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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 79

1 Now, my son, I have shown you everything, and the law governing all the stars of heaven is complete.⁠ 2 Uriel showed me all the laws of these stars⁠ for each day, for every ruling season, for every year, and for their appearances, including the specific order for each month and every week. 3 He explained the waning of the moon that occurs in the sixth portal: here, the moon's illumination is completed, and then the waning begins. 4 This waning continues in the first portal during its season, lasting until one hundred and seventy-seven days are completed, which corresponds to twenty-five weeks and two days. 5 The moon falls behind the sun and the stars by exactly five days over one cycle, once it passes through the position you see. 6 This is the picture and sketch of every light that Uriel the archangel, their leader, showed to me.

Texts in conversation

Compare Jeremiah 31:36 and 1 Enoch 79:1

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

Jeremiah uses the predictable order of sun, moon, and stars to describe the guarantee of Israel’s survival, unbreakable as long as the nation stands. 1 Enoch 79 repeats that language of the stars as knowledge Uriel reveals to Enoch.

Passages

Jeremiah 31:36

Hebrew Bible
35 The Lord has made a promise to Israel. He promises it as the one who fixed the sun to give light by day and the moon and stars to give light by night. He promises it as the one who stirs up the sea so that its waves roll. His name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. 36 The Lord affirms, “The descendants of Israel will not cease forever to be a nation in my sight. That could only happen if the fixed ordering of the heavenly lights were to cease to operate before me.” 37 The Lord says, “I will not reject all the descendants of Israel because of all that they have done. That could only happen if the heavens above could be measured or the foundations of the earth below could all be explored,” says the Lord.
500–401 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jeremiah

1 Enoch 79:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 Now, my son, I have shown you everything, and the law governing all the stars of heaven is complete. 2 Uriel showed me all the laws of these stars for each day, for every ruling season, for every year, and for their appearances, including the specific order for each month and every week. 3 He explained the waning of the moon that occurs in the sixth portal: here, the moon's illumination is completed, and then the waning begins.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

References

... The theme of an unchanging natural order could be put to homiletic use, as in Jeremiah 31:35-36: Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: If this fixed order were ever to cease from my presence, says the Lord, then also the offspring of Israel would cease to be a nation before me forever. ...
George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37-82 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 385–386.

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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Jeremiah 31:36 and 1 Enoch 79:1

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