By George E. Ladd
THE FIRST BOOK. 1-36
The purpose of the first part of Enoch may be summed up in two phrases: the explanation of the present condition of the world, and the anticipation of the salvation to come.1 Sin has caused such disorder among men that moral and spiritual chaos reigns. This troubled state was brought about by the sin and fall of the angels; but the world will one day be restored to its former condition of peace and prosperity. This will be the day ushering in the kingdom of God.
The concept of the kingdom of God reflected in the first part of Enoch is very similar to that found in Jubilees.2 In the first five chapters, which constitute a sort of introduction to the compilation, the author sets the tone for the entire work. God one day will visit His creation to judge the angels, to save the righteous, and to punish the wicked.
"The Holy Great One will come forth from His dwelling, And the eternal God will tread upon the earth, even on Mount Sinai, And appear from His camp And appear in the strength of His might from the heaven of heavens.
And all shall be smitten with fear, And the Watchers shall quake,3 And great fear and trembling shall seize them unto the ends of the earth. And the high mountains shall be shaken, And the high hills shall be made low, And shall melt like wax before the flame. And the earth shall be wholly rent in sunder, And there shall be a judgement upon all men.
But with the righteous He will make peace, And will protect the elect, And mercy shall be upon them. And they shall all belong to God, And they shall be prospered, And they shall all be blessed. And He will help them all, And light shall appear unto them, And He will make peace with them. And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones.
To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly:4 And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him" (1:3-9).
This passage portrays the day of judgment in Old Testament terms. As God one day had visited Mt. Sinai as Lawgiver, so will He again visit the earth at Mt. Sinai as Judge. This visitation will be accompanied by mighty convulsions of the physical world which are described in biblical phrases.5 It is not clear that the author thinks of this day of the Lord to the as a termination of earthly history. The phraseology may be designed to describe the glory which accompanies the divine visitation.
The language of the passage makes no reference to a Messiah. God Himself shall visit the earth for judgment. It is of course possible that the writer thought of God visiting the earth in the person of the unnamed Messiah; but it is hazardous to postulate a concept in the absence of evidence. The introduction continues by contrasting God's faithfulness as it is manifested in the orderliness of the universe with man's faithlessness. The stars, the seasons, the cycles of foliage, the regularity of the years, all illustrate the submissiveness of the natural world to God. In contrast, men in hardness of heart have rebelled against God to break His commandments and to speak against Him. Therefore God's judgment will fall upon them. But for the righteous,
"... there shall be forgiveness of sins, And every mercy and peace and forbearance: There shall be salvation unto them, a goodly light.
But for the elect there shall be light and joy and peace, And they shall inherit the earth. And then there shall be bestowed upon the elect wisdom, And they shall all live and never again sin, Either through ungodliness or through pride: But they who are wise shall be humble. And they shall not again transgress, Nor shall they sin all the days of their life, Nor shall they die of the divine anger or wrath, But they shall complete the number of the days of their life. And their lives shall be increased in peace, And the years of their joy shall be multiplied, In eternal gladness and peace, All the days of their life" (5:6-9).
These two passages anticipate the day of judgment which will restore the divinely intended order to the world. Sinners will be destroyed while the righteous enter into larger blessings, which are described in terms both of human happiness and spiritual well-being. The setting of this happy scene is the earth, where men will thereafter round out the full number of their days in perfect enjoyment of the blessings of God. This is a picture of Eden restored.
After this introduction, the book describes the way in which sin became dominant among men and the human race became demoralized. Sin came through the fall of the angels who, because of their lust for women, fell. This fall is related in some detail. A highly developed angelology is one of the outstanding features of the Jewish inter-Testamental literature. The source of sin is revealed to be the fallen angels, particularly Azazel (10:8), through whom the whole earth has been corrupted. God then sent the angels Michael, Oriel, Raphael, and Gabriel to bind the fallen angels and to imprison them in anticipation of the day of judgment. In that day, the angels will be led off into the abyss of fire (10:13) to be confined forever in torment. Judgment will then visit the earth and all wrong will be destroyed. Then God's people will enter into blessing, and righteousness and truth shall prevail.
"And then shall all the righteous escape, And shall live till they beget thousands of children, And all the days of their youth and their old age Shall they complete in peace.
