1 Enoch

About this book

Chapter 7

1 And all the others together with them took wives for themselves, each choosing one for himself, and they began to unite with them and defiled themselves with them.⁠ They taught them sorcery, spells, and the art of extracting medicinal substances from plants.⁠ 2 The women became pregnant and gave birth to enormous giants,⁠ whose height was three thousand ells.⁠ 3 These giants consumed everything humans produced. 4 And when humans could no longer support them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind.⁠ 5 They began to sin against birds, beasts, reptiles, and fish, eating each other’s flesh and drinking the blood.⁠ 6 Then the earth brought charges against these lawbreakers.⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare Hosea 4:3 and 1 Enoch 7:6

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

Summary

Hosea warns that curses, murder, and adultery cause the land to mourn while animals, birds, and fish perish. 1 Enoch echoes this when the Watchers’ giants sin against birds, beasts, and fish, and the earth itself brings charges.

Passages

Hosea 4:3

Hebrew Bible

1 Listen to the Lord’s message, you Israelites! For the Lord has a covenant lawsuit against the people of Israel. For there is neither faithfulness nor loyalty in the land, nor do they acknowledge God. 2 There is only cursing, lying, murder, stealing, and adultery. They resort to violence and breaking out⁵ of bloodshed. 3 Therefore the land will mourn, and all its inhabitants will perish. The wild animals, the birds of the sky, and even the fish in the sea will perish. 4 Do not let anyone accuse or contend against anyone else, for my case is against you priests!

600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Hosea

1 Enoch 7:6

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

2 The women became pregnant and gave birth to enormous giants, whose height was three thousand ells. 3 These giants consumed everything humans produced. 4 And when humans could no longer support them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. 5 They began to sin against birds, beasts, reptiles, and fish, eating each other’s flesh and drinking the blood. 6 Then the earth brought charges against these lawbreakers.

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

References

... Heaven and earth, human life and the life of animals and vegetation, are all interrelated. This is the conviction in the book of Hosea: Swearing, lying, and murder, and stealing and adultery break out; bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who live in it languish; together with the wild animals and the birds of the air even the fish of the sea are perishing. (Hosea 4:2–3) It may also be implied in Psalm 82, where moral disorder (caused by the unruly gods, apparently) leads to cosmic disturbance ... And it is still to be found in 1 Enoch: [After the ‘angel marriages’] the giants turned against (the people) in order to eat them. And they began to sin against birds, wild beasts, reptiles, and fish. And their flesh was devoured the one by the other, and they drank blood. And then the earth brought an accusation against the oppressors. (1 Enoch 1:7) Good human behaviour is in keeping with the natural order, not in a metaphorical sense, but in the sense that it actually integrates human beings into the created world and helps the world to run smoothly and in the interests of its human inhabitants ...

John Barton, Ethics in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 121–122.

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 Hosea 4:3 and 1 Enoch 7:6

Summary

Passages

Hosea 4:3

1 Enoch 7:6

References

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