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In 3 Enoch, the fiery river falls from God's throne onto the wicked. Rabbinic tradition in tractate Chagigah also has it pour onto their heads, connecting the heavenly courtroom with punishment in hell.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
3 Enoch 33:4
Hebrew Book of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
And underneath the feet of the Chayyoth seven fiery rivers are running and flowing. And the breadth of each river is 365 thousand parasangs and its depth is 248 thousand myriads of parasangs. Its length is unsearchable and immeasurable. And each river turns round in a bow in the four directions of 'Araboth Raqia', and (from there) it falls down to Ma'on and is stayed, and from Ma'on to Zebul, from Zebul to Shechaqim, from Shechaqim to Raqia', from Raqia' to Shamayim and from Shamayim upon the heads of the wicked who are in Gehenna, as it is written (Jer. xxiii. 19): "Behold a whirlwind of the Lord, even his fury, is gone, yes, a whirling tempest; it shall burst upon the head of the wicked".
Chagigah 13b:14
Babylonian Talmud
Rabbinic
The Gemara asks: From where does this river flow? The Gemara answers: From the perspiration of the divine creatures. And where does it flow to? Rav Zutra bar Toviya said that Rav said: Upon the heads of the wicked in Gehenna, as it is stated: “Behold, a storm of the Lord has gone forth in fury, a whirling storm; it shall whirl upon the head of the wicked” (Jeremiah 23:19). And Rav Aḥa bar Ya’akov said: The river flows over those who were snatched away, i.e., the generations that were never created, as it is stated: “Who were snatched away before their time, whose foundation was poured out as a stream” (Job 22:16), implying that the River Dinur flows over them.
Date: 450-550 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... The only river of fire in the Hebrew Bible is found in Dan. 7:10. It is not
a river of punishment, but the stream that issues forth from the throne of
the Ancient of Days.34 Nevertheless, this river comes to be associated with
hell. In b. Hagigah 13b and 3 Enoch 33 it is said to pour forth onto the
heads of sinners in hell.35 While G. Scholem dates 3 Enoch to the end of
the Talmudic period,36 the participants in the discussion in Hagigah are R.
Jeremiah b. Aba and R. Zutra b. Tuvyah, third-century Babylonian amo-
raim and students of Rav. R. Zutra attributes his statement that the river
falls on the heads of sinners to Rav. If this attribution is correct, the state-
ment goes back to the early third century. ...”
Himmelfarb, Martha
Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature
(p. 111; 112) University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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