1 Enoch 56

And there I saw the armies of the angels of punishment going out, and they were holding whips and chains made of iron and bronze.

1And I saw there the hosts of the angels of punishment going, and they held scourges and chains of iron and bronze.

NoteThe angels of punishment are a standing class of figures in this part of 1 Enoch, angels whose assigned work is carrying out sentences that have already been passed. Charles's "scourges" are flogging whips, the ordinary instrument of judicial beating in the ancient world, not herding whips.

2So I asked the angel of peace who was walking with me, "Who are these men with the whips going to?"

2And I asked the angel of peace who went with me, saying: ‘To whom are these who hold the scourges going?’

NoteThe angel of peace is Enoch's guide and interpreter through this section of the book, the figure he questions whenever he does not understand what he is being shown. The title names his role rather than giving him a personal name.

3And he said to me, "They are going to their elect and beloved ones, so that those ones may be thrown down into the deep pit of the valley.

3And he said unto me: ‘To their elect and beloved ones, that they may be cast into the chasm of the abyss of the valley.

NoteTwo things here need unpacking. First, "elect" means chosen, and through most of 1 Enoch "the elect" are the righteous, God's chosen ones, which is how the phrase is used later in verses 6 and 8. Here the word is thrown back at the other side: these are the men whom the kings and the mighty ones, or possibly the fallen angels, have chosen and loved. Exactly who "their" points back to is not settled by the text. Second, the valley is the one Enoch was shown earlier in the book, a deep gorge of burning fire where the followers of Azazel are thrown; "the chasm of the abyss of the valley" piles up words for depth rather than naming three separate places.

4And then that valley will be filled with their elect and beloved, and the days of their lives will be over, and from that time on the days when they led others astray will not be counted any longer.

4And then that valley shall be filled with their elect and beloved, And the days of their lives shall be at an end, And the days of their leading astray shall not thenceforward be reckoned.

NoteThe last line is compressed and can be taken more than one way: either that the days in which these figures led others astray will no longer be added to any tally, or that from this point on there will be no such days to count. Charles's "reckoned" means counted or added up.

5And in those days the angels will come back and throw themselves toward the east, upon the Parthians and the Medes. They will stir up the kings, so that a restless spirit comes over them, and they will drive them up from their thrones, so that the kings burst out like lions from their dens and like starving wolves in the middle of a flock.

5And in those days the angels shall return And hurl themselves to the east upon the Parthians and Medes: They shall stir up the kings, so that a spirit of unrest shall come upon them, And they shall rouse them from their thrones, That they may break forth as lions from their lairs, And as hungry wolves among their flocks.

NoteThe Parthians ruled the empire beyond the eastern Roman frontier, in what is now Iran and Iraq; the Medes were an older people of the same region who had long since been absorbed into it. To a reader in the last century BC or the first century AD, naming them together meant the great military powers east of the Euphrates, the armies that came from that direction. Parthian forces did invade Syria and Judea in 40 BC. The angels who "return" are most naturally the angels of punishment from verse 1, though the text does not say so outright.

6And they will march up and trample down the land of his elect ones, and the land of his elect ones will lie before them like a threshing floor and a road.

6And they shall go up and tread under foot the land of His elect ones, And the land of His elect ones shall be before them a threshing-floor and a highway:

NoteA threshing floor was a flat, hard patch of ground, often bare rock, where cut grain was beaten or trodden by oxen and sledges to knock the seed loose from the straw. To say the land will become a threshing floor and a highway is to say it will be pounded flat and then walked over, not that anything will be harvested from it.

7But the city of my righteous ones will get in the way of their horses. And they will begin to fight one another, and their own right hand will be strong against themselves, and a man will not recognize his brother, or a son his father or his mother, until the bodies of the dead they have killed cannot be counted, and their punishment will not have been for nothing.

7But the city of my righteous shall be a hindrance to their horses. And they shall begin to fight among themselves, And their right hand shall be strong against themselves, And a man shall not know his brother, Nor a son his father or his mother, Till there be no number of the corpses through their slaughter, And their punishment be not in vain.

Note"The city of my righteous" is generally understood as Jerusalem. The shift from "His elect ones" in the previous verse to "my righteous" here is as abrupt in the Ethiopic as it is in English, and the speaker of the phrase is not obvious. The right hand is the sword hand, the standard ancient way of speaking about a fighter's strength, so "their right hand shall be strong against themselves" means their own fighting power is turned on their own side.

8In those days Sheol will open its jaws, and they will be swallowed down into it, and their destruction will be finished. Sheol will eat up the sinners in full view of the elect."

8In those days Sheol shall open its jaws, And they shall be swallowed up therein, And their destruction shall be at an end; Sheol shall devour the sinners in the presence of the elect.’

NoteSheol is the Hebrew name for the place of the dead, pictured as a pit under the earth to which everyone goes. It is not the same as the later idea of hell as a place where only the wicked are punished. Speaking of Sheol as a creature with jaws that opens its mouth and swallows people down was a common way of talking about death in Hebrew writing.