Texts in Conversation
2 Enoch 66 alludes to Isaiah 30 and its vision of intensified light as a sign of restoration. Where Isaiah describes the sun’s brightness increasing sevenfold during cosmic restoration, 2 Enoch describes the righteous increasing in their own glorification in the same manner.
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Isaiah 30:26
Hebrew Bible
24 The oxen and donkeys used in plowing will eat seasoned feed winnowed with a shovel and pitchfork. 25 On every high mountain and every high hill there will be streams flowing with water, at the time of great slaughter when the fortified towers collapse. 26 The light of the full moon will be like the sun’s glare, and the sun’s glare will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, when the Lord binds up his people’s fractured bones and heals their severe wound. 27 Look, the name of the Lord comes from a distant place in raging anger and awesome splendor. He speaks angrily, and his word is like destructive fire.
Date: 7th-5th Centuries B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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2 Enoch 66:8
Secrets of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha
7 Walk, my children, in long-suffering, in meekness, honesty, in provocation, in grief, in faith and in truth, in (reliance on) promises, in illness, in abuse, in wounds, in temptation, in nakedness, in privation, loving one another, till you go out from this age of ills, that you become inheritors of endless time. 8 Blessed are the just who shall escape the great judgment, for they shall shine forth more than the sun sevenfold, for in this world the seventh part is taken off from all, light, darkness, food, enjoyment, sorrow, paradise, torture, fire, frost, and other things; he put all down in writing, that you might read and understand.
Date: 30 B.C.E - 70 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... As the reference is in the present to either the light of creation or the eschatological light, it implies a mystical notion. Moreover, the co-text contains esoteric descriptions of illumination and hence the expectation of sevenfold shining does not need to be merely metaphorical. Indisputably eschatological is the co-text of 1 Enoch 91:16 ... That these 'powers' may include the righteous is, I believe, confirmed by the longer recension of 2 Enoch 66:7 ..."
Smelik, Willem F.
On Mystical Transformation of the Righteous into Light in Judaism
(pp. 122-144) Journal for the Study of Judaism, Vol. 26, 1995
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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