Chapter 4

1 R. Ishmael said: I asked Metatron and said to him: "Why are you called by the name of your Creator, by seventy names? You are greater than all the princes, higher than all the angels, beloved more than all the servants, honoured above all the mighty ones in kingship, greatness and glory: why do they call you 'Youth' in the high heavens?" 2 He answered and said to me: "Because I am Enoch, the son of Jared. 3 For when the generation of the flood sinned and were confounded in their deeds, saying to God: 'Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of your ways' (Job xxi. 14), then the Holy One, blessed be He, removed me from their midst to be a witness against them in the high heavens to all the inhabitants of the world,⁠ that they may not say: 'The Merciful One is cruel'. 4 What sinned all those multitudes, their wives, their sons and their daughters, their horses, their mules and their cattle and their property, and all the birds of the world, all of which the Holy One, blessed be He, destroyed from the world together with them in the waters of the flood? 5 Hence the Holy One, blessed be He, lifted me up in their lifetime before their eyes to be a witness against them to the future world. And the Holy One, blessed be He, assigned me for a prince and a ruler among the ministering angels.⁠ 6 In that hour three of the ministering angels, 'UZZA, 'AZZA and 'AZZAEL came forth and brought charges against me in the high heavens,⁠ saying before the Holy One, blessed be He: "Said not the Ancient Ones (First Ones) rightly before You: 'Do not create man!'" The Holy One, blessed be He, answered and said to them: "I have made and I will bear, yes, I will carry and will deliver".⁠ (Is. xlvi. 4.) 7 As soon as they saw me, they said before Him: "Lord of the Universe! What is this one that he should ascend to the height of heights? Is not he one from among the sons of [the sons of] those who perished in the days of the Flood? What does he do in the Raqia'?" 8 Again, the Holy One, blessed be He, answered and said to them: "What are you, that you enter and speak in my presence? I delight in this one more than in all of you, and hence he shall be a prince and a ruler over you in the high heavens." 9 At once all stood up and went out to meet me, prostrated themselves before me and said: "Happy are you and happy is your father for your Creator favours you". 10 And because I am small and a youth among them in days, months and years, therefore they call me "Youth" (Na'ar).

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 5:24 and 3 Enoch 4:2

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

Summary

In Genesis, God takes Enoch without explaining why or where he goes. In 3 Enoch, Enoch says God took him to testify against the many sins of the generation of the flood.

Passages

Genesis 5:24

Hebrew Bible

21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God for 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. 23 The entire lifetime of Enoch was 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God, and then he disappeared because God took him away. 25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. 26 Methuselah lived 782 years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters. 27 The entire lifetime of Methuselah was 969 years, and then he died. 28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son.

750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

3 Enoch 4:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Hebrew Book of Enoch

2 He answered and said to me: "Because I am Enoch, the son of Jared. 3 For when the generation of the flood sinned and were confounded in their deeds, saying to God: 'Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of your ways' (Job xxi. 14), then the Holy One, blessed be He, removed me from their midst to be a witness against them in the high heavens to all the inhabitants of the world, that they may not say: 'The Merciful One is cruel'. 4 What sinned all those multitudes, their wives, their sons and their daughters, their horses, their mules and their cattle and their property, and all the birds of the world, all of which the Holy One, blessed be He, destroyed from the world together with them in the waters of the flood?

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

References

“... It comes as something of a shock to learn that this exalted be- ing, second only to God in the cosmic hierarchy, is none other than the patriarch Enoch, the son of Jared, who, having been taken up to heaven as a witness to God’s justice in bringing the flood,”® was transformed into an angel. Like 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch clearly envisages bodily ascent and so postulates the physical metamorphosis of Enoch: “When the Holy One, blessed be He, took me to serve the throne of glory, the wheels of the chariot and all the needs of the Shekhinah, at once my flesh turned to flame, my sinews to blazing fire, my bones to juniper coals, my eyelashes to lightning flashes, my eyeballs to fiery torches, the hairs of my head to hot flames, all my limbs to wings of burning fire, and the substance of my body to blazing fire.””? So Enoch becomes, like the other angels, physically composed of fire. Another part of his transformation involved the enlargement of his body until it equaled the dimensions of the world: “I was enlarged and in- creased in size until I matched the world in its length and breadth. He made to grow on me seventy-two wings, thirty-six on one side and thirty-six on the other, and each single wing covered an en- tire world. He fixed in me 365,000 eyes and each eye was like the Great Light. There was no sort of splendor, brilliance, bright- ness, or beauty in the luminaries of the world that he failed to fix in me.”*° We shall return later to the possible significance of this bizarre tradition. Metatron and Enoch, like Enoch and the heavenly Son of Man, were originally distinct figures. The similarities of their roles led to convergence and finally to identification. The result of the iden- tification of Metatron and Enoch is clear: Enoch, a man with an earthly existence and genealogy, has been deified. Moreover there is a hint in 3 Enoch that this process of deification will be repli- cated in the case of other men. 3 Enoch presents a significant ...”

Philip S. Alexander, “From Son of Adam to Second God: Transformations of the Biblical Enoch,” in Biblical Figures Outside the Bible, ed. Michael E. Stone and Theodore A. Bergren (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998), 106.

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 Genesis 5:24 and 3 Enoch 4:2

Summary

Passages

Genesis 5:24

3 Enoch 4:2

References

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