The
By George E. Ladd, Ph.D.
(Continued from the October-December
Number, 1952)
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
The concept of the
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
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,
1Adolphe Lods, Histoire de la Litterature Hebraique et Juive (
p. 860.
2Cf. the former
article in this series in Bibliotheca Sacra,
cix (1952), pp.
164-74.
3Cf. Daniel 4:13,
17, 23 (4:10, 14, 20 in the original). In Enoch, "the
Watchers" are fallen angels.
(32)
The
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 Testa-
ment terms. As God
one day had visited
giver,
so will He again visit the earth at
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 faithful-
4Cf. Jude 14.
5Cf. Judges 5:5,
Micah 1:4, Nahum 1:5, Psalms 97:5.
34 Bibliotheca Sacra
ness
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 sub-
missiveness 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 bless-
ings, 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 num-
ber of their days in perfect
enjoyment of the blessings of
God.
This is a picture of
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
The
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 litera-
ture. 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 im-
prison
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 un-
righteousness,
and from all sin, and from all godlessness
and
all the uncleanness that is wrought upon the earth de-
stroy 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 bless-
ing 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
36 Bibliotheca Sacra
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 be-
fore
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 crea-
tures, 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 fra-
grance, with fruit;
resembling palm-dates. This tree is re-
served
until the coming of the kingdom and will be the in-
strumentality by which men
regain their lost state of blessed-
ness.
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
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 ven-
geance on all and
bring everything to its consummation for
The
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 res-
urrection of the dead either
for judgment or for the enjoy-
ment 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 foun-
tain 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 BOOK.
37-71
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
38 Bibliotheca Sacra
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 consti-
tuted 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 righteous-
6As 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 [
Press, 1912], pp. 64-65). It is indeed
clear that the Parables are com-
posite 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.
7W. 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.
The
ness
abides over him, and the righteousness of the Head of
Days
forsakes him not."8 He is peculiarly endowed with
dom (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
8This 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 eleva-
tion of Enoch to
messianic dignity. (Cf. F. J. Foakes Jackson and K.
Lake, The Beginnings of Christianity [
371, and especially Rudolf Otto The
Man [
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 [2nd ed.;
Lutterworth Press, 1947],
p. 58.)
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 pun-
ished 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
9Several 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 tor-
ment not only for
men (53:3, 62:11, 63:1), but also for the fallen
angels (56:1-4).
The
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 moun-
tains, 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 pres-
ent passage makes it impossible to
insist upon as sharp a dis-
tinction between
"Messiah" and "Son of Man" as
and
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
10J. Foakes Jackson and K.
373-74. This expectation of a Davidic King
is found in Psalms of
Solomon 17.
11W. 0. E. Oesterley, The Jews
and Judaism During the Greek Period
(London:
S.P.C.K., 1941), p. 155. G. Dalman sees Messianic
significance
in the Enochian
Son of the Man (The Words of Jesus
[English trans-
lation],
42 Bibliotheca Sacra
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 con-
trast 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 his-
torical setting for
Enoch is the Maccabean period, when there
arose
within the nation a faithful circle of men who ad-
hered 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,
12Cf. 46:4-8,
48:8-10, 53:5, 62:1-12, 67:8-13.
13Cf. Bibliotheca Sacra cix
(1952), p. 321 f.
14Cf. Josephus, Antiquities, XIII, 13-14.
15It is generally
felt that the Pharisees were the successors of the Hasi-
deans, "the Pious," who resisted
the aggressive hellenizing policies of
Antiochus Epiphanes.
Cf. I Macc. 2:43, II Macc. 14:6; M. J. La-
grange, Le Judaisme avant
Jesus Christ (
F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (
bridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1944), I, 59,
60.
The
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 apos-
tate as they had
become,16 went so far as to worship gods
which
they had made with their hands, i.e., pagan idols.
Schürer 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 nec-
essary 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 salva-
tion of the Gentiles
through the Son of Man (48:4).18 How-
ever,
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
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
16Cf. I Macc.
1:11-15, II Macc. 4:7-15.
17E. Schürer, Geschichte
des jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu
Christi
(4th
ed.;
History
of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (New
18Cf. 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."
19G. F. Moore, Judaism, II, 320.
44 Bibliotheca Sacra
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
20Cf. R. H.
Charles, The Book of Enoch, pp.
98-99; G. F. Moore, Judaism,
II, 304.
21There 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
[Tübingen, 1900], II, 265; W.
Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums
im späthellenistischen
Zeitalter
[3rd ed.; Tübingen,
1926], p. 282; P. Volz, Die Eschatologie der
jüdischen Gemeinde im neutestamentlischen
Zeitalter [2nd ed.; Tübingen,
1934; G. F. Moore, Judaism, II, 304). Some
of the Ethiopic mss. are to
be rendered in this way. A similar thought
is found in 46:1 about the
The
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 king-
dom 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
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 anti-
thetical ages,23
even though the idea is not thoroughly elab-
orated.
In other passages of Jewish literature there inter-
22Cf. Matt. 12:32,
Mark 10:30, Luke 20:34-35, Ephesians 1:21, II Cor. 4:4,
Gal. 1:4, Matt. 13:22,
with at greater length sometime later.
23Cf. R. H.
Charles, op. cit., p. 14-5; F. J. Foakes Jackson and K.
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 Ethi-
opic mss. are
susceptible of the rendering given above, which Charles
thinks is better. (Cf. The Book of Enoch, pp. 100-1).
46 Bibliotheca Sacra
venes 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
The
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
essary 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.
24Twice in Enoch
the expression "eternal life" is used to describe this
future life (37:4, 53:3).
48 Bibliotheca Sacra
"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
25These 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
the Parthians to
the East were a constant source of danger. In fact, in
40 B.C. the Parthians
invaded
history of Jewish affairs (Cf. R. H.
Pfeiffer, History of New Testament
Times [
The
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 king-
dom 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 Christ-
revealing
Spirit through regeneration (1 Cor. 2:12-13) ? The
words
of the Bible are open to all who have sufficient educa-
tion 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 sci-
entific. This however
must never be confused with the meth-
od 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 Chris-
tian. Human
learning, as important as it is in its own sphere,
is
not the key to the spiritual understanding of the Scrip-
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? (
:
Thanks to Amy Gentile for help with
proofing.
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