《《The book of Enoch》（以诺书）》狱蛇

19、Annotation for Section V

　　CHAP. 22.
　　Conducted to the west, Enoch sees a high mountain-chain, which is not the same as the seven hills in 18: 6, cf. 24: 1. As is seen by the following, it is Rufael that leads him, this angel thus appearing in the same role in which we find him in Tobit. The number four may be an error for three, cf. vs. 9. If four is correct, then Dillmann’s suggestion that one of the places is for the class of mankind described 5-7, and 8, 9 the other places are described.

　　—2. Dark, cf. note on 10: 5.

　　—3. According to God’s own plan these places are assembling places of all the dead, in other words the Sheol of the Hebrews or Hades of the Greeks. The expression souls of the dead is absolute, meaning all the souls, and in this the writer is in agreement with Old Testament statements, where Sheol, entirely distinct from the grave, is for the souls of the dead who are called Raphaim, i.e. shades like the εt6wλα Kα6vτwv or aKlαf of the Greeks, cf. Spiess, Entwicklungsgeschichte der vorstellungen vom Zustande nach dem Tode, p. 422 sqq.

　　—4. Here these souls shall abide to the day of the final judgment. Deliverance from Sheol is a hope frequently expressed in the later books of the Old Testament, e.g. Ps. xlix. 15.—Lamented, i.e. as the following shows, not on account of their being there, but because of the injustice they suffered during life.

　　—6, 7. One voice is especially noticeable, and that is Abel’s, according to Gen. iv. 10. As the sins of the parents are visited upon the children, justice will not have been done to Abel until his brother’s descendants are destroyed.

　　—8. We see by this verse that the spirits of the dead are not all in one place, but are separated; and now follows the description of the other apartments.

　　—9. Of these (other) apartments there are three. The reason for this septation is probably the author’s conviction that the difference in the moral character produces a different fate after death, even before the final judgment. The apartment here (if indeed not identical with 7 and 8) is for the souls of the other just, i.e. for those who were just, but unlike Abel did not die a violent and undeserved death.

　　—10. There are two divisions for the sinners, the first one for those who died without being punished during their lives, and who obtained even an honorable burial. According to the Old Testament (and according to Greek ideas) it was a disgrace of the highest kind to be left unburied.

　　— 11. Here already they suffer affliction to the day of final judgment (with which the eternity is identical, cf. note on 14: 1).

　　—12, 13. The second class of sinners are those who although sinners nevertheless suffered in the world. Before eternity, i.e. before the final judgment. But these, having already been partially punished, shall not again be judged like the other class, which statement shows that the final judgment is to inaugurate for those of vs. 10 and 11 a greater punishment than the terrors of Sheol. The killing of the souls here referred to is not annihilation, as many other passages in Enoch show, but is identical with the eternal death in the punishment of hell. Will not be taken from here, i.e. will not rise from the dead. That the just shall rise is clearly stated 81: 4; 90: 33; 91: 10; 92: 3; 100: 5. Cf. on the whole matter what is said of the second death of the sinners in Onkelos on Deut. xxxiii. 6; Jonath. on Isa. xxii. 14; lxv. 15; Jer. li. 39, 57.

　　—14. As is his manner in receiving a revelation (cf. 24: 7; 27: 5; 36: 4; 39:9-12; 81: 3; 83: 11; chap. 84, 90: 40), Enoch blesses the Lord, in which he is imitated in the Ascensio Isaiae,chap. 6 sqq. Lord of glory(25: 3, 7; 27: 5; 36: 4; 40: 3; 63: 2; 75: 3; 81: 3; 83: 8) and Lord of justice (83: 11; 90: 40) are proper appellatives of God in this connection, as these two characteristics of his divinity were exemplified in the preceding.

　　CHAP. 23,
　　—1. He leaves the place of departed spirits, but remains in the west.

　　—2-4. This is probably the same fire that he mentioned 17: 4. Towards the west, a modifying clause of fire, not of running.

　　CHAP. 24,
　　—1. He fails to state just where that other place is, but as the mountain-chain of fire are the seven hills of 18: 6-9, this new place must be in the south.

　　—2. Here these mountains are positively identified with those mentioned in 18, but he enlarges on their aspect. Not one joining the other, i.e. they were parallel.

