1 Enoch 6

What Happens in This Chapter

Human beings increase in number and daughters are born to them. The angels, the children of heaven, see the daughters and desire them, and agree to take wives from among them and father children; their leader Semjâzâ fears he alone would bear the blame, so they bind themselves with an oath and curses. Two hundred of them come down on the top of Mount Hermon in the days of Jared, and the chapter lists the names of their nineteen leaders, who are the chiefs over groups of ten.

This is what happened when the human race had grown large: in those days beautiful and lovely daughters were born to them.

1And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters.

The chapter opens by retelling Genesis 6:1-4, where "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair" and took wives from among them. Genesis gives the episode four verses and no explanation; the rest of 1 Enoch 6-16 is an extended account of what those four verses left unsaid.

2And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and wanted them, and said to one another, "Come, let us choose wives for ourselves from among the human race, and have children."

2And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’

"The children of the heaven" translates a Semitic way of saying "the heavenly ones," that is, beings who belong to the sky the way a person belongs to a family. Genesis 6:2 calls the same figures "the sons of God." The phrase describes where they come from, not that heaven fathered them.

3And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said to them, "I am afraid that you will not really agree to do this, and that I alone will have to pay the price for a great sin."

3And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: ‘I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’

Semjâzâ's name appears in this book in several spellings (Samîazâz in verse 7 below) because the text traveled from a Semitic original through Greek into Ethiopic, and the spelling drifted at each stage. The likely underlying sense is something like "my name has seen" or "the name of Azza."

4And they all answered him and said, "Let us all swear an oath, and let us all bind ourselves by calling down curses on each other, so that we will not give up this plan but will carry it out."

4And they all answered him and said: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.’

An "imprecation" is a curse called down on oneself: the standard ancient form of a binding oath was "may such and such happen to me if I break this." Swearing "by mutual imprecations" means each of them called those curses down on the others as well, so that every one of them was on the hook for every other. It is the mechanism Semjâzâ asked for in the previous verse, a way of guaranteeing nobody could back out and leave him carrying it alone.

5Then they all swore together, and bound themselves to it by calling down curses on each other.

5Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.

6There were two hundred of them in all. They came down in the days of Jared onto the top of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because on it they had sworn and bound themselves by calling down curses on each other.

6And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.

Jared is the father of Enoch in the genealogy of Genesis 5. The choice of his lifetime is a play on words: his name resembles the Hebrew verb yarad, "he came down," and it is in his days that the angels come down. Mount Hermon is the snow-capped peak at the southern end of the Anti-Lebanon range, on the modern border of Lebanon and Syria, rising to about 9,200 feet. It was the northern landmark of the territory Israel claimed and a long-established holy site. The naming is a second play on words. "Hermon" resembles the Hebrew root h-r-m, used of placing something under a ban or curse, so the mountain is said to be called Hermon because of the curse-oath sworn on it. The wordplay only works in Hebrew or Aramaic, which is evidence that this book was not composed in the Greek or Ethiopic through which it has come down to us.

7And these are the names of their leaders: Samîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl.

8These are the ones in charge of groups of ten.

8These are their chiefs of tens.

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