1 Enoch 85

After this I saw another dream, and I will tell you the whole dream, my son.

1And after this I saw another dream, and I will show the whole dream to thee, my son.

NoteThis is the second of Enoch's two dream visions. The first was in chapters 83 and 84. This one runs from here to the end of chapter 90 and retells the history of the world from the first man down to the writer's own day, using animals to stand for people throughout. Scholars call it the Animal Apocalypse.

2Enoch lifted up his voice and spoke to his son Methuselah: "I am going to speak to you, my son. Listen to my words. Pay close attention to the dream your father saw.

2And Enoch lifted up (his voice) and spake to his son Methuselah: ‘To thee, my son, will I speak: hear my words—incline thine ear to the dream-vision of thy father.

Note"Lifted up his voice" is a standard Hebrew way of saying that someone began to speak formally, not that he shouted. Methuselah is Enoch's son in the genealogy of Genesis 5, the man credited with the longest life in the biblical record.

3Before I married your mother Edna, I saw a vision while I lay on my bed. A bull came up out of the earth, and that bull was white. After it came a heifer, and along with her came two bulls, one of them black and the other red.

3Before I took thy mother Edna, I saw in a vision on my bed, and behold a bull came forth from the earth, and that bull was white; and after it came forth a heifer, and along with this (latter) came forth two bulls, one of them black and the other red.

NoteA heifer is a young cow that has not yet borne a calf. The animals and their colors are the code of this vision: human beings appear as cattle here, and later as sheep and as wild beasts, and an animal's color marks the line of descent it belongs to. The sequence follows Genesis: a first male who comes up out of the earth rather than being born, matching the man formed from the dust of the ground in Genesis 2, then a female, then two sons. Edna is named as Enoch's wife in the book of Jubilees; Genesis does not give her a name. Setting the vision before the marriage means Enoch sees the whole course of history before his own son exists.

4That black bull gored the red one and chased him across the earth, and after that I could no longer see the red bull.

4And that black bull gored the red one and pursued him over the earth, and thereupon I could no longer see that red bull.

NoteGoring is killing with the horns, and it is the term used in the law of Exodus 21 for an ox that kills a person. In the terms of the vision this is the death of one brother at the hands of the other, as in Genesis 4, where Cain kills Abel and afterward becomes a wanderer on the earth. Saying the red bull could no longer be seen is how the vision reports that he was gone for good.

5But that black bull grew, and the heifer went with him, and I saw that many oxen came from him that looked like him and followed him.

5But that black bull grew and that heifer went with him, and I saw that many oxen proceeded from him which resembled and followed him.’

Note"Oxen" here carries the older and wider sense of the word: cattle in general, male and female. It does not mean the castrated work animals the word usually points to now.

6That cow, the first one, left the first bull and went to look for the red one, but she did not find him. She mourned for him with a loud cry of grief and kept searching for him.

6And that cow, that first one, went from the presence of that first bull in order to seek that red one, but found him not, and lamented with a great lamentation over him and sought him.

NoteThe heifer of verse 3 is called a cow from here on because she has borne young; that is the whole difference between the two words. Mourning in this world was loud, public and formal, a cry raised aloud with others hearing it, not grief kept to oneself, which is why the text measures it as a great lamentation.

7I watched until the first bull came to her and calmed her, and from that time on she cried no more.

7And I looked till that first bull came to her and quieted her, and from that time onward she cried no more.

8After that she gave birth to another white bull, and after him she gave birth to many bulls and black cows.

8And after that she bore another white bull, and after him she bore many bulls and black cows.

NoteCows in the code of the vision are daughters. Genesis 5 says only that the first man had other sons and daughters, without naming any of them, and the vision does the same, counting them without singling any out.

9In my sleep I saw that white bull grow too, and become a great white bull, and from him came many white bulls that looked like him.

9And I saw in my sleep that white bull likewise grow and become a great white bull, and from him proceeded many white bulls, and they resembled him.

10And they began to father many white bulls that looked like them, one after another, a great many of them.

10And they began to beget many white bulls, which resembled them, one following the other, (even) many.

NoteThis chain of look-alike bulls is a genealogy told in the shorthand of the vision, matching the list of generations from the first man to Noah in Genesis 5. A genealogy of this kind records only who followed whom, which is enough to show that a line continued unbroken.