1 Enoch 84

And I lifted up my hands in righteousness and blessed the Holy and Great One. I spoke with the breath of my mouth and with the tongue of flesh, which God has made for the children of human flesh so that they could speak with it. He gave them breath and a tongue and a mouth so that they could speak with them.

1And I lifted up my hands in righteousness and blessed the Holy and Great One, and spake with the breath of my mouth, and with the tongue of flesh, which God has made for the children of the flesh of men, that they should speak therewith, and He gave them breath and a tongue and a mouth that they should speak therewith:

NoteRaising the hands was the ordinary posture for prayer in ancient Israel: standing, with the arms lifted and the palms open. "The tongue of flesh" means the physical tongue of a mortal body, and Enoch is stressing that he is praying with ordinary human speech and breath rather than in the manner of the angels he has been among. "Flesh" carries this sense throughout the chapter: human beings considered as bodily, mortal creatures.

2"Blessed are you, Lord and King, great and mighty in your greatness, Lord of the whole creation of the heaven, King of kings and God of the whole world. Your power and your kingship and your greatness last forever and ever, and your rule lasts through all generations. All the heavens are your throne forever, and the whole earth is your footstool forever and ever.

2‘Blessed be Thou, O Lord, King, Great and mighty in Thy greatness, Lord of the whole creation of the heaven, King of kings and God of the whole world. And Thy power and kingship and greatness abide for ever and ever, And throughout all generations Thy dominion; And all the heavens are Thy throne for ever, And the whole earth Thy footstool for ever and ever.

Note"King of kings" was the standard title of the Persian and Babylonian emperors, a great king who ruled over lesser kings who answered to him. A throne in the ancient world came with a raised footstool for the king's feet, so calling heaven the throne and the earth the footstool is a picture of scale: the whole visible world is furniture under one seated ruler.

3For you made all things and you rule all things, and nothing is too hard for you. Wisdom never leaves the place of your throne, and it never turns away from your presence. You know and see and hear everything, and nothing is hidden from you, for you see everything.

3For Thou hast made and Thou rulest all things, And nothing is too hard for Thee, Wisdom departs not from the place of Thy throne, Nor turns away from Thy presence. And Thou knowest and seest and hearest everything, And there is nothing hidden from Thee for Thou seest everything.

NoteWisdom is spoken of here as though she were an attendant who stands permanently beside the throne and never steps away. This way of speaking, treating wisdom as a figure in God's court rather than as an abstract quality, was common in Jewish writing of this period.

4And now the angels of your heavens are guilty of wrongdoing, and your anger stays on the flesh of human beings until the great day of judgment.

4And now the angels of Thy heavens are guilty of trespass, And upon the flesh of men abideth Thy wrath until the great day of judgement.

Note"The angels of your heavens" points back to the story told earlier in this book: heavenly beings who abandoned their station, took human wives, and taught humanity knowledge they were not meant to have. Charles's word "trespass" means the crossing of a boundary or the breaking of a sworn duty, not a small fault. "The great day of judgement" is the single future reckoning that this book expects, when the sentence already passed on those angels is finally carried out.

5And now, God and Lord and Great King, I beg you and plead with you to grant my prayer: to leave me descendants on the earth, and not to destroy all human flesh and leave the earth with no one living on it, so that there would be a destruction that lasts forever.

5And now, O God and Lord and Great King, I implore and beseech Thee to fulfil my prayer, To leave me a posterity on earth, And not destroy all the flesh of man, And make the earth without inhabitant, So that there should be an eternal destruction.

NoteThis prayer belongs to the dream vision Enoch has just described, in which he saw the earth swallowed up and destroyed by water. He is asking that his own family line be allowed to survive that destruction. The last clause is part of what he is asking God not to do: he pleads that God will not leave the earth empty of people permanently, with nothing ever growing back.

6And now, my Lord, destroy from the earth the flesh that has stirred up your anger, but establish the flesh that is righteous and upright as a plant of the seed that lasts forever. And do not hide your face from the prayer of your servant, Lord."

6And now, my Lord, destroy from the earth the flesh which has aroused Thy wrath, But the flesh of righteousness and uprightness establish as a plant of the eternal seed, And hide not Thy face from the prayer of Thy servant, O Lord.’

NoteCalling a surviving family line "a plant of the eternal seed" uses farming imagery that was a standard way of speaking about a people: the righteous survivors are the stock left in the ground, the shoot from which all later generations grow. "Hide not thy face" is a Hebrew idiom. To hide the face is to turn attention away and refuse to listen, so the request is simply to be heard.