Texts in Conversation
In Exodus, a strong wind opens a path through the sea. In 3 Enoch, that wind belongs among the winds beneath the cherubim, locating the force that saved Israel within the world around God's throne.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 14:21
Hebrew Bible
19 The angel of God, who was going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. 20 It came between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp; it was a dark cloud and it lit up the night so that one camp did not come near the other the whole night. 21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided.
3 Enoch 23:2
Hebrew Book of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
R. Ishmael said: Metatron, the Angel, the Prince of the Presence, said to me: There are numerous winds blowing under the wings of the Kerubim. There blows "the Brooding Wind", as it is written (Gen. i. 2): "and the wind of God was brooding upon the face of the waters". There blows "the Strong Wind", as it is said (Ex. xiv. 21): "and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night". There blows "the East Wind" as it is written (Ex. x. 13): "the east wind brought the locusts". There blows "the Wind of Quails" as it is written (Num. xi. 31): "And there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails".
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Notes and References
“... Interestingly, too, the lengthy passage that describes the winds (3 Enoch
23, §35)59 does not make use of the metrological imagery that I noted to be sig-
nificant in the Parables; rather, it brings together an array of biblical texts that
speak of the winds and combines their imagery. In fact, there is only one point
in 3 Enoch where scales/balance imagery is used, in 18:20 (§27):
Why is his name called Šoqedḥozi? Because he weighs men’s merits in
scales in the presence of the Holy One, blessed be he.60
So, while there appears to be more entanglement with the content of Parables
of Enoch and 2 Enoch than is seen in the biblical material or even in b.Ḥagigah, ...”
Macaskill, Grant
The Entangled Enoch: 2 Enoch and the Cultures of Late Antiquity
(p. 138) Brill, 2024
* 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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