Texts in Conversation
1 Enoch 14 mirrors Ezekiel 40, where a prophet is taken to a high mountain and shown a city by a divine guide with measuring tools. 1 Enoch connects itself to Ezekiel and presents its own heavenly temple as part of that tradition, reshaping the older vision while claiming a similar authority.
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Ezekiel 40:1
Hebrew Bible
1 In the twenty-fifth year of our exile, at the beginning of the year, on the tenth day of the month, in the fourteenth year after the city was struck down, on this very day, the hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me there. 2 By divine visions he brought me to the land of Israel and placed me on a very high mountain, and on it was a structure like a city, to the south. 3 When he brought me there, I saw a man whose appearance was like bronze, with a linen cord and a measuring stick in his hand. He was standing in the gateway.
Date: 6th Century B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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1 Enoch 14:8
Pseudepigrapha
7 And your petition on their behalf shall not be granted, nor yet on your own, even though you weep and pray and speak all the words contained in the writing which I have written. 8 And the vision was shown to me: Behold, in the vision clouds called me and a mist summoned me, and the course of the stars and the lightnings sped and hastened me, and the winds in the vision caused me to fly and lifted me upward, and took me into heaven. 9 And I went in until I drew near to a wall built of crystals and surrounded by tongues of fire: and it began to frighten me. And I entered the tongues of fire and drew near to a large house built of crystals: and the walls of the house were like a mosaic floor of crystals, and its foundation was of crystal.
Date: 200-50 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In form and content, this section corresponds closely to the call scenes of biblical prophets, especially that of Ezekiel ... Zimmerli has distinguished among these calls between those that are primarily auditory and dialogical in form (Jeremiah 1:4–10; Exodus 3) and those in which the enthroned Deity appears to the prophet and then speaks the commissioning oracle (1 Kings 22:19–22; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1–2). 1 Enoch 14:8–16:4 is patterned after the latter class, with many details uniquely paralleling Ezekiel 1–2. Certain details in Enoch’s description of the enthroned Deity have precise counterparts in Daniel 7 and its description of the installation or commissioning of “one like a son of man” ... Ezekiel 40–44 appears also to have served as a model for 1 Enoch 14:8–16:4. There the prophet is taken in a vision to Jerusalem, where an angel accompanies him on a tour of the temple premises ..."
Nickelsburg, George W. E.
A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108
(p. 254) Fortress Press, 2001
* 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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