Enoch Is Taken Away

Chapter 70

1 After that, his name was exalted to the Son of Man and to the Lord of Spirits among those who live on the earth during his lifetime. 2 He was lifted up on the chariots of the spirit,⁠ and his name disappeared among them. 3 From that day, I was no longer counted among them; he placed me between the North and the West winds, where the angels measured a place for the chosen and the righteous.⁠ 4 There, I saw the earliest ancestors and the righteous who have lived in that place since the beginning.

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Kings 2:11 and 1 Enoch 70:2

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

Summary

In 2 Kings, Elijah is sent to heaven in a fiery chariot and a windstorm. 1 Enoch draws on that scene to describe Enoch’s ascent on the chariots of the wind, linking the two figures taken up to heaven without dying.

Passages

2 Kings 2:11

Hebrew Bible

10 Elijah replied, “That’s a difficult request! If you see me taken from you, may it be so, but if you don’t, it will not happen.” 11 As they were walking along and talking, suddenly a fiery chariot pulled by fiery horses appeared. They went between Elijah and Elisha, and Elijah went up to heaven in a windstorm. 12 While Elisha was watching, he was crying out, “My father, my father! The chariot and horsemen of Israel!” Then he could no longer see him. He grabbed his clothes and tore them in two.

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

1 Enoch 70:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

1 After that, his name was exalted to the Son of Man and to the Lord of Spirits among those who live on the earth during his lifetime. 2 He was lifted up on the chariots of the spirit, and his name disappeared among them. 3 From that day, I was no longer counted among them; he placed me between the North and the West winds, where the angels measured a place for the chosen and the righteous.

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

References

... the only possible reference to the Spirit as the agent of such a translation is in reference to Enoch’s final assumption: ‘he was lifted on the chariots of the spirit, and his name vanished among them’ (1 Enoch 70:2). It seems likely, however, that we should understand: ‘chariots of the wind’. The terminology recalls Elijah’s translation in a chariot of fire and a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:11), and reflects the fact that on the basis of Elijah’s experience the chariot of fire and the whirlwind had become the common means of translation to heaven in the post-biblical Jewish literature. The two are probably identified in Sirach 48:9, and the chariot also became identified with the ‘chariot of the cherubim’. It was on this chariot, God’s own chariot, that Abraham and Adam experienced temporary raptures to heaven, and on this chariot Job’s soul was taken up to heaven after his death. ...

Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993), 155–156.

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

Enoch Is Taken Away

1 Enoch108 chapters

Compare 2 Kings 2:11 and 1 Enoch 70:2

Summary

Passages

2 Kings 2:11

1 Enoch 70:2

References

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