Texts in Conversation
Isaiah warns that God will punish the host of heaven and shut them in a pit until a distant day of judgment. 1 Enoch 88 makes that threat a present reality, describing an angel gathering the guilty stars and binding them in an abyss below the earth.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 24:22
Hebrew Bible
21 At that time the Lord will punish the heavenly forces in the heavens and the earthly kings on the earth. 22 They will be imprisoned in a pit, locked up in a prison, and after staying there for a long time, they will be punished. 23 The full moon will be covered up, the bright sun will be darkened; for the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will rule on Mount Zion in Jerusalem in the presence of his assembly, in majestic splendor.
1 Enoch 88:3
Pseudepigrapha
1 And I saw one of those four who had come forth first, and he seized that first star which had fallen from heaven, and bound it hand and foot, and threw it into an abyss: now that abyss was narrow, deep, horrible, and dark. 2 And one of them drew a sword and gave it to those elephants, camels, and donkeys; then they began to strike each other, and the whole earth shook because of them. 3 And while I was watching in the vision, look, one of those four who had come forth threw stones from heaven, and gathered and took all the great stars whose private parts were like those of horses, and bound them all hand and foot, and threw them into an abyss of the earth.
Search:
Notes and References
... The biblical roots of the motif of the incarceration of heavenly beings in the subterranean realm can be found in Isaiah 24:21-22: ‘On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven, in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth. They will be gathered together like prisoners in a pit; they will be shut up in a prison, and after many days they will be punished.’ ...
Orlov, Andrei A.
Divine Scapegoats: Demonic Mimesis in Early Jewish Mysticism
(p. 63) State University of New York Press, 2015
* 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.