"And then shall the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and shall all be planted with trees and be full of blessing. And all desirable trees shall be planted on it, and they shall plant vines on it: and the vine which they plant thereon shall yield wine in abundance, and as for all the seed which is sown thereon each measure of it shall bear a thousand, and each measure of olives shall yield ten presses of oil. And cleanse thou the earth from all oppression, and from all unrighteousness, and from all sin, and from all godlessness and all the uncleanness that is wrought upon the earth destroy from off the earth. And all the children of men shall become righteous, and all nations shall offer adoration and shall praise Me, and all shall worship Me. And the earth shall be cleansed from all defilement, and from all sin, and from all punishment, and from all torment, and I will never again send them upon it from generation to generation and for ever.
"And in those days I will open the store chambers of blessing which are in the heaven, so as to send them down upon the earth over the work and labour of the children of men. And truth and peace shall be associated together throughout all the days of the world and throughout all the generations of men" (10:17-11:2).
Here again the kingdom is viewed as the restoration of mankind to the happy condition of life on earth known before the fallen angels brought corruption into human affairs. This salvation will include all nations. This envisages the conversion of the Gentiles; for all men will become righteous and God will shower His heavenly blessings upon His creatures, who will then enjoy a peaceful, prolific, and prosperous earthly existence.
One more glimpse of the anticipated kingdom is afforded in the latter part of this first book. Chapters 17-38 relate the journeys of Enoch through various parts of the universe and the scenes he there witnessed. Among other sights, he beheld at the end of the heaven and earth the place of imprisonment for the fallen angels as well as their place of final punishment. He also visited Sheol, which was located in a great mountain in the West, and saw the several compartments where various classes of men were awaiting the final judgment. Then Enoch visited another part of the earth beyond a burning range of mountains, where he beheld in the midst of six mountains a seventh mountain more lofty than the others. This mountain is to be the throne of God where the Great King will sit when He visits the earth. Near the throne Enoch saw the tree of life, perennial in leaf and bloom, fragrant beyond all fragrance, with fruit; resembling palm-dates. This tree is reserved until the coming of the kingdom and will be the instrumentality by which men regain their lost state of blessedness. Its fruit, however, does not bestow eternal life, only unusual longevity of happiness on earth. The coming of the kingdom will involve the transplanting of the tree of life to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord on earth (25:5). The kingdom is thus to center in Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital. The marvelous effects of the tree of life are described in these words.
"And as for this fragrant tree no mortal is permitted to touch it till the great judgement, when He shall take vengeance on all and bring everything to its consummation for ever. It shall then be given to the righteous and holy. Its fruit shall be for food to the elect: it shall be transplanted to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord, the Eternal King.
Then shall they rejoice with joy and be glad, And into the holy place shall they enter; And its fragrance shall be in their bones, And they shall live a long life on earth, Such as thy fathers lived: And in their days shall no sorrow or plague Or torment of calamity touch them" (25:4-6).
Very little is said in the first section of Enoch about resurrection of the dead either for judgment or for the enjoyment of kingdom blessings. The only distinct reference is found in Enoch's visit to Sheol (22). There he saw three smooth places hollowed out of a mountain of hard rock, where the spirits of the souls of men were gathered until the day of judgment. One compartment was a bright place with a fountain of water, where the spirits of the righteous await their judgment. The other two were dark. One is for sinners who died without having experienced judgment in their earthly existence. These suffer in great pain until the judgment, when they are to be bound forever. The other place held sinners who were complete in transgression. "Their spirits shall not be slain in the day of judgement nor shall they be raised from thence" (22:13). Sheol thus is to become the place of their eternal punishment. We may infer from this verse that all others, the righteous and most of the wicked, will be raised at the day of judgment, the righteous to enter into the kingdom and the wicked to be judged.
The second part of Enoch takes the form of three parables or similitudes which embody revelations given to Enoch by "the Lord of Spirits," that he in turn might show to those that dwell on the earth the things which will take place when God raises the dead, judges the wicked, punishes the fallen angels, and brings the righteous into the kingdom. The means by which this revelation is imparted to Enoch is by his translation to heaven. He is carried by a whirlwind up from the earth to the end of the heavens, where he sees these apocalyptic events as though they were already taking place. "In those days I saw the Head of Days when He seated Himself upon the throne of His glory, and the books of the living were opened before Him" (47:3). Repeatedly the book lapses into prophecy of what is to take place when the day of judgment comes; but the prophecy is based on what Enoch actually experienced. He witnessed these apocalyptic events already occurring in heaven, as though they constituted a drama acted out in advance before their earthly counterparts occur on earth.