　　—3. Fragrant trees, a proof that it was a blessed place.

　　—4-6. Of these trees one is especially beautiful, cf. note on 10: 19. Michael, as the special angel of Israel, instructs the seer on the special blessing in store for the true Israelite.

　　CHAP. 25,
　　—1. The conversation carried on here and above is very much like the one between Isaiah and the angel in their ascent through the seven heavens in the Ascensio Isaiae.

　　—3. The throne that Enoch saw, 24: 3, is not an illusion, but is in reality the throne of God. Although the location would answer, it is more than probable that the author did not mean Mount Sinai of 1: 4 here, for God descends on Mount Sinai to judge, but here, as is shown by the context and expressed by the words, to visit the earth with goodness, cf. 77:1. Lord of glory, cf. note on 22: 14. Eternal king, cf. vs. 5, 7, a biblical name of God.

　　—4. This tree is here preserved until the time of the judgment. Mortal, literally flesh, cf. note on 14: 2, and Gen. iii. 22-24.

　　—5. Now the guide explains that this is the tree of life, Gen. ii. 9; iii. 22; Prov. iii. 18; xi. 30; xiii. 12; xv. 4, a hope found also 4 Ezra viii. 62; Apoc. ii. 7; xxii. 2, 14, 19; Testamentum Levi xviii, and by rabbinical writings, cf. Schttgen, Horae Talmud. in Apoc. ii. 7. This tree, however, is entirely distinct from the tree of wisdom, 32:6. In the Messianic times this tree is to be transplanted from the south, where it is now kept, to the north, to the New Jerusalem, which is to stand on the site of the old, cf. chap. 26, 27. Such is the power of this tree that simply breathing of it gives long life; cf. Ezek. xxxvii. 9; cf. note on 10: 17, and Isa. lxv. 19, 20.

　　CHAP. 26,
　　—1. Having mentioned that the tree of life is to be transplanted to the New Jerusalem, he now visits that place. As the Greeks thought Delphi, the centre of their worship, the middle of the earth, the Jewish seer here regards Jerusalem as such, as it is possibly already done, Ezek. xxxviii. 12; v. 5; Isa. ii. 2, and book of the Jubilees, viii. 2, where Zion is called the navel of the earth, like the term （闪族语）, used of the round stone in the temple at Delphi as the centre of the earth in Pindar P. 4, 131; 6, 3. Early oriental Christians entertained thesame views, cf. Tertullian and Jerome on Ezek. v. 5, and the former Contra Marcion II. 196. In En. 90: 26 Gehenna is in the middle of the earth, and in the Ethiopic Synaxaria, de Melchisedec (Dill. Chrest. p. 16) Mount Calvary is regarded as such. Fruitfulness is constantly a characteristic of the Messianic times. The tree is Israel; it was cut as a punishment for its sins; the branches are the faithful, who will enjoy the Messianic kingdom.

　　—2. The following is simple: the hill is Zion, the water is the brook of Siloah.

　　—3. The other hill is the Mount of Olives, which is in reality but a few feet higher than Mount Zion. The deep valley is that of Kedron or Jehoshaphat, and the water is the Kedron brook.

　　—4. The Mount of Offence and the valley of Hinnom.

　　—5. The description is trustworthy, cf. Strabo 16, 2, § 36.—6. This is the valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna.

　　CHAP. 27,
　　—1, 2. As this valley is an important element in the Messianic times the author describes it more minutely, especially as the Old Testament statements on the subject are very indefinite. This valley is, according to the first part of Enoch, the place where the sinners are punished, 90: 26, 27, cf. 4 Ezra vi. 1-3. In the Parables it is indeed mentioned that the kings and the mighty will be punished in a valley, 54: 1, 2; 56: 4, and in the sight of the just, 48: 9, 10; 62: 12, but there is no evidence whatever that this writer thought to specify any particular valley. Then the punishment in Gehenna, according to 90: 23-27, is restricted to the unfaithful in Israel, and the scope of the verse before us is evidently no broader, while in 54 and 56 altogether different persons are punished “in the valley,” cf. 38, 1. The author’s statements here are at least partially drawn from Old Testament premises. That this valley is the place of punishment rests on the statements Jer.vii. 31; xix. 6; xxxii. 35, and on the accounts in 2 Kings xxiii. 10, and on Jeremiah’s curse, Jer. vii. 32, 33; xix. 6 sqq., and partially, perhaps, on the nature of the valley, for according to Talmud Erabin, fol. 19, a smoke ascended there, thus indicating a subterranean fire. That a fire destroys the sinners in this valley finds its explanation in Gen. xix. 25; Ps. xi. 6; Isa. lxvi. 15, 16, 24.

