Texts in Conversation
In 2 Enoch, Enoch learns the number and names of the stars. In 3 Enoch, he teaches their names to Ishmael as Metatron, giving his earlier knowledge a new use as the guide of another visitor to heaven.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Enoch 40:2
Secrets of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
2 I know all things, and have written all things into books, the heavens and their end, and their plenitude, and all the armies and their marchings. I have measured and described the stars, the great countless multitude of them. 3 What man has seen their revolutions, and their entrances? For not even the angels see their number, while I have written all their names. 4 And I measured the sun's circle, and measured its rays, counted the hours, I wrote down too all things that go over the earth, I have written the things that are nourished, and all seed sown and unsown, which the earth produces and all plants, and every grass and every flower, and their sweet smells, and their names, 8 and the dwelling-places of the clouds, and their composition, and their wings, and how they bear rain and rain-drops.
3 Enoch 46:2
Hebrew Book of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
I walked by his side, and he took me by his hand and pointed out all to me with his fingers. And they were standing on sparks of flames round the Merkaba of the Almighty (MAQOM). What did Metatron do? At that moment he clapped his hands and chased them off from their place. At once they flew off on flaming wings, rose and fled from the four sides of the Throne of the Merkaba, and (as they flew) he told me the names of every single one. As it is written (Ps. cxlvii. 4): "He tells the number of the stars; he gives them all their names", teaching, that the Holy One, blessed be He, has given a name to each one of them.
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Notes and References
“... At the same time the preoccupation of the seventh
antediluvian patriarch with astronomical and cosmological calculations and
lore is well known and constitutes a major subject of his revelations in one
of the earliest Enochic booklets, the Astronomical Book and the Book of the
Watchers, in which the patriarch is depicted as the counter of stars.42 The
later Enochic and Merkabah materials also demonstrate that the patriarch’s
expertise in counting and measuring the celestial and earthly phenomena
becomes a significant conceptual avenue for his future exaltation as an
omniscient vice-regent of the Deity43 who knows and exercises authority
over the “orders of creations.”44 ...”
* 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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