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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 57

1 And it happened after that, I saw another group of chariots, with men riding them,⁠ arriving on the winds from the east, the west, and the south.⁠ 2 The sound of their chariots was heard, and when this disturbance occurred, the holy ones from heaven took notice, and the foundations of the earth shifted from their places,⁠ and the noise was heard from one end of the sky to the other, all in one day. 3 And everyone will fall down and worship the Lord of Spirits. And this marks the end of the second Parable.

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 66:20 and 1 Enoch 57:1

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

In Isaiah 66, the foreign nations bring exiled Israelites home in chariots as an offering to God. 1 Enoc draws on that image, describing the returning exiles traveling in chariots, arriving on the winds from every direction.

Passages

Isaiah 66:20

Hebrew Bible
19 I will perform a mighty act among them and then send some of those who remain to the nations—to Tarshish, Pul, Lud (known for its archers), Tubal, Javan, and to the distant coastlands that have not heard about me or seen my splendor. They will tell the nations of my splendor. 20 They will bring back all your countrymen from all the nations as an offering to the Lord. They will bring them on horses, in chariots, in wagons, on mules, and on camels to my holy hill Jerusalem,” says the Lord, “just as the Israelites bring offerings to the Lord’s temple in ritually pure containers. 21 And I will choose some of them as priests and Levites,” says the Lord.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

1 Enoch 57:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And it happened after that, I saw another group of chariots, with men riding them, arriving on the winds from the east, the west, and the south. 2 The sound of their chariots was heard, and when this disturbance occurred, the holy ones from heaven took notice, and the foundations of the earth shifted from their places, and the noise was heard from one end of the sky to the other, all in one day. 3 And everyone will fall down and worship the Lord of Spirits. And this marks the end of the second Parable.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

... Different from 56:5-8, which is given as a straightforward prediction, the contents of these verses are recounted as something that Enoch “saw” (verse 1). Unfortunately, there is no account of an interpreting angel explaining the less-than-clear vision, and we are left to choose among three possible interpretations of the chapter. (1) A majority of commentators see here a description of the return of the Israelite dispersion. (2) A few others understand it to refer to the arrival of another hostile army. (3) This may reflect prophetic predictions that the gentiles will flow to Jerusalem to pay tribute to the God of Israel. That the people riding in a host of chariots represent the returning Israelite dispersion is taken for granted by commentators who espouse the first interpretation. This is understandable, since such a return is a common topic in biblical and in later Jewish literature and this time. See, for example, Isaiah 27:12-13; 49:12; 60:4-9; 66:19-20; Zechariah 8:7-8; Tobit 13:9-18; 14:5; Baruch 4:21-5:9; Psalms of Solomon 8:28 (34); 11; 4 Ezra 13:39-50. ...
George W. E. Nickelsburg, A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37-82 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 213.

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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Isaiah 66:20 and 1 Enoch 57:1

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