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2 Enoch

Secrets of Enoch

About this book
Chapter 22

1 On the tenth Heaven, Aravoth, I saw the appearance of the Lord's face, like iron made to glow in fire, and brought out, emitting sparks, and it burns.⁠ Thus I saw the Lord's face, but the Lord's face is beyond description, marvelous and deeply awe-inspiring, and very, very terrifying. 2 And who am I to tell of the Lord's being, which is beyond words, and of his very wonderful face? and I cannot tell the quantity of his many instructions, and various voices, the Lord's throne very great and not made with hands, nor the quantity of those standing around him, troops of cherubim and seraphim, 3 nor their incessant singing, nor his unchanging beauty, and who will tell of the indescribable greatness of his glory? 4 And I fell face down and bowed down to the Lord, 5 and the Lord with his lips said to me: 'Have courage, Enoch, do not fear, rise and stand before my face forever.' 6 And the chief commander Michael lifted me up, and led me before the Lord's face. And the Lord said to his servants testing them: 'Let Enoch stand before my face forever,' 7 and the glorious ones bowed down to the Lord, and said: 'Let Enoch go according to Your word.' 8 And the Lord said to Michael: 'Go and take Enoch out of his earthly garments, and anoint him with my sweet ointment, and put him into the garments of My glory.'⁠ 9 And Michael did so, as the Lord told him. He anointed me, and dressed me, and the appearance of that ointment is more than the great light, and his ointment is like sweet dew, and its smell mild, shining like the sun's ray, 10 and I looked at myself, and was like one of his glorious ones. 11 And the Lord summoned one of his archangels named Pravuil, whose understanding was sharper and wiser than that of the other archangels, who wrote all the deeds of the Lord; 12 and the Lord said to Pravuil: 'Bring out the books from my storehouses, and a reed pen for swift writing, and give it to Enoch, and hand him the finest books, which bring comfort.'⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 81:1 and 2 Enoch 22:12

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

2 Enoch expands the idea of heavenly tablets from 1 Enoch by showing Enoch learning and writing from them in the seventh heaven. This develops an idea of divine knowledge, continuing a tradition of heavenly books based on ancient Near Eastern tradition.

Passages

1 Enoch 81:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 He said to me, 'Look closely, Enoch, at these heavenly tablets, read what is written on them, and pay attention to every detail.' 2 I examined the heavenly tablets, read everything written on them, understood it all, and read the book detailing all the actions of humankind and of all flesh that will exist on the earth for generations to come. 3 Immediately, I praised the great Lord, the King of glory, forever, for creating all the works of the world. I praised the Lord for His patience and blessed Him because of humanity.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

2 Enoch 22:12

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Secrets of Enoch
11 And the Lord summoned one of his archangels named Pravuil, whose understanding was sharper and wiser than that of the other archangels, who wrote all the deeds of the Lord; 12 and the Lord said to Pravuil: 'Bring out the books from my storehouses, and a reed pen for swift writing, and give it to Enoch, and hand him the finest books, which bring comfort.'
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Enoch

References

"... Among the other notable parallels with the Astronomical Book is the theme of heavenly books, which is here situated in the seventh heaven—the location of God’s throne (2 Enoch 20:3) and the culmination of Enoch’s ascent in the short recension of 2 Enoch. There, God tells the angel Vereveil to “bring out the books from the storehouses, and give a pen to Enoch and read him the books” (2 Enoch 22:11), so that Enoch can be told “all the deeds of the Lord, the earth and the sea, and all the elements and the courses and the life, and the changes of the years and the movements of the days, and the earthly commands and instructions, and the sweet-voiced singing and the coming of the clouds and the blowing of the winds, and the Hebrew language ... everything that was appropriate to learn” (2 Enoch 23:1–2). This is said to take place in thirty days and nights of learning, and thirty days and nights of writing, and to yield 360 books. If such a description recalls the Book of the Watchers’ celebration of Enoch as “scribe of righteousness,” its language and details track even more closely with the Astronomical Book — where the process of revelation is described in totalizing terms as seeing, reading, and writing: not only is Enoch there shown heavenly cycles and heavenly tablets by the angel Uriel (1 Enoch 81:1), but he is explicitly described as stopping to write down what he has seen (1 Enoch 72:1; 74:2), so as to be able to pass his knowledge in writing to Methusaleh and future generations (1 Enoch 82:1) ..."
Annette Yoshiko Reed, “2 Enoch and the Trajectories of Jewish Cosmology: From Mesopotamian Astronomy to Greco-Egyptian Philosophy in Roman Egypt,” Journal of Jewish Thought & Philosophy 22 (2014): 1–24.

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 81:1 and 2 Enoch 22:12

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