1 Enoch 101
What Happens in This Chapter
This chapter calls on its hearers to look at the sky and at everything the Most High has made, and to fear him and do no evil in his presence. It asks what they will do if he shuts up the rain, and says that if his anger comes because of their deeds they cannot plead with him, and they will have no peace. It then points to sailors, who are afraid of the sea because their goods are on it with them, and it says the sea itself is his work, held back by the sand and dried up at his rebuke. The chapter ends by contrasting the sailors' fear of the sea with the sinners' lack of fear of the Most High.
Look at the sky, you children of heaven, and look at every work of the Most High. Fear him, and do no evil in front of him.
1Observe the heaven, ye children of heaven, and every work of the Most High, and fear ye Him and work no evil in His presence.
"Most High" is a title for God, and it is the usual way this book names him rather than using a personal name. "Children of heaven" is left open by the text: it can mean human beings addressed as creatures who live under heaven and belong to God, or it can mean the heavenly beings themselves. What follows in the chapter is aimed at people living on the earth.
2If he shuts the windows of the sky, and holds back the rain and the dew so that they do not fall on the earth because of you, what will you do then?
2If He closes the windows of heaven, and withholds the rain and the dew from descending on the earth on your account, what will ye do then?
"The windows of heaven" belongs to an older picture of the world in which the sky is a solid vault holding back an upper ocean, with openings that God can shut or throw wide. Rain falls when they are opened. In this climate rain came only in the winter half of the year, and the heavy night dew was what kept crops alive through the dry months, so withholding both rain and dew means a total drought and a failed harvest.
3And if he sends his anger on you because of the things you have done, you cannot beg him to stop. You spoke proud and insulting words against how right he is. So you will have no peace.
3And if He sends His anger upon you because of your deeds, ye cannot petition Him; for ye spake proud and insolent words against His righteousness: therefore ye shall have no peace.
"Ye cannot petition Him" uses petition in its formal sense: to bring a plea before a ruler or a court and ask for the sentence to be lifted. "Ye shall have no peace" is a set formula repeated through this section of 1 Enoch, a standing sentence pronounced over the wicked; it is the exact reversal of the ordinary greeting of peace that one person would speak to another.
4Do you not see the sailors on the ships, how their ships are thrown back and forth by the waves, and shaken by the winds, and are in great trouble?
4And see ye not the sailors of the ships, how their ships are tossed to and fro by the waves, and are shaken by the winds, and are in sore trouble?
Ancient merchant ships had no way to ride out a serious storm. They hugged the coast, navigated by landmarks and stars, and the sailing season was closed for the winter months because the weather made voyages too dangerous. A storm that caught a ship in open water usually meant the loss of the ship.
5That is why they are afraid: because everything they own that is worth having goes out on the sea with them, and in their hearts they expect the worst, that the sea will swallow them and they will die in it.
5And therefore do they fear because all their goodly possessions go upon the sea with them, and they have evil forebodings of heart that the sea will swallow them and they will perish therein.
Merchants traveled aboard with their own cargo rather than shipping it ahead, so a trader's whole working capital was in the hold beneath him. One wreck could erase everything a family owned. "Evil forebodings of heart" means expecting the worst before it happens, a dread that does not wait for evidence.
6Are not the whole sea and all its waters, and all its movements, the work of the Most High? Has he not set limits on what it may do, and closed it in on every side with sand?
6Are not the entire sea and all its waters, and all its movements, the work of the Most High, and has He not set limits to its doings, and confined it throughout by the sand?
Setting a limit to the sea and fencing it in with sand is a stock image in older Hebrew writing: sand is loose and soft, yet the water stops at it because it has been ordered to. Compare Jeremiah 5:22 and Job 38:8 to 11, where the shoreline is described as a boundary the sea cannot cross.
7When he rebukes it, the sea is afraid and dries up, and all its fish die, and everything else in it dies. But you sinners who are on the earth do not fear him.
7And at His reproof it is afraid and dries up, and all its fish die and all that is in it; but ye sinners that are on the earth fear Him not.
"Reproof" here does not mean a scolding. It translates a word used for a commanding shout that drives something back, the way a person shouts down an animal. In the older texts the same word is used for God shouting at the sea so that it dries up and lets people pass, as in Psalm 106:9 and Nahum 1:4.
8Has he not made the sky and the earth, and everything that is in them? Who has given understanding and wisdom to every creature that moves on the earth and in the sea?
8Has He not made the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein? Who has given understanding and wisdom to everything that moves on the earth and in the sea?
"Understanding and wisdom" given to everything that moves means practical skill and instinct: the knowledge a creature has for finding food, navigating, and staying alive. It is not moral insight, and the point is that this competence is something given to the creature rather than invented by it.
9Do the sailors on the ships not fear the sea? Yet sinners do not fear the Most High.
9Do not the sailors of the ships fear the sea? Yet sinners fear not the Most High.
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