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1 Enoch

About this book

Enoch's Journey to the Northwest

Chapter 17

1 And they brought me to a place where those present were like flaming fire, and when they wished, they appeared as men.⁠ 2 And they led me to a place of darkness,⁠ and to a mountain whose peak reached to heaven.⁠ 3 And I saw the places of the sun and moon and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunder in the utmost depths, where there was a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and a fiery sword and all the lightnings.⁠ 4 And they took me to the living waters,⁠ and to the fire of the west, which receives every setting of the sun.⁠ 5 And I came to a river of fire where the fire flows like water and pours into the great sea towards the west.⁠ 6 I saw the great rivers and came to the great river and to the great darkness, and went to the place where no flesh walks. 7 I saw the mountains of the darkness of winter and the place from where all the waters of the deep flow. 8 I saw the mouths of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the deep.

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 104:4 and 1 Enoch 17:1

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

1 Enoch 17 opens with a vision of fiery beings who serve as divine agents, using imagery based on Psalm 104 where the wind and fire are described as divine beings who act as God’s messengers.

Passages

Psalm 104:4

Hebrew Bible
2 He covers himself with light as if it were a garment. He stretches out the skies like a tent curtain 3 and lays the beams on water in his upper rooms3. He makes the clouds his chariot and travels on the wings of the wind. 4 He makes the winds his messengers and the flaming fire his attendant. 5 He established the earth on its foundations; it will never be moved. 6 The watery deep covered it like a garment; the waters reached above the mountains.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

1 Enoch 17:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And they brought me to a place where those present were like flaming fire, and when they wished, they appeared as men. 2 And they led me to a place of darkness, and to a mountain whose peak reached to heaven. 3 And I saw the places of the sun and moon and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunder in the utmost depths, where there was a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and a fiery sword and all the lightnings.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

"... Both of the texts describe heavenly entities as being on fire or having flames. Although the Psalm is about wind, the winds are personified as messengers and fire and flame as ministers. In 1 Enoch 17:1 the deity’s messengers or ministers have taken Enoch to a place where there are entities that are like flaming fire, and could appear as humans. The similarities are striking even though the verbal connections are not high ..."
Colby J. Townsend, “The Use of Scripture in 1 Enoch 1–36” (diss., University of Utah, 2016), 101–102.

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 104:4 and 1 Enoch 17:1

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