Bibliotheca
Sacra 110 (Oct. 1952): 32-49.
Copyright © 1952 by
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.)
40 Bibliotheca Sacra
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