The unique feature of this book is the means by which the kingdom comes: by the agency of a heavenly Son of Man, who is also called the Elect One. The two names or expressions are used quite interchangeably.6 This Son of Man is clearly an individual who is coming to earth to bring the kingdom and execute the final judgment. He is a pre-existent, superhuman being, having been preserved by God from before the creation of the world for the purpose of bringing to pass the final judgment (48:2, 3, 6). It may even be that deity is implicitly imputed to the Son of Man,7 but this is debatable. God has kept Him in hiding from the beginning and preserved Him for the day of revelation (62:7). This heavenly being is called not only the Son of Man and the Elect One but also the Righteous One (38:2, et passim), the Righteous and Elect One (53:6), the Elect One of righteousness and faith (39:6). His dwelling-place was under the wings of the Lord of Spirits (39:7). He is described elsewhere (71:14) as "the Son of Man who is born unto righteousness; and righteousness abides over him, and the righteousness of the Head of Days forsakes him not."8 He is peculiarly endowed with wisdom (49:3), righteousness (46:3) and power (49:3).
The main function of this heavenly Son of Man is to share with God in the inauguration of the kingdom.
"And there I saw One, who had a head of days, And His head was white like wool, And with Him was another being whose countenance had the appearance of a man, And his face, was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels.
And I asked the angel who went with me and showed me all the hidden things, concerning that Son of Man, who he was, and whence he was, and why he went with the Head of Days? And he answered and said unto me:
This is the Son of Man who hath righteousness, And who revealeth all the treasures of that which is hidden" (46:1-3).
This passage is clearly an interpretation and enlargement of the Son of Man passage in Daniel 7. In the day of judgment, God will seat the Son of Man on the throne of His glory (62: 2, 3 ; 69:27, 29) and to Him will be given the sum of all judgment (69:27). Elsewhere it is the Head of Days who sits on the throne of glory for judgment (47:3). In view of the fact that the Son of Man is said to come with the Head of Days (46:1), we may conclude that the Son of Man and the Head of Days share jointly the throne of judgment, with the Son of Man as the active agent.
At this time men will be judged by their works (45:3), which apparently have been recorded in "the books of the living" (47:3). This judgment will be absolutely just, for the actions of both men (41:1) and angels (61:8) will be weighed in the balance. Kings and mighty men will be punished because they have not extolled the Lord of Spirits, "nor humbly acknowledge whence the kingdom was bestowed upon them" (46:5). The Son of Man will slay the wicked by the word of His mouth (62:2), for His word shall go forth in power (69:29) to destroy all evil.
Now that judgment has fallen upon them, the kings and rulers of the earth will fall upon their faces before the Son of Man and petition Him for mercy; but it is too late. The Lord of Spirits will drive them from His presence, and they will be delivered over to the angels for punishment (62:9-10)9 Sinners will be destroyed from off the face of the earth. Those who have led the world astray will be bound with chains and imprisoned in a place of destruction; all their works and everything corruptible is purged from the earth (69:28). In their torment,
"They shall be a spectacle for the righteous and for His elect They shall rejoice over them, Because the wrath of the Lord of Spirits resteth upon them, And His sword is drunk with their blood" (62:12). "In those days downcast in countenance shall the kings of the earth have become, And I will give them over into the hands of Mine elect : As straw in the fire so shall they burn before the face of the holy: As lead in the water shall they sink before the face of the righteous, And no trace of them shall any more be found" (48:8-9). This judgment of the Son of Man falls not only upon sinners, but also upon the fallen evil angels (55:4, 61:8). In one passage, both men and angels are hurled to the same fate (54:1-6).
