1 Enoch 70

After this, his name was lifted up high, while he was still alive, away from those who live on the earth, and brought to that Son of Man and to the Lord of Spirits.

1And it came to pass after this that his name during his lifetime was raised aloft to that Son of Man and to the Lord of Spirits from amongst those who dwell on the earth.

NoteThe book is Enoch's own first-person account, so "his name" is jarring: the subject is Enoch himself, spoken of in the third person, before verse 3 slips back into "I." This is one reason many readers have taken chapters 70 and 71 to be a separate ending stitched onto the Parables. In Hebrew and Aramaic idiom a person's "name" can stand for the person himself, so "his name was raised aloft" says that Enoch was taken up, not that a word was. "Son of Man" and "Lord of Spirits" are both fixed titles in this part of 1 Enoch: the Son of Man is the heavenly figure introduced in chapters 46 to 48, and "Lord of Spirits" is the book's usual way of naming God, used hundreds of times where other writings would say "the LORD of hosts."

2He was lifted up high on the chariots of the spirit, and his name disappeared from among them.

2And he was raised aloft on the chariots of the spirit and his name vanished among them.

NoteA chariot is the ancient world's fastest and most prestigious vehicle, and being carried off in one is standard imagery for a person taken up to heaven rather than dying. "His name vanished among them" continues the idiom of verse 1: he stopped being counted among the people on earth, in the sense that the living no longer had him on their lists.

3From that day on I was no longer counted among them. He set me between the two winds, between the North and the West, where the angels were taking the cords to measure out for me the place meant for the chosen and the righteous.

3And from that day I was no longer numbered amongst them: and he set me between the two winds, between the North and the West, where the angels took the cords to measure for me the place for the elect and righteous.

NoteAncient geography named directions by the winds that blew from them, so "the two winds, between the North and the West" is a compass bearing: the northwest. The "cords" are a surveyor's measuring line, the rope stretched across ground to mark out the boundaries of a plot before it is assigned to an owner. The picture is of angels staking out a piece of land for Enoch. "The elect and righteous" is a standing pair in this book for the group whose place is being reserved: "elect" here carries its older sense of chosen, not the modern sense of voted in.

4And there I saw the first fathers and the righteous ones who have lived in that place from the beginning.

4And there I saw the first fathers and the righteous who from the beginning dwell in that place.

Note"The first fathers" means the earliest ancestors of the human race, the generations from Adam onward, the figures usually called the patriarchs. Enoch, according to Genesis 5, is only seven generations from Adam, so these are his own near forebears.