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1 Enoch

About this book

Enoch's Second Dream Vision

Chapter 85

1 After this I saw another dream, and I will tell you the whole dream, my son.⁠ 2 Enoch raised his voice and spoke to his son Methuselah: 'To you, my son, I will speak. Listen to my words, and pay attention to the dream-vision of your father.⁠ 3 Before I married your mother Edna, I saw in a vision on my bed:⁠ a bull came up out of the earth, and this bull was white; and after it came a heifer, and along with this heifer came two young bulls, one of them black and the other red. 4 The black bull attacked the red one and chased him across the earth,⁠ and after that I could no longer see the red bull. 5 But the black bull grew, and the heifer went with him, and I saw that many oxen came from him which looked like him and followed him. 6 The first cow left the presence of the first bull to search for the red one, but could not find him, and mourned for him with a great lamentation and searched for him. 7 I watched until the first bull returned to her and calmed her, and from that time on she cried no more. 8 Afterward she bore another white bull, and following him she bore many bulls and black cows. 9 In my sleep I saw that white bull also grow and become a great white bull, and from him came many white bulls that resembled him. 10 They began to produce many white bulls, which resembled them, one following another, many.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 85:1 and Daniel 7:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

1 Enoch 85 and Daniel 7 both begin sections that follow a common apocalyptic pattern of a dream given as a special vision, later interpreted to describe future events, incorporating these elements into Israel's narrative future.

Passages

1 Enoch 85:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 After this I saw another dream, and I will tell you the whole dream, my son. 2 Enoch raised his voice and spoke to his son Methuselah: 'To you, my son, I will speak. Listen to my words, and pay attention to the dream-vision of your father. 3 Before I married your mother Edna, I saw in a vision on my bed: a bull came up out of the earth, and this bull was white; and after it came a heifer, and along with this heifer came two young bulls, one of them black and the other red. 4 The black bull attacked the red one and chased him across the earth, and after that I could no longer see the red bull.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Daniel 7:1

Hebrew Bible
1 In the first year of King Belshazzar of Babylon, Daniel had a dream filled with visions while he was lying on his bed. Then he wrote down the dream in summary fashion. 2 Daniel explained: “I was watching in my vision during the night as the four winds of the sky were stirring up the great sea. 3 Then four large beasts came up from the sea; they were different from one another. 4 “The first one was like a lion with eagles’ wings. As I watched, its wings were pulled off, and it was lifted up from the ground. It was made to stand on two feet like a human being, and a human mind was given to it.
200–101 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Daniel

References

"... With respect to form and content, the generic and peculiar features of this text are evident from a comparison with the visions in Daniel 2, 7, 8, and 10–12. In common with the Danielic texts, 1 Enoch 85–90 is a pseudonymous dream vision (compare Daniel 2:1; 7:1–2, 7, 18; 8:1–2, 17–18), which recounts a sequence of historical events up to the eschaton (compare Dan 2:31–45; 7:1–27; 8:3, 26; 11:2–12:4), using animals to symbolize human beings or nations (cf. Daniel 7, 8) and viewing these events in the context of related events in heaven (Daniel 7:9–10, 13–14; 8:10–12; 10:20–21). For the Danielic and Enochic authors, the revelations that were channeled to ancient seers through symbolic dreams pertained to the eschaton, which was imminent in the real authors’ own time. Those authors used the genre of the pseudonymous dream vision as authority for their claim to understand the eschatological character of current events and to have insight into the hidden divine activity in the heavenly realm that was about to resolve injustice and eradicate evil on earth ..."
George W. E. Nickelsburg, A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 357.

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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1 Enoch 85:1 and Daniel 7:1

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