Genesis 1:7

Hebrew Bible

6 God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. It was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” There was evening, and there was morning, a second day.

1 Enoch 14:10

Pseudepigrapha

9 And I went in till I drew nigh to a wall which is built of crystals and surrounded by tongues of fire: and it began to affright me. And I went into the tongues of fire and drew nigh to a large house which was built of crystals: and the walls of the house were like a tesselated floor (made) of crystals, and its groundwork was of crystal. 10 Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and the lightnings, and between them were fiery cherubim, and their heaven was (clear as) water. 11 A flaming fire surrounded the walls, and its portals blazed with fire.

 Notes and References

"... As the idea of the ascent to heaven develops in apocalyptic and Merkabah literature, the concentric ring of courts becomes the levels or palaces separating the celestial from the mundane. In his study of the priestly investiture of Levi in heaven in the Greek Testament of Levi, Benedikt Otzen shows how the hierarchy of the angels in the levels of heaven leading up to the throne of God reflects the hierarchy of priests and Israelites in the temple in Jerusalem and the courts in which they served or to which they had access. As Philip Alexander describes the concept in 3 Enoch, God’s throne “is located in the seventh heaven, in the middle of seven concentric palaces or temples, and can be approached only through seven doors guarded by fierce guardian angels.” The wall of flame through which Enoch must enter the precincts of the celestial temple in 1 Enoch 14:10 seems to function in a similar manner by establishing a court to serve as a buffer to anything that is mundane, and as the sage penetrates further into the celestial temple he reaches a place off limits even to the angelic priests who stand before the Deity and faces an implied question as a mortal about the legitimacy of his own presence in the celestial courts (1 Enoch 15:2) ..."

Suter, David W. "Temples and the Temple in the Early Enoch Tradition: Memory, Vision, and Expectation" in Boccaccini, Gabriele, and John J. Collins (eds.) The Early Enoch Literature (pp. 195-218) Brill, 2007

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