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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 1 Enoch 108:5 and Matthew 13:42

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

In Matthew 13, Jesus echoes a Jewish tradition that uses fire as a symbol of eschatological judgment, using language similar to 1 Enoch 108. The imagery of fire and associated sounds describe the punishment of the unrighteous.

Passages

1 Enoch 108:5

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
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.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Matthew 13:42

New Testament
40 As the poisonous weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The one who has ears had better listen! 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field, that a person found and hid. Then because of joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field.
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... Matthew and Luke both follow a longer form of the Baptist’s saying in a fuller context which apparently speaks of a judgment baptism in fire as well as in the Spirit (compare also Luke 12:49–50 in light of Mark 10:38–39). The contextual image of a harvest and threshing floor in that Q tradition often functioned in the Hebrew Bible as judgment and/or endtime imagery. Fire also symbolized eschatological judgment in this context (Matt 3:10, 12; Luke 3:9, 17) as in the Hebrew Bible; Jewish tradition also developed a doctrine of an eternal or temporary hell (Chaff did not burn eternally, Isaiah 1:31; 66:24; Jeremiah 7:20; that Q’s fire is unquenchable suggests a particular Jewish image of judgment as eternal; the worst sinners in 4 Maccabees 9:9; 12:12; tosefta Sanhedrin 13:5; probably 1 Enoch 108:5–6; Life of Adam and Eve 38:4; Ascension of Isaiah 1:2; 3 Enoch 44:3; Sanhedrin 6:6, Plutarch Concerning Virtues 31. There was no unanimous Jewish view; see the probably first-century dispute in Avot of Rabbi Natan 41 A; compare also 36 A. Matthew’s view is more obviously Jewish than Luke’s, though Luke’s Hellenistic contextualization does not abandon future eschatology; Acts 17:31–32; 23:6; 24:15; contrast to some extent, e.g., Josephus Antiquities 18.14, 18; Jewish War 2.163; Philo Sacrifices 5, 8). Like Mark, the Fourth Gospel omits the mention of fire baptism along with the context in Q that makes it clear that it represents eschatological wrath ..."
Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012), 461–462.

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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1 Enoch 108:5 and Matthew 13:42

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