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3 Enoch

Hebrew Book of Enoch

About this book
Chapter 23

1 R. Ishmael said: Metatron, the Angel, the Prince of the Presence, said to me: There are numerous winds blowing under the wings of the Kerubim.⁠ There blows "the Brooding Wind", as it is written (Gen. i. 2): "and the wind of God was brooding upon the face of the waters".⁠ 2 There blows "the Strong Wind", as it is said (Ex. xiv. 21): "and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night". 3 There blows "the East Wind" as it is written (Ex. x. 13): "the east wind brought the locusts". 4 There blows "the Wind of Quails" as it is written (Num. xi. 31): "And there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails".⁠ 5 There blows "the Wind of Jealousy" as it is written (Num. v. 14): "And the wind of jealousy came upon him". 6 There blows the "Wind of Earthquake" as it is written (1 Kings xix. 11): "and after that the wind of the earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake". 7 There blows the "Wind of H'" as it is written (Ezek. xxxvii. 1): "and he carried me out by the wind of H' and set me down".⁠ 8 There blows the "Evil Wind" as it is written (1 Sam. xvi. 23): "and the evil wind departed from him".⁠ 9 There blow the "Wind of Wisdom" and the "Wind of Understanding" and the "Wind of Knowledge" and the "Wind of the Fear of H'"⁠ as it is written (Is. xi. 2): "And the wind of H' shall rest upon him; the wind of wisdom and understanding, the wind of counsel and might, the wind of knowledge and of the fear of H'". 10 There blows the "Wind of Rain", as it is written (Prov. xxv. 23): "the north wind brings forth rain".⁠ 11 There blows the "Wind of Lightnings", as it is written (Jer. x. 13, li. 16): "he makes lightnings for the rain and brings forth the wind out of his treasuries".⁠ 12 There blows the "Wind, Breaking the Rocks", as it is written (1 Kings xix. 11): "the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind (rent the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord)". 13 There blows the "Wind of Assuagement of the Sea", as it is written (Gen. viii. 1): "and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged".⁠ 14 There blows the "Wind of Wrath",⁠ as it is written (Job i. 19): "and behold there came a great wind from the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house and it fell". 15 There blows the "Storm-Wind", as it is written (Ps. cxlviii. 8): "Storm-wind, fulfilling his word".⁠ 16 And Satan is standing among these winds, for "storm-wind" is nothing else but "Satan", and all these winds do not blow but under the wings of the Kerubim,⁠ as it is written (Ps. xviii. 11): "and he rode upon a cherub and did fly, yes, and he flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind". 17 And where do all these winds go? The Scripture teaches us, that they go out from under the wings of the Kerubim and descend on the globe of the sun,⁠ as it is written (Eccl. i. 6): "The wind goes toward the south and turns about to the north; it turns about continually in its course and the wind returns again to its circuits". And from the globe of the sun they return and descend upon [the rivers and the seas, upon] the mountains and upon the hills,⁠ as it is written (Am. iv. 13): "For lo, he that forms the mountains and creates the wind". 18 And from the mountains and the hills they return and descend to the seas and the rivers; and from the seas and the rivers they return and descend upon (the) cities and provinces; and from the cities and provinces they return and descend into the Garden, and from the Garden they return and descend to Eden, as it is written (Gen. iii. 8): "walking in the Garden in the wind of day". And in the midst of the Garden they join together and blow from one side to the other and are perfumed with the spices of the Garden even from its remotest parts, until they separate from each other, and, filled with the scent of the pure spices, they bring the odour from the remotest parts of Eden and the spices of the Garden to the righteous and godly⁠ who in the time to come shall inherit the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life, as it is written (Cant. iv. 16): "Awake, O north wind; and come, you south; blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden and eat his precious fruits".

Texts in conversation

Compare Exodus 14:21 and 3 Enoch 23:2

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

In Exodus, a strong wind opens a path through the sea to allow Israel to escape Egypt. In 3 Enoch, that wind is interpreted as one of many elements of divine weather that can affect the earth.

Passages

Exodus 14:21

Hebrew Bible
19 The angel of God, who was going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. 20 It came between the Egyptian camp and the Israelite camp; it was a dark cloud and it lit up the night so that one camp did not come near the other the whole night. 21 Moses stretched out his hand toward the sea, and the Lord drove the sea apart by a strong east wind all that night, and he made the sea into dry land, and the water was divided.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Exodus

3 Enoch 23:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Hebrew Book of Enoch
1 R. Ishmael said: Metatron, the Angel, the Prince of the Presence, said to me: There are numerous winds blowing under the wings of the Kerubim. There blows "the Brooding Wind", as it is written (Gen. i. 2): "and the wind of God was brooding upon the face of the waters". 2 There blows "the Strong Wind", as it is said (Ex. xiv. 21): "and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night". 3 There blows "the East Wind" as it is written (Ex. x. 13): "the east wind brought the locusts". 4 There blows "the Wind of Quails" as it is written (Num. xi. 31): "And there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails".
400–600 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 3 Enoch

References

“... Interestingly, too, the lengthy passage that describes the winds (3 Enoch 23, §35)59 does not make use of the metrological imagery that I noted to be sig- nificant in the Parables; rather, it brings together an array of biblical texts that speak of the winds and combines their imagery. In fact, there is only one point in 3 Enoch where scales/balance imagery is used, in 18:20 (§27): Why is his name called Šoqedḥozi? Because he weighs men’s merits in scales in the presence of the Holy One, blessed be he. So, while there appears to be more entanglement with the content of Parables of Enoch and 2 Enoch than is seen in the biblical material or even in b.Ḥagigah, ...”
Grant Macaskill, The Entangled Enoch: 2 Enoch and the Cultures of Late Antiquity (Leiden: Koninklijke Brill BV, 2024), 138.

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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Exodus 14:21 and 3 Enoch 23:2

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