May we think of this Son of Man as the Messiah? In two places He is so named. In a description of the judgment, of sinners, we read that "they shall fall and not rise again and there shall be no one to take them with his hands and raise them: for they have denied the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed" (48:10). In another place, the Gentile nations are described in terms of six metal mountains which are to be destroyed by the Elect One. After the vision of the mountains, Enoch asked the angel what these things were and is told, "All these things which thou hast seen shall serve the dominion of His Anointed, that he may be potent and mighty on the earth" (52:4). The angel adds that the Elect One shall utterly destroy these mountains. Nowhere else in Enoch is the Son of Man called the Messiah. Some scholars would insist that the term "Messiah" does not properly belong to the Son of Man, but should be reserved for the Davidic King who would arise from among men to restore the political kingdom to Israel.10 Others emphasize the application of "Messiah" to the heavenly Son of Man and find here sufficient evidence to view both the Davidic King and the heavenly Son of Man as messianic.11 While the use of the word "Messiah" in the present passage makes it impossible to insist upon as sharp a distinction between "Messiah" and "Son of Man" as Jackson and Lake suggest, it is nevertheless convenient to use the two terms to describe the two diverse messianic expectations entertained by first century (B.C.) Judaism: one of an earthly Davidic King, a ruler who should arise from the midst of his people; the other of a heavenly, pre-existent, supernatural being. These were the two main developments within Judaism from the Old Testament messianic teachings.
We must now ask who are meant by the "kings and mighty of the earth"12 upon whom this apocalyptic judgment will fall. Throughout the Parables there runs a constant contrast between the holy, righteous, elect and the sinners, godless, kings, and mighty of the earth. It is clear that the righteous are those for whose comfort the book was written. They are God's true people who are now being oppressed by rich, powerful rulers, even to the point of bloodshed (47:1-2). The contrast must be either between Jews and Gentiles as a whole, or between an elect remnant within the nation when the rulers have become apostate.
We have previously indicated13 that the most likely historical setting for Enoch is the Maccabean period, when there arose within the nation a faithful circle of men who adhered strictly to the Law while others, especially in the priestly and aristocratic circles, were succumbing to worldly, Hellenistic practices. Indications in the Parables suggest a date between 100 and 64 B.C.; and we know from other sources14 that these years witnessed a contest which more than once broke into open violence, between the Pharisees15 and the Hasmoneans.
One passage seems to be an extreme description even of the Hasmoneans.
"And all their deeds manifest unrighteousness, And their power rests upon their riches, And their faith is in the gods which they have made with their hands, And they deny the name of the Lord of Spirits, And they persecute the houses of His congregations, And the faithful who hang upon the name of the Lord of Spirits" (46:7-8).
Surely not even the Hasmoneans and the Sadducees, as apostate as they had become,16 went so far as to worship gods which they had made with their hands, i.e., pagan idols. Schuerer appeals to this verse as evidence for a later date for the Parables.17 He feels that the language demands a time subsequent to the appearance of Herod the Great, when the Gentiles in the person of the Romans and their appointed rulers had become masters of the Jews. This is not a necessary conclusion; for it is psychologically sound that the Pharisees, "the righteous," should view their enemies within Judaism, the Sadducees and the Hasmoneans, as being in spirit and in purpose, if not in fact, allied with the Syrian rulers and therefore participants in their idolatry. We may conclude that the Parables represent the devout party within Judaism in the first century B.C. and that the kings and mighty of the earth include ultimately Gentiles but primarily the Jewish rulers who, from the Pharisees' point of view, had abandoned the Law in favor of pagan interests and policies.
There is indeed one reference that anticipates the salvation of the Gentiles through the Son of Man (48:4).18 However, this seems to be no more than a formal reference to such Old Testament prophecies as Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6, which is here made to glorify the Son of Man rather than to anticipate a genuine conversion of the Gentiles. In any case, in the kingdom of God the religion of the Jews would become the universal religion and the sovereignty of the Son of Man world-wide.19
In anticipation of the coming of the kingdom, the dead will be raised that the Elect One may separate unto salvation the righteous and the holy from among them (51:1-2). All who have met violent death, whether on the desert, by beasts, or at sea, will be raised on the day of the Elect One; for none of the righteous can be destroyed (61:5). The language of these passages seems to suggest a universal resurrection; but it is likely, in view of the setting of the entire work, that the author's viewpoint does not encompass any beyond the circle of Jews.20
After the resurrection of the dead and the judgment, the kingdom will be inaugurated. This kingdom will be established upon the earth, but on a renewed earth.
