1 Enoch 17

They took me and brought me to a place where the ones who were there were like burning fire, and, when they wanted to, they looked like men.

1And they took and brought me to a place in which those who were there were like flaming fire, and, when they wished, they appeared as men.

Note"They" are the angelic guides who have been conducting Enoch on this tour since the previous chapters; the text never names them here. Describing them as beings of fire who take human shape when they choose is standard ancient language for angels, as in Psalm 104:4, "who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire."

2They brought me to the place of darkness, and to a mountain whose peak reached all the way to the sky.

2And they brought me to the place of darkness, and to a mountain the point of whose summit reached to heaven.

NoteThe "place of darkness" is a location, a region at the edge of the world, not a mood or a state of mind. The mountain whose peak reaches the sky belongs to the same picture: ancient cosmology imagined the sky as a solid dome resting on mountains at the rim of the earth.

3I saw the places of the lights of the sky, and the storehouses of the stars and of the thunder, and in the deepest depths, where there were a bow of fire and arrows and the case that holds them, and a sword of fire and all the lightnings.

3And I saw the places of the luminaries and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunder and in the uttermost depths, where were a fiery bow and arrows and their quiver, and a fiery sword and all the lightnings.

Note"Luminaries" means the light-bearing bodies: sun, moon and stars. "Treasuries" in older English means storehouses or treasuries in the sense of locked storerooms, not riches; the ancient picture is of snow, hail, wind, rain and lightning kept in chambers and released when needed, as in Job 38:22, "the treasures of the snow." The bow, arrows, quiver and sword of fire are the conventional image of lightning as weaponry drawn from those storerooms; compare Psalm 18:14 and Habakkuk 3:9-11.

4They took me to the living waters, and to the fire of the west, which takes in every setting of the sun.

4And they took me to the living waters, and to the fire of the west, which receives every setting of the sun.

Note"Living waters" translates an idiom for fresh water that moves, a spring or running stream, as against still water standing in a cistern or pool; it does not mean water that is alive. The "fire of the west" is the sunset understood as a real fire at the world's western edge into which the sun is received each evening.

5I came to a river of fire, where the fire flows the way water flows, and empties itself into the great sea toward the west.

5And I came to a river of fire in which the fire flows like water and discharges itself into the great sea towards the west.

Note"The great sea" is the standing name in Hebrew for the Mediterranean, the sea on Israel's western side; here it is being used for the cosmic ocean at the west of the world.

6I saw the great rivers, and I came to the great river and to the great darkness, and I went to the place where no flesh walks.

6I saw the great rivers and came to the great river and to the great darkness, and went to the place where no flesh walks.

Note"The great river" is not the Nile or the Euphrates but the world-river of ancient geography, the stream thought to run around the rim of the earth. "No flesh walks" uses "flesh" in its older sense of mortal living creatures, human or animal; the phrase means no living being can go there.

7I saw the mountains of the darkness of winter and the place from which all the waters of the deep flow out.

7I saw the mountains of the darkness of winter and the place whence all the waters of the deep flow.

8I saw the mouths of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the deep.

8I saw the mouths of all the rivers of the earth and the mouth of the deep.