Texts in conversation

Compare Mishnah Yoma 3:8 and 3 Enoch 39:2

Rabbinic · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

Summary

Rabbinic tradition in tractate Yoma describes people blessing God's kingdom after the high priest's confession. In 3 Enoch, angels follow the same liturgy in heaven, connecting temple worship with the praise around God's throne.

Passages

Mishnah Yoma 3:8

Rabbinic · Mishnah

And this is what he would say in his confession: Please, God, I have sinned, I have done wrong, and I have rebelled before You, I and my family. Please, God, grant atonement, please, for the sins, and for the wrongs, and for the rebellions that I have sinned, and done wrong, and rebelled before You, I and my family, as it is written in the Torah of Moses your servant: “For on this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you of all your sins; you shall be clean before the Lord” (Leviticus 16:30). And the priests and the people who were in the courtyard respond after he recites the name of God: Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom forever and all time.

190–230 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Mishnah Yoma

3 Enoch 39:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Hebrew Book of Enoch

1 R. Ishmael said: Metatron, the Angel, the Prince of the Presence, said to me: When the ministering angels utter the "Holy" then all the explicit names that are graven with a flaming style on the Throne of Glory fly off like eagles, with sixteen wings. And they surround and compass the Holy One, blessed be He, on the four sides of the place of His Shekina. 2 And the angels of the host, and the flaming Servants, and the mighty 'Ophannim, and the Kerubim of the Shekina, and the Holy Chayyoth, and the Seraphim, and the 'Er'ellim, and the Taphsarim and the troops of consuming fire, and the fiery armies, and the flaming hosts, and the holy princes, adorned with crowns, clad in kingly majesty, wrapped in glory, dressed in loftiness, fall upon their faces three times, saying: "Blessed be the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever".

400–600 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 3 Enoch

References

“... This interpretation of the Qedushah as a call and response ﬁnds support in 3 Enoch chapters 34.2 and 35.4, where angels are grouped into “those who say ‘Holy’” and “those who say ‘Blessed’”. Similarly in 3 Enoch 39 the ministering angels recite the “Holy”, and many other groups of named angels fall prostrate and respond “Blessed be the name of his glorious kingdom for ever and ever.” This is a liturgical response which in present-day synagogue liturgy answers the reciting of the Shema. [...] 13 The Mishnah cites this as a congregational response in the Temple ritual for the Day of Atonement (m Yoma 3.8, 4.1, 6.2). [...] A Qedushah combining Isa 6.3 and the Temple response “Blessed be the name of his glorious kingdom for ever and ever” (3 Enoch 39) suggests the fusion of li- turgical traditions. If the Qedushah originates in Merkabah circles as Heinemann suggests, the existence of such a Qedushah as this would show that they felt free to draw on the traditions of Temple worship. ...”

R. M. M. Tuschling, Angels and Orthodoxy: A Study in Their Development in Syria and Palestine from the Qumran Texts to Ephrem the Syrian (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 180, 184.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

3 Enoch54 chapters

Compare Mishnah Yoma 3:8 and 3 Enoch 39:2

Summary

Passages

Mishnah Yoma 3:8

3 Enoch 39:2

References

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