"On that day Mine Elect One shall sit on the throne of glory And I will transform the heaven and make it an eternal" blessing and light: And I will transform the earth and make it a blessing: And I will cause Mine elect ones to dwell upon it : But the sinners and evil-doers shall not set foot thereon" (45:3-5).
"And the Elect One shall in those days sit on My throne, And in those days shall the mountains leap like rams, And the hills also shall skip like lambs satisfied with milk, And the faces of all the angels in heaven shall be lighted up with joy.21 And the earth shall rejoice, And the righteous shall dwell upon it, And the elect shall walk thereon" (51:3-5).
These verses present a different expectation of the kingdom than that of the first part of Enoch and of Jubilees, where the kingdom consisted of physical life on the present earth restored to a perfect state. Here, in the Parables, both the earth and the heaven are changed and made new. The background for this thought is Isaiah 65:17 and 66:22, and the passages in Enoch may be considered a midrash on these prophecies, even as the Enochian Son of Man passages are a midrash on Daniel 7:13-14. There is no indication of a A temporal earthly kingdom; the kingdom which is ushered in after the coming of the Son of Man, the resurrection and judgment is the eternal kingdom of heavenly blessing on a glorified earth.
We find here in an incipient form the contrast between this age and the age to come which figures so largely in later Jewish eschatology and in the New Testament.22 This age is an age of unrighteousness (45:7) ; the age to come will see the full realization of the kingdom of God (71:15). It is greatly to be regretted that we have neither the Semitic original nor a Greek version extant for these passages, for we cannot be sure of the language employed. However, there appears here the outlines of the concept of the two antithetical ages,23 even though the idea is not thoroughly elaborated. In other passages of Jewish literature there intervenes between this age and the age to come a temporal earthly kingdom, which in rabbinic Judaism came to be known as the Days of the Messiah. In fact, this concept is found in a later portion of Enoch, as we shall see. Here, however, the coming age follows immediately after the termination of the present evil age without an interregnum.
The righteous who are to experience the blessings of this glorious kingdom will undergo a similar transformation.
"And in those days a change shall take place for the holy and elect, And the light of days shall abide upon them, And glory and honour shall turn to the holy" (50:1).
"And light shall appear to the righteous and the elect who dwell on the earth" (38:2).
"And the righteous shall be in the light of the sun, And the elect in the light of eternal life: The days of their life shall be unending, And the days of the holy without number.
And they shall seek the light and find righteousness with the Lord of Spirits:
There shall be peace to the righteous in the name of the Eternal Lord" (58-3-4).
"And they shall have been clothed with garments of glory, And these shall be the garments of life from the Lord of Spirits And your garments shall not grow old, Nor your glory pass away before the Lord of Spirits" (62:15-16).
This glorious transformation will apparently take place for the righteous who are alive when the Son of Man comes; and while the language of the Parables does not explicitly affirm it, we may assume that the same transformation will be the experience of the righteous who are raised unto salvation.
This is one of the finest portrayals of the resurrection state to be found in Jewish literature. Often, resurrection is portrayed in the grossest physical terms. Second Maccabees records how one Razis was dying from a sword wound, and "as he was losing the last of his blood, he pulled out his bowels with both hands and hurled them at the crowd, and so expired, calling upon him who is lord of life and spirit, to give these back to him again" (II Macc. 14:46). In such passages as this, we find the concept not merely of bodily resurrection, but of physical resurrection: the resuscitation of the body to the same physical state as that in which it died.
Obviously something far higher than this is found in these Parables of Enoch. Some sort of a transformation is to take place. The metaphor of light is employed to describe the resurrection body; and this concept has an Old Testament background. Daniel speaks of those who attain everlasting life24 as those who shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, like the stars forever and ever (Dan. 12:2, 3). Isaiah anticipates a future salvation when people who walk in darkness shall see a great light, and when light shall shine on those who dwell in deep darkness (Isa. 9:1). While darkness now covers the earth, the Lord shall arise and shall bring light and glory to the people of earth (Isa. 60:1-3). Such Old Testament ideas are developed in Enoch with special reference to the resurrection body.
