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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 14

1 The book of the words of righteousness,⁠ and of the reprimand of the eternal Watchers, in accordance with the command of the Holy Great One in that vision. 2 I saw in my sleep what I will now tell with a tongue of flesh and with the breath of my mouth, which the Great One has given to men so that they may converse and understand with the heart. 3 Just as He has created and given to man the power to understand the word of wisdom, so He created me also and gave me the power to reprimand the Watchers, the children of heaven.⁠ 4 I wrote out your petition, and in my vision it was made clear that your petition will not be granted for all the days of eternity, and that judgment has been finally passed on you. Your petition will not be granted. 5 From now on you will not ascend into heaven for all eternity, and on the earth the decree has gone out to bind you for all the days of the world.⁠ 6 Before that you will see the destruction of your beloved sons, and you will take no pleasure in them, for they will fall before you by the sword. 7 Your petition for them will not be granted, nor will your petition for yourselves, even though you weep and pray and speak all the words contained in the writing I have written. 8 And the vision was shown to me.⁠ In the vision, clouds called me and a mist summoned me; the path of the stars and the lightnings sped me on and hurried me, and the winds in the vision gave me wings and carried me upward, lifting me into heaven.⁠ 9 I went in until I came near a wall built of crystals and surrounded by tongues of fire,⁠ and it began to frighten me.⁠ 10 I went through the tongues of fire and came near a large house built of crystals. The walls of the house were like a mosaic floor of crystals, and its foundation was of crystal. 11 Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and the lightnings, and between them were fiery cherubim, and their sky was clear as water.⁠ 12 A flaming fire surrounded the walls, and its doorways blazed with fire. 13 I entered that house, and it was hot as fire and cold as ice. There were no delights of life in it; fear covered me, and trembling seized me. 14 As I shook and trembled, I fell on my face. 15 I saw in a vision, and there was a second house, greater than the first, and the whole doorway stood open before me, and it was built of flames of fire.⁠ 16 In every way it so surpassed the other in splendor and magnificence and size that I cannot describe its splendor and its size to you. 17 Its floor was of fire, and above it were lightnings and the path of the stars, and its ceiling also was flaming fire.⁠ 18 I looked and saw a lofty throne inside it.⁠ Its appearance was like crystal,⁠ and its wheels were like the shining sun, and there was the vision of cherubim.⁠ 19 From underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire, so that I could not look at it.⁠ 20 The Great Glory sat on it, and His garment shone more brightly than the sun and was whiter than any snow.⁠ 21 None of the angels could enter and look on His face because of its magnificence and glory, and no mortal could look on Him.⁠ 22 A flaming fire was all around Him, and a great fire stood before Him; no one near Him could come close.⁠ Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him, yet He needed no counselor.⁠ 23 The most holy ones who were near Him did not leave by night nor depart from Him. 24 Until then I had lain face down, trembling, and the Lord called me with His own mouth and said to me: 'Come near, Enoch, and hear my word.'⁠ 25 One of the holy ones came to me and woke me, and made me rise up and approach the door, and I bowed my face down.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 1:7 and 1 Enoch 14:11

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

1 Enoch 14 describes Enoch’s ascent past the solid dome and multiple heavens, ending in a vision of the divine throne room. This follows the view of the solid firmament in Genesis, which separates waters above from waters below.

Passages

Genesis 1:7

Hebrew Bible
6 God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters and let it separate water from water.” 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. It was so. 8 God called the expanse “sky.” There was evening, and there was morning, a second day.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

1 Enoch 14:11

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
9 I went in until I came near a wall built of crystals and surrounded by tongues of fire, and it began to frighten me. 10 I went through the tongues of fire and came near a large house built of crystals. The walls of the house were like a mosaic floor of crystals, and its foundation was of crystal. 11 Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and the lightnings, and between them were fiery cherubim, and their sky was clear as water. 12 A flaming fire surrounded the walls, and its doorways blazed with fire.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

"... As the idea of the ascent to heaven develops in apocalyptic and Merkabah literature, the concentric ring of courts becomes the levels or palaces separating the celestial from the mundane. In his study of the priestly investiture of Levi in heaven in the Greek Testament of Levi, Benedikt Otzen shows how the hierarchy of the angels in the levels of heaven leading up to the throne of God reflects the hierarchy of priests and Israelites in the temple in Jerusalem and the courts in which they served or to which they had access. As Philip Alexander describes the concept in 3 Enoch, God’s throne “is located in the seventh heaven, in the middle of seven concentric palaces or temples, and can be approached only through seven doors guarded by fierce guardian angels.” The wall of flame through which Enoch must enter the precincts of the celestial temple in 1 Enoch 14:10 seems to function in a similar manner by establishing a court to serve as a buffer to anything that is mundane, and as the sage penetrates further into the celestial temple he reaches a place off limits even to the angelic priests who stand before the Deity and faces an implied question as a mortal about the legitimacy of his own presence in the celestial courts (1 Enoch 15:2) ..."
David W. Suter, “Temples and the Temple in the Early Enoch Tradition: Memory, Vision, and Expectation,” in The Early Enoch Literature, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 195–218.

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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Genesis 1:7 and 1 Enoch 14:11

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