1 Enoch

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Chapter 27

1 Then I said: 'For what purpose is this blessed land, which is entirely filled with trees, and this cursed valley between them?' 2 Then Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me, answered and said: 'This cursed valley is for those who are cursed forever:⁠ Here all the cursed shall be gathered who speak improper words against the Lord with their lips and speak harshly of His glory. Here they shall be gathered together, and this shall be their place of judgment.'⁠ 3 In the last days, there shall be the spectacle of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous forever: here the merciful shall bless the Lord of glory, the Eternal King. 4 In the days of judgment over the former, they shall bless Him for the mercy by which He has assigned them their lot.' 5 Then I blessed the Lord of Glory and extolled His glory and praised Him gloriously.

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Kings 23:10 and 1 Enoch 27:2

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

Summary

1 Enoch 27 describes a “cursed valley” near Jerusalem, based on the Valley of Ben Hinnom in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles as the site of child sacrifice. 1 Enoch uses this location’s history with violent practices to portray it as the place of final judgment.

Passages

2 Kings 23:10

Hebrew Bible

9 (Now the priests of the high places did not go up to the altar of the Lord in Jerusalem, but they did eat unleavened cakes among their fellow priests.) 10 The king ruined Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom so that no one could pass his son or his daughter through the fire to Molech. 11 He removed from the entrance to the Lord’s temple the statues of horses that the kings of Judah had placed there in honor of the sun god. (They were kept near the room of Nathan Melech the eunuch, which was situated among the courtyards.) He burned up the chariots devoted to the sun god.

600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Kings

1 Enoch 27:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

1 Then I said: 'For what purpose is this blessed land, which is entirely filled with trees, and this cursed valley between them?' 2 Then Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me, answered and said: 'This cursed valley is for those who are cursed forever: Here all the cursed shall be gathered who speak improper words against the Lord with their lips and speak harshly of His glory. Here they shall be gathered together, and this shall be their place of judgment.' 3 In the last days, there shall be the spectacle of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous forever: here the merciful shall bless the Lord of glory, the Eternal King.

300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

"... Accursed valley — The Greek reads gē kataratos. While gē is used in places in LXX to translate Hebrew ʾerets (“land, earth”), this may be a transliteration of Hebrew gayʾ/gēyʾ (“valley”), suggesting an identification (both in light of the description “accursed” and the Jerusalem proximity) with Hebrew gēyʾhinnôm (“Valley of Hinnom”) or Aramaic gēhinnām (Gehenna), “a valley located on the south slope of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:8; 18:16).” This valley was the site of pagan worship in the late preexilic era, one that involved taking children and “passing them through the fire” (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31; 32:35) ..."

Michael S. Heiser, A Companion to the Book of Enoch: A Reader's Commentary (Crane, MO: Defender, 2019), 1:224.

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

1 Enoch108 chapters

Compare 2 Kings 23:10 and 1 Enoch 27:2

Summary

Passages

2 Kings 23:10

1 Enoch 27:2

References

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