In this future kingdom of light and glory, the Elect One will dwell with the righteous (45:4). The Lord of Spirits will abide over them, and they shall eat and drink and enjoy everlasting fellowship with the Son of Man (62:14). The kingdom will be universal in its scope (62:6) and unending in its duration.
While nothing is said explicitly about the Promised Land and Jerusalem as the center of the kingdom, it seems necessary to presuppose that this is in the writer's mind; for we read of the last attack of the Gentiles against God's people in the land, followed by the return of the exiles from the distant land: and they could hardly return anywhere but to the Promised Land.
"And in those days the angels shall return And hurl themselves to the east upon the Parthians and Medes:25 They shall stir up the kings, so that a spirit of unrest shall come upon them, And they shall rouse them from their thrones, They that may break forth as lions from their lairs, And as hungry wolves among their flocks. And they shall go up and tread under foot the land of His elect ones, And the land of His elect ones shall be before them a threshing-floor and a highway: But the city of my righteous shall be a hindrance to their horses. And they shall begin to fight among themselves, And their right hand shall be strong against themselves, And a man shall not know his brother, Nor a son his father or his mother, Till there be no number of the corpses through their slaughter, And their punishment be not in vain. In those days Sheol shall open its jaws, And they shall be swallowed up therein, And their destruction shall be at an end; Sheol shall devour the sinners in the presence of the elect.'
"And it came to pass after this that I saw another host of wagons, and men riding thereon, and coming on the winds from the east, and from the west to the south. And the noise of their wagons was heard, and when this turmoil took place the holy ones from heaven remarked it, and the pillars of the earth were moved from their place, and the sound thereof was heard from the one end of heaven to the other, in one day" (56:5-57:2).
After the Gentile nations are destroyed in their final attack upon God's people, the dispersed Israelites regathered to the Promised Land, the dead raised, the wicked condemned and sent to hell, the righteous transformed, the earth purged of all sin and transformed into a glorious state, God's kingdom under the rule of the heavenly Son of Man shall forever fill all the earth.
"There is a spiritual message in the Scriptures of truth which is not discerned by either the 'natural man' or the 'carnal' man, but 'he that is spiritual discerneth all things' (1 Cor. 2:14-3:4). The testimony concerning Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10); yet who can know the things of Christ except those who have received the Christrevealing Spirit through regeneration (1 Cor. 2:12-13) ? The words of the Bible are open to all who have sufficient education to read them, while the meaning of the Bible is only revealed to the heart of the one who, being saved, is walking in the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:15). There is a legitimate field of Bible study which may be called technical, critical and scientific. This however must never be confused with the method mentioned in 1 Corinthians 2:13, 'comparing spiritual things with spiritual.' The technical and scientific--important in its place--is related to the spiritual about as rhetoric is related to prevailing prayer. It is the spiritual method of Bible study which is the source of heart-food for the Christian. Human learning, as important as it is in its own sphere, is not the key to the spiritual understanding of the Scripture. Only those who are saved and Spirit-taught will catch the glow and glory of Christ, as He is breathed through all the Bible by the Spirit (Luke 24:27, John 16:12-15, 2 Cor. John 2:27)."*
*Lewis Sperry Chafer, Must We Dismiss the Millennium? (Crescent City, Fla.: Biblical Testimony League, 1921), pp. 28-29.
NOTES:
1 Adolphe Lods, Histoire de la Litterature Hebraique et Juive (Paris, 1950), p. 860.
2 Cf. the former article in this series in Bibliotheca Sacra, cix (1952), pp. 164-74.
3 Cf. Daniel 4:13, 17, 23 (4:10, 14, 20 in the original). In Enoch, "the Watchers" are fallen angels.
4 Cf. Jude 14.
5 Cf. Judges 5:5, Micah 1:4, Nahum 1:5, Psalms 97:5.
6 As might be expected, it is surmised that at least two sources lie behind the present form of the Similitudes: a Son of Man source and an Elect One source (cf. R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch, pp. 64-65). It is indeed clear that the Parables are composite to some extent, for there are unmistakable interpolations from a Book of Noah (60, 65:1-69:25). However, the question of sources does not affect the present survey.
7 W. O. E. Oesterley, The Jews and Judaism During the Greek Period (London: S.P.C.K., 1941, p. 157), finds such implicit deity in Enoch 62:8-9.
