1 Enoch 42

Wisdom found no place where she could live. Then a place to live was given to her in the heavens.

1Wisdom found no place where she might dwell; Then a dwelling-place was assigned her in the heavens.

NoteWisdom is treated here as a person, a woman looking for somewhere to live, rather than as a quality people possess. The word for wisdom is grammatically feminine in Hebrew, Greek and Ethiopic, and Jewish poems of this period regularly built on that by casting her as a female figure who speaks, travels and seeks a home. "Dwell" in the older translation means to settle and live somewhere permanently, not merely to visit.

2Wisdom went out to make her home among people, and found no place to live. Wisdom returned to her own place, and took her seat among the angels.

2Wisdom went forth to make her dwelling among the children of men, And found no dwelling-place: Wisdom returned to her place, And took her seat among the angels.

NoteThis search-for-a-home picture was a familiar one. In the best known version of it, the book of Sirach, Wisdom looks for a resting place among the nations and is finally given one in Israel. In this poem the search simply fails and she goes back up. The older wording "the children of men" is a standard Semitic idiom meaning human beings in general, with no reference to age.

3And unrighteousness came out from her rooms. She found the ones she was not looking for, and she lived with them, like rain in a desert and dew on dry ground.

3And unrighteousness went forth from her chambers: Whom she sought not she found, And dwelt with them, As rain in a desert And dew on a thirsty land.

NoteTwo things in this verse are genuinely unsettled. First, "her chambers": chambers are the private inner rooms of a house, but the text does not make clear whose rooms these are, and translators differ over whether unrighteousness is coming out of her own quarters or moving into the space Wisdom has just vacated. Second, the comparison. In a climate where rain fell only in season and the heavy night dew was what kept plants alive on dry ground, both rain in a desert and dew on parched land were welcomed and soaked up the instant they arrived. The point of the image is how readily unrighteousness was taken in by people who had not gone looking for her.