bound here till ten thousand worlds, the number of the days of their sins, shall have been consummated.”
7. And from there I went to another place which was still more terrible than the former. And I saw a terrible thing: a great fire was there, which burned and flickered and appeared in sections; it was bounded by a complete abyss, great columns of fire were allowed to fall into it; its extent and size I could not see, and I was unable to see its origin.
8. At that time I said: “How terrible this place is, and painful to look at!”
9. At that time answered Uriel, one of the holy angels, who was with me; he answered and said to me: “Enoch, why such fear and terror in thee concerning this terrible place and in the presence of this pain?”
10. And he said to me: “This is the prison of the angels, and here they are held to eternity.”

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CHAP. 17. With this chapter commences the account by Enoch of a trip through heaven and earth in company with angels. 1. With the word they the writer joins his account to the previous, referring to agents in the preceding narrative as the subject. As the following clearly show, the subject of took are the angels, chap. 12. What is stated, Gen. v. 24, of God is said here of the angels, for our verse has evidently been fashioned after that passage. These fiery images are, notwithstanding Dillmann’s objections, probably angels.

In 14:11 we also have the Cherubim, and 19:1 states that angels can assume different forms, and in the Old Testament the angels are seldom known as such when they first appear; and adding to this the general indefinite character of the angelology of this first portion of the book, and the passages Dan. x. 16; Tob. xii. 19,. Hoffmann’s interpretation of angels is undoubtedly correct.—2, 3. He, indefinite subject; Place of the whirlwind, probably from Job xxxvii. 9.—3. As thunder is joined with lightning the places here are shining. The writer’s views are principally based on Job xxxvi. 30-37; v. 15; xxxviii. 25; cf. En. 41:3; 44:59 (60:13-15). Bow, with which the arrows, i.e. the lightning, are shot, according to Ps. vii. 12, 13; Hab. iii. 9; Lam. ii. 4; iii. 12, and the arrows as in Ps. xviii. 14; lxxvii. 17, 18; and cxliv. 6; the quiver, Lam. iii. 12, 13; the sword, Ps. vii. 12; Deut. xxxii. 41.—4.

Water of life, cf. the fountain of life, in Prov. x. 11; xiii. 14; xiv. 27; xvi. 22; but water of life, Apoc. xxii. 17. The fire in the west is the great mass of fire from which the sun daily receives its necessary portion, 23:4; 72:4.—5, 6. It is curious that a writer whose object it is to oppose the entrance of Greek ideas should resort to Greek myths himself for his ideas, for that his statements here are not based on Old Testament premises is self-evident. The river of fire is the GTR, Od. 10, 513. That he mentions only this one stream by name, and that one, too, being an unimportant one in the lower world of the Greeks (cf. Preller. Gr. Mythologie, 3d ed., p. 671 sq.) finds its explanation in its name, as suiting the connection. This stream of fire empties into the Okeanos, an idea indeed strange to the Greeks, who, however, locate Hades near the Okeanos; cf. Hesiod, Theogony, 744, 760, 767, 779 (all later interpolations in Hes. cf. Flach, Die Hes. Gedichte, p. 58). Enoch’s description is very much like Virgil’s, Aen. vi. 259, 323, 549 sqq. All the great rivers, i.e. probably the other rivers of the lower world.

Where all flesh wander is Hades, cf. chap. 22. The Old Testament pictures Sheol as the receptacle of all the dead, in 1 Kings ii. 2; Job xxx. 23; Ps. lxxxix. 48.—7. What is meant by these mountains is uncertain, as nothing like it is found in the Old Testament.

CHAP. 18, 1. The winds are kept by God in repositories, on which cf. Job xxxvii. 9-13; Jer. x. 13; li. 16; Ps. cxxxv. 7, and En. 34-36; 41:4; 60:11, 12; and the object of such repositories is given Job xxxviii. 22 sqq. The foundations of the earth is a frequent biblical expression, cf. Isa. xxiv. 18; Jer. xxxi. 37; Mich. vi. 2; Ps. xviii. 15; lxxxii. 5; Prov. viii. 29.—2. Corner-stone of the earth, cf. Job xxxviii. 6, and in general Ps. xxiv. 2; lxxxix. 11; Prov. iii. 19; xxx. 4; Isa. xlviii. 12.

The four winds carrying the earth is probably the author’s explanation of Job xxvi. 7, with the assistance of Job ix. 6 and Ps. lxxv. 3.—3. The pillars of heaven, Job xxvi. 11, are here declared to be the winds, for by their expansion they support the heavens.—4. distinct from the winds that support the heavens are those that turn the heavens and the luminaries; cf. 72:5; 73:2.—5. A third class of winds are those that carry the clouds; evidently an explanation of Job xxxvi. 29; xxxvii. 16. The paths of the angels on which they as servants of God and mediums of revelation descend from the heavenly home, 15:10, on the earth, as in Jacob’s dream, Gen. xxviii. 12 sqq. It is aptly brought in here in connection with the winds.—6. From the west, whither he had gone, 17:4, Enoch now proceeds to the south. It burns, being in the south. The seven hills are in a group, six of them forming an angle.

In the division of the earth between the sons of Noah, so minutely recorded in the book of the Jubilees, chap. 8, it is stated, p. 37, that the hills of fire formed a portion of Ham’s inheritance.—7. Those to the south are red, probably because the heat is more intense there.—8. In the angle formed by the six others stands the seventh, like the throne of God, of sapphire, after Ezek. I. 26.—10. In the south he again sees the great Okeanos.—11. He is still in the south, where naturally the pool of fire, as the place of punishment for the angels, could be expected. Without number, in the sense of which cannot be numbered, a clause modifying the following words. Heavenly fire, the same as in Gen. xix. 24; Ps. xi. 6; Ezek. xxxviii. 23.—12.

