Texts in Conversation
In 1 Enoch 9 four named archangels look down from heaven at the violence below. 1 Enoch 87, a distinct book within the book, echoes that in a coded animal vision, where the same four appear as men sent down from the sky as agents of judgment.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
1 Enoch 9:1
Pseudepigrapha
1 Then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed on the earth, and all the lawlessness being committed on the earth. 2 They said to one another: 'The earth, left without inhabitants, cries out, and the voice of their crying reaches the gates of heaven.' 3 'And now to you, the holy ones of heaven, the souls of men plead, saying, "Present our case before the Most High."'
1 Enoch 87:2
Pseudepigrapha
1 Again I saw how they began to attack each other and to devour each other, and the earth began to cry out loudly. 2 I looked again to heaven, and I saw in the vision beings who came out of heaven and looked like white men; four came out from that place, and three with them. 3 Those three who had come out last took me by the hand and lifted me up, away from the generations of the earth, and raised me to a high place, and showed me a tower raised high above the earth, with all the hills lower than it.
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Notes and References
... The archangels’ intercession, described at length in chapter 9, is reserved in this vision for the time near the eschaton (89:70-71, 76-77; 90:14, 17). The present context and 88:1—89:1 presume the commissioning of angels as agents of judgment (chapter 10), and in 87:2 (compare 86:1, 3) Enoch looks to heaven and sees them dispatched from heaven. They are numbered in two groups. The four, who will be active in 88:1—89:1, correspond to the four in chapter 10. The other three fill the complement of seven mentioned in chapter 20, although in chapters 21-33 all seven accompany Enoch on his visions. ...
Nickelsburg, George W. E.
1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-36; 81-108
(p. 374) Fortress Press, 2001
* 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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