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1 Enoch

About this book

A Final Book by Enoch

Chapter 108

1 Another book which Enoch wrote for his son Methuselah and for those who will come after him, and keep the law in the last days. 2 You who have done good will wait for those days until an end is made of those who do evil and the power of the wrongdoers comes to an end. 3 You, however, wait until sin passes away; for their names will be erased from the book of life and from the books of the holy ones,⁠ and their offspring will be destroyed forever, and their spirits will be slain, and they will cry and lament in a place that is a chaotic wilderness, and they will burn in the fire; for there is no earth there.⁠ 4 I saw there something like an invisible cloud; because of its depth I could not look over it, and I saw a flame of fire blazing brightly, and things like shining mountains circling and sweeping to and fro. 5 I asked one of the holy angels who was with me and said to him: 'What is this shining thing? For it is not a heaven but only the flame of a blazing fire, and the voice of weeping, crying, and strong pain.'⁠ 6 He said to me: 'This place which you see is where the spirits of sinners and blasphemers are cast, and of those who do wickedness, and of those who pervert everything that the Lord has spoken through the mouth of the prophets, the things that will be. 7 For some of these things are written and inscribed above in heaven, so that the angels may read them and know what will happen to the sinners, and to the spirits of the humble, and of those who have afflicted their bodies and been rewarded by God, and of those who have been put to shame by wicked men. 8 They loved God and loved neither gold nor silver nor any of the good things in the world,⁠ but gave over their bodies to torture.⁠ 9 Since they came into being, they did not long after earthly food, but regarded everything as a passing breath, and lived accordingly,⁠ and the Lord tested them greatly, and their spirits were found pure, so that they should bless His name.⁠ 10 All the blessings destined for them I have recounted in the books. And He has assigned them their reward, because they were found to be such as loved heaven more than their life in the world,⁠ and though they were trampled underfoot by wicked men, and experienced abuse and reviling from them and were put to shame, yet they blessed Me. 11 And now I will summon the spirits of the good who belong to the generation of light, and I will transform those who were born in darkness, who in the flesh were not rewarded with the honor their faithfulness deserved. 12 I will bring out in shining light those who have loved My holy name, and I will seat each one on the throne of his honor.⁠ 13 They will shine for times without number, for righteousness is the judgment of God; for to the faithful He will give faithfulness in the dwelling of upright paths. 14 They will see those who were born in darkness led into darkness,⁠ while the righteous will shine brightly. 15 The sinners will cry aloud and see them shining, and they will indeed go where days and seasons are prescribed for them.

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 69:29 and 1 Enoch 108:3

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

1 Enoch 108 says the unrighteous are erased from a divine book. This echoes Psalm 69 where the unjust are removed from the book of the living, drawing on ancient Near Eastern traditions where gods and kings kept records that shaped a person’s fate.

Passages

Psalm 69:29

Hebrew Bible
27 Hold them accountable for all their sins. Do not vindicate them. 28 May their names be deleted from the scroll of the living. Do not let their names be listed with the godly. 29 I am oppressed and suffering. O God, deliver and protect me. 30 I will sing praises to God’s name. I will magnify him as I give him thanks. 31 That will please the Lord more than an ox or a bull with horns and hooves.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

1 Enoch 108:3

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
2 You who have done good will wait for those days until an end is made of those who do evil and the power of the wrongdoers comes to an end. 3 You, however, wait until sin passes away; for their names will be erased from the book of life and from the books of the holy ones, and their offspring will be destroyed forever, and their spirits will be slain, and they will cry and lament in a place that is a chaotic wilderness, and they will burn in the fire; for there is no earth there. 4 I saw there something like an invisible cloud; because of its depth I could not look over it, and I saw a flame of fire blazing brightly, and things like shining mountains circling and sweeping to and fro.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

"... In Revelation the expression “book of life” (τὸ βιβλίον τῆς ζωῆς) occurs a number of times (Revelation 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:15; 21:27), while elsewhere in the New Testament it appears only in Philippians 4:3. An approximate form of the expression, “book of the living (ones)”, is attested in the Book of Parables at 1 Enoch 47:3 and in Psalm 69:28 (“let them be blotted out from the book of the living and let them not be enrolled among the righteous”). A more exact equivalent is preserved in the Eschatological Admonition of 1 Enoch 108:3, where it is twinned with “the books of the holy ones”. The latter text announces that the names of the wicked “will be erased from the book of life”, a phrase that has its negative equivalent in Revelation 3:5: “To those who conquer … I will not blot your name out of the book of life”. Both Revelation 3:5 and 1 Enoch 108:3 are allusions to Psalm 69:28 and, perhaps secondarily, to Exodus 32:32 (“but now, if you will only forgive their sin – and if not, blot me out of the book you have written”); they go beyond the texts from the Hebrew Bible, however, in regarding the book of life as a list of names of those who will survive the eschatological judgment, an idea which among literature composed before the Common Era is also found in Daniel 12:1 and Jubilees 36:10 (compare also 1 Enoch 103:2; 104:1). Since the motif is broadly shared, it is difficult to isolate influence on or an immediate link with Revelation from either the Book of Parables or Eschatological Admonition ..."
Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 317–318.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Psalm 69:29 and 1 Enoch 108:3

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