The place here pictured is a different one from the preceding, as chap. 21, which enlarges on these topics, shows.—13. This latter place is occupied by disobedient stars. The seven is simply a round number, cf. 18:6; 24:2; 32:1; 61:11; 77:4-8; 91:16:93:10, and Winer, Realwört., under “Zahlen.” Under no circumstances dare we bring in connection here the identification of angels and stars as was done in later writings (cf. Langen, p. 309), or think of the seven “throne-assistants” in Tob. xii. 15.

The writer simply states that the stars, who have their laws, shall also be punished for disobedience, vs. 15, and possibly refers to the GTR, or comets, of Jude 13. And like spirits is not a personification of the stars, but states only that the motions of the stars while being punished was that of petitioning spirits.—14. The angel, i.e. Uriel, cf. 19:1, and chap. 20. The stars are here termed in Old Testament phraseology host of heaven. —16. The limits of the punishment are unknown to the writer, like 21:6.

CHAP. 19, 1. Uriel, in conformity with the etymology of the word, is over the luminaries, as is expressly stated 75:3, and explains his conduct here and in 21:5, 9; 27:2; 33:3, 4. This other place of punishment, the one mentioned 18:11, is not yet inhabited, but is intended for the fallen angels, who are now temporarily being punished by being bound in the desert or under the hills, chap. 10, but shall at the final judgment be condemned to this place, cf. 10:6, 13; 21:10. Souls of the angels, a kind of anthropomorphism, like 13:6. With the change of forms cf. 17:1 and Test. Ruben 5. The statements here have their parallels in Justin Martyr, Apol. Brev. (p. 92, ed. Maur.), Apol. pro Christ, p. 46 (ed. Maur.), and Tertullian, De Idol. 4: Enoch praedicans, omnia elementa, omnem mundi censum, quae coelo, quae mari, quae terra continentur, in idolatriam versuros daemonas et spiritus desertorum angelorum, ut pro Deo adversus Dominum consecrarentur; and ib. 15: Haec igitur ab initio praevidens Spiritus Sanctus etiam ostia in superstitionem versura praececinit per antiquissimum prophetam (poetam) Enoch.

These demons are, according to chap. 15 and 16, the spirits of the slain giants, and these being children of the fallen angels these latter persuade mankind to worship these demons, That the gods of the heathen are demons finds expression in Baruch iv. 7, and LXX on Ps. xcvi. 5; cvi. 37; Deut. xxxii. 17; Isa. lxv. 11. In Dialog. cum Tryph. § 83 Justin Martyr refers to the passage Ps. xcvi. 5 (xcv. 5 according to LXX) as proof for his statement.—2. The women, too, are to be punished, for they were not passive in the sin of the angels, but they led them astray by their beauty, cf. 6:1 sqq. and Test. Ruben, 5.—3. Probably the original of Clemens Alex. Eclog. Proph. § 2 (ed. Sylburg, p. 801): GTR; and of Origen, De Princ. IV. 35: universas materias perspexi.

CHAP. 20. The catalogue of angels in this chapter is an uncalled-for interpolation by a later hand. The number six (the same number in Past. Hermae Vis, 3, 4, 1) does not harmonize with the rest of this book, for the writer, when he does have occasion to speak of the number of angels, always chooses one of the sacred figures, three or seven, cf. 90:21, 22; 81:5; 90:31. In the number (six), but not in the names, the statementshere agree with Targ. Jerush. on Deut. xxxiv., and Philo, GTR. on Ex. xxv. 22.

Another reason to doubt the authenticity of this chapter are the strange functions assigned to these angels. 1. Who watch, like the GTR, or watchmen of later Jewish theology, based on Dan. iv. 10; xiv. 20. Cf. note on 12:2.—2. Uriel. The functions here assigned to this angel are not in harmony with his deeds nor with the statements of our book, cf. note on 19:1. Uriel, not a biblical name, is also mentioned 4 Ezra iv. 1; v. 20; x. 28.—3. Rufael (i.e. Raphael), who in later works and in En. 10:4, 7 is the angel of healing (cf. Buxtorf, Lex., ed. Fischer, p. 27), is here vaguely called the angel of the spirits of men, the meaning of which expression is most mysterious.—4. Raguel.

The name is not rare in the Old Testament as the appellation of a man, HTR, cf. Gen. xxxvi. 10; Ex.ii. 18; Num. x. 29, etc., and GTR in Tobit, but as the name of an angel it is post-biblical. The moral accountability of the luminaries, mentioned 18:15, is also recognized here.—5. Michael is the angel of the children of Israel, in conformity with Dan. x. 13, 21; xii. 1; Assumptio Mosis x. 2, Ascensio Isaiae ix. 13, the Targumim, and later tradition.—Saraqael, a name nowhere else found.—7. Gabriel, whose functions are possibly connected with the account Gen. iii. 24.

CHAP. 21, 1. The writer begins a second narration, treated in a somewhat different manner from the above, which covers to a great extent the ground already gone over. This verse is quoted by Origen, De Princ. IV. 35, in the words: ambulavi usque ad imperfectum. Around, i.e. in a circuit.—2. He here repeats and enlarges on the place of punishment for the stars already mentioned 18:12-16.—3-6. cf. chap. 18.—7-10. follows a description of the place of torment for the fallen angels as in 18:11; 19:1 sqq. Sections; the word for this is found only in one other passage, viz. Ascensio Isaiae iv. 21, where it is used in the sense of section or verse of Scripture.


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