1 Enoch 86

Again I saw with my own eyes while I slept, and I saw the sky above, and there was a star that fell from the sky. It got up, and it ate and fed on grass among those oxen.

1And again I saw with mine eyes as I slept, and I saw the heaven above, and behold a star fell from heaven, and it arose and eat and pastured amongst those oxen.

NoteThe dream that starts in the previous chapter tells human history with animals standing in for people, and it never stops to say so: the first white bull and cow of chapter 85 answer to the first man and woman, and the oxen here are their descendants. Read the whole chapter as that kind of picture-language. Also, in writing of this period a star regularly stands for a heavenly being. A star falling out of the sky, followed by the many stars of verse 3, matches the account earlier in this book, in chapters 6 to 8, of the watchers who came down from heaven and took human wives. "Pastured" is simply the old verb for grazing, feeding on growing grass.

2After that I saw the large oxen and the black oxen, and they all changed their stalls and their pastures and their cattle, and they began to live with each other.

2And after that I saw the large and the black oxen, and behold they all changed their stalls and pastures and their cattle, and began to live with each other.

NoteThe clause Charles renders "they all changed their stalls and pastures and their cattle" is obscure in the Ethiopic and has been understood in more than one way: that the herds swapped shelters, grazing ground and animals with one another, or that they exchanged mates. The rendering keeps the vagueness of the original rather than picking one. "Stalls" are the roofed pens animals are shut into at night.

3Again I saw in the vision, and I looked toward the sky, and I saw many stars come down and throw themselves down from the sky to that first star. They became bulls among those cattle and fed on grass with them, in among them.

3And again I saw in the vision, and looked towards the heaven, and behold I saw many stars descend and cast themselves down from heaven to that first star, and they became bulls amongst those cattle and pastured with them amongst them.

NoteThe word shifts from "oxen" to "bulls" for a reason. In older English "ox" could mean cattle of either sex, and commonly meant a castrated male kept for work; a bull is an intact male kept for breeding. The change of word marks the newcomers out as breeding males, which is what verse 4 goes on to describe.

4I looked at them and saw, and they all let out their sexual organs, like horses, and began to mate with the cows of the oxen. The cows all became pregnant and gave birth to elephants, camels, and donkeys.

4And I looked at them and saw, and behold they all let out their privy members, like horses, and began to cover the cows of the oxen, and they all became pregnant and bare elephants, camels, and asses.

Note"Privy members" was polite English in 1917 for the genitals; "privy" then meant private. "To cover" is the ordinary stock-breeding term for a male mounting a female, still used of horses and cattle today. The comparison to horses picks up a stock insult of the Hebrew prophets for uncontrolled lust, as in Ezekiel 23:20 and Jeremiah 5:8. "Bare" is the old past tense of "bear," gave birth to. Elsewhere in this book the offspring of the watchers and human women are giants, and the three kinds listed here, elephants, camels and donkeys, correspond to a three-way division of those giants that also turns up in the book of Jubilees.

5All the oxen were afraid of them and were terrified of them, and they began to bite with their teeth, and to devour, and to gore with their horns.

5And all the oxen feared them and were affrighted at them, and began to bite with their teeth and to devour, and to gore with their horns.

Note"Affrighted" is an old word for badly frightened. The grammar of the sentence is genuinely slippery here: as written, "began to bite... and to devour, and to gore" could attach to the oxen who are afraid, but the sense of verse 6 requires the newborn creatures to be the ones doing the biting. The rendering leaves the ambiguity where the original leaves it.

6Beyond that, they began to devour those oxen. And all the children of the earth began to tremble and shake in front of them and to run away from them.

6And they began, moreover, to devour those oxen; and behold all the children of the earth began to tremble and quake before them and to flee from them.

Note"The children of the earth" is a Semitic turn of phrase meaning simply human beings, everyone alive on the earth. It is the same construction as "children of Israel" for Israelites, where "children of" marks belonging rather than a literal parent.