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2 Enoch

Secrets of Enoch

About this book
Chapter 66

1 And now, my children, keep your souls from all injustice, which the Lord hates. 2 Walk before his face with terror and trembling and serve him alone. Bow down to the true God, not to mute idols, but bow down to his picture, and bring all just offerings before the Lord's face. The Lord hates what is unjust. 3 For the Lord sees all things; when man ponders in his heart, then he counsels the intellects, and every thought is always before the Lord, who made the earth firm and put all creatures on it. 4 If you look to heaven, the Lord is there; if you think of the sea's deep and all the under-earth, the Lord is there. 5 For the Lord created all things. Do not bow down to things made by man, leaving the Lord of all creation, because no work can remain hidden before the Lord's face. 6 Live, my children, with patience, humility, honesty, in provocation, in grief, in faith and in truth, in reliance on promises, in illness, in abuse, in wounds, in temptation, in nakedness, in deprivation, loving one another, until you go out from this age of suffering, so that you become inheritors of endless time. 7 Blessed are the just who escape the great judgment, for they shall shine seven times more than the sun,⁠ 8 for in this world the seventh part is taken off from all, light, darkness, food, enjoyment, sorrow, paradise, torture, fire, frost, and other things; he put all down in writing, so that you might read and understand.'

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 30:26 and 2 Enoch 66:7

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

2 Enoch 66 alludes to Isaiah 30 and its vision of intensified light as a sign of restoration. Where Isaiah describes the sun’s brightness increasing sevenfold during cosmic restoration, 2 Enoch describes the righteous increasing in their own glory.

Passages

Isaiah 30:26

Hebrew Bible
24 The oxen and donkeys used in plowing will eat seasoned feed winnowed with a shovel and pitchfork. 25 On every high mountain and every high hill there will be streams flowing with water, at the time of great slaughter when the fortified towers collapse. 26 The light of the full moon will be like the sun’s glare, and the sun’s glare will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven days, when the Lord binds up his people’s fractured bones and heals their severe wound. 27 Look, the name of the Lord comes from a distant place in raging anger and awesome splendor. He speaks angrily, and his word is like destructive fire.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

2 Enoch 66:7

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Secrets of Enoch
7 Blessed are the just who escape the great judgment, for they shall shine seven times more than the sun, 8 for in this world the seventh part is taken off from all, light, darkness, food, enjoyment, sorrow, paradise, torture, fire, frost, and other things; he put all down in writing, so that you might read and understand.'
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Enoch

References

"... As the reference is in the present to either the light of creation or the eschatological light, it implies a mystical notion. Moreover, the co-text contains esoteric descriptions of illumination and hence the expectation of sevenfold shining does not need to be merely metaphorical. Indisputably eschatological is the co-text of 1 Enoch 91:16 ... That these 'powers' may include the righteous is, I believe, confirmed by the longer recension of 2 Enoch 66:7 ..."
Willem F. Smelik, “On Mystical Transformation of the Righteous into Light in Judaism,” JSJ 26 (1995): 122–144.

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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Isaiah 30:26 and 2 Enoch 66:7

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