　　—4. Lot, or a portion, cf. Ascensio Isaiae i. 3.

　　—5. Cf. note on 22: 14.

　　CHAP. 28,
　　—1. From the centre of the earth, the New Jerusalem, the seer goes towards the east, and from among the mountains of the desert he sees a plain.

　　—2. This plain was, however, filled with trees of this [which] seed. What places are here meant is a mystery. Dillmann conjectures the Arabah, or plain of the Jordan, and the mountains as the hilly tract between that river and Jerusalem.

　　CHAP. 29,
　　—1. He continues on his eastward trip, and there reaches the sweet-smelling trees, the Arabia and India of the ancients, to the（闪族语）of Gen. x. 30, in which the ancients recognized the place of frankincense and spices.

　　—2. Trees of judgment, i.e. trees that will be given to the just after the judgment to be planted by them, cf. 10: 19. Also cf. Isa. lx. 6; Ps. lxxii. 10.

　　CHAP. 30. According to the testimony of the ancients cinnamon was an eastern product.

　　CHAP. 31.
　　Sarira, a word not found elsewhere. An Amharic vocabulary says the word means a black flower, cf. Dillmann, Lex., col. 343. But the form is probably corrupt. Galbanum, cf. Winer, Realwrterb., in verb.

　　CHAP. 32,
　　—1, 2. Zutel, a name otherwise not known (at least Buxtorf does not mention him), must be the angel guarding the entrance of Paradise.

　　—3. The destination of the seer is the garden of justice, i.e. the Paradise, called by the same name 77: 3; garden of the just 60: 23; garden of life 61: 12. The tree of wisdom is entirely distinct from the tree of life, 25: 4. As wisdom is to characterize the just in the Messianic times the tree of wisdom is very properly here mentioned.

　　—4. Carob tree, cf. Dillmann, Lex., col. 76.

　　—6. Here we learn that it is the earthly Paradise that Enoch visits. It is not strange that the author fails to give any hint as to the object and future destiny of this garden. He could not make it the abode of the departed just, for they have their place in one (or two) of the apartments of Sheol, cf. 22: 6 sqq.; nor could it be the seat of the Messianic. kingdom, for this was to be at Jerusalem, cf. chap. 25 and 26, and therefore the writer must leave it out in the cold. And why the tree of wisdom should not be transplanted to the New Jerusalem like the tree of life, 25: 5, is not mentioned.

　　CHAP. 33,
　　—1. Now he gets to the ends of the earth, to the place of the extraordinary specimens of the animal kingdom. This chapter was probably suggested by the preceding, in which he visits lands favored with mineral wealth, or by the notices in Gen. ii. 19, 20 of the animals in close connection with Paradise.

　　—2. Portals, or exits for the luminaries. Uriel, as is required by his office, cf. 19: 1, instructs the seer in these matters. As Enoch had claimed a higher source for his knowledge of the judgment, 1: 2, he here claims the same for his special book on the luminaries, chap. 72-82.

　　CHAP. 34.
　　Evidently he had been at the ends of the earth in the preceding chapter, and now goes to the extreme north. As there could be no portals for the luminaries in the north, he finds some there for the winds, joined with phenomena of nature such as could be expected in that region. As the north winds are usually injurious, but not always, he says there is one portal from which it blows for good, but two for evil. Cf. the system in chap. 76.

　　CHAP. 35.
　　The portals are of course for the setting luminaries, the outlets for the winds, as the latter expression, in the west suits only the winds.

　　CHAP. 36,
　　—1. The symmetry of the narrative demands that he goes to the south also. Here, as in the north, he sees only portals for the winds, but none for the luminaries.

　　—2. He returns to the east, where he sees three portals for the winds which he had failed to mention 33: 2, 3, and above these were smaller portals for the stars.—4. Cf. Ps. ciii. 20-22; cxlviii.; cf. 22: 14.