8 This is the rendering of Charles' English edition. The Ethiopic text is in the second person, addressing Enoch as the Son of Man. This passage has been utilized by some scholars as support for a theory of the elevation of Enoch to messianic dignity. (Cf. F. J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, and especially Rudolf Otto The Kingdom of God and the Son of Man, book II, chapter 5.) However, Charles has reason to believe that the text here is faulty and he emends it as quoted above. (Cf. his notes in The Book of Enoch, pp. 144-45, and H. H. Rowley, The Relevance of Apocalyptic, p. 58.)
9 Several times we find the thought in this part of Enoch that one of the functions of the angels is to serve as ministers of punishment and torment not only for men (53:3, 62:11, 63:1), but also for the fallen angels (56:1-4).
10 J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity, I, 373-74. This expectation of a Davidic King is found in Psalms of Solomon 17.
11 W. 0. E. Oesterley, The Jews and Judaism During the Greek Period
12 Cf. 46:4-8, 48:8-10, 53:5, 62:1-12, 67:8-13.
13 Cf. Bibliotheca Sacra cix (1952), p. 321 f.
14 Cf. Josephus, Antiquities, XIII, 13-14.
15 It is generally felt that the Pharisees were the successors of the Hasideans, "the Pious," who resisted the aggressive hellenizing policies of Antiochus Epiphanes. Cf. I Macc. 2:43, II Macc. 14:6; M. J. Lagrange, Le Judaisme avant Jesus Christ (Paris, 1931), pp. 56, 272; G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1944), I, 59, 60.
16 Cf. I Macc. 1:11-15, II Macc. 4:7-15.
17 E. Schuerer, Geschichte des juedischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi (4th ed.; Leipzig, 1909), III, 279-80; English translation of 2nd ed.; History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (New York: 1890), II, 3, pp. 67-68.
18 Cf. also 50:2, "And the righteous shall be victorious in the name of the Lord of Spirits: and He will cause the others to witness this, that they may repent and forgo the works of their hands."
19 G. F. Moore, Judaism, II, 320.
20 Cf. R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch, pp. 98-99; G. F. Moore, Judaism, II, 304.
21 There is a problem in the translation of this line. It has usually been rendered, "They shall all be angels in heaven: their faces shall be lighted up with joy." (Cf. Beer in Kautzsch's Die Apokryphen and Pseudepigraphen des A1ten Testaments, II, 265; W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im spaethellenistischen Zeitalter, p. 282; P. Volz, Die Eschatologie der juedischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlischen Zeitalter; Tuebingen, 1934; G. F. Moore, Judaism, II, 304). Some of the Ethiopic mss. are to be rendered in this way.
22 Cf. Matt. 12:32, Mark 10:30, Luke 20:34-35, Ephesians 1:21, II Cor. 4:4, Gal. 1:4, Matt. 13:22, Rom. 12:2, Heb. 6:5. This subject will be dealt with at greater length sometime later.
23 Cf. R. H. Charles, op. cit., p. 14-5; F. J. Foakes Jackson and K. Lake, aism, op. cit., p. 370; G. F. Moore op. cit., p. 378,n. 6 ; G. Beer, op. cit. 277; W. Bousset, op. cit., p. 244; G. Dalman, op. cit., p. 148 ff. Dalman dismisses the significance of these two passages by affirming that both are late additions to Enoch. This has not been established.
Son of Man: "And his face was full of graciousness, like one of the holy angels." This would provide background for Jesus' word that, in the resurrection, men would be like the angels in heaven in that they no longer enter into normal human relationships. However, the older Ethiopic mss. are susceptible of the rendering given above, which Charles thinks is better. (Cf. The Book of Enoch, pp. 100-1).
24 Twice in Enoch the expression "eternal life" is used to describe this future life (37:4, 53:3).
25 These two nations are, in the mind of the author, the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies about Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38). After the decay of Syrian power and before the coming of Rome (100-64 B.C.), the Parthians to the East were a constant source of danger. In fact, in 40 B.C. the Parthians invaded Syria and for a time entered into the history of Jewish affairs (Cf. R. H. Pfeiffer, History of New Testament Times, pp. 25-27).
