1 Enoch 88
What Happens in This Chapter
In this part of the vision, one of the four who had come out first seizes the first star that had fallen from the sky, ties it hand and foot, and throws it into a narrow, deep, dark pit. One of them hands a sword to the elephants, camels, and donkeys, and they begin to strike one another until the whole earth shakes. Then one of the four throws stones from the sky, gathers all the great stars whose sexual organs were like those of horses, ties them hand and foot, and throws them into a pit in the earth.
Then I saw one of those four who had come out first. He grabbed that first star which had fallen from the sky, tied it hand and foot, and threw it into a deep pit. That pit was narrow and deep, and horrible and dark.
1And I saw one of those four who had come forth first, and he seized that first star which had fallen from the heaven, and bound it hand and foot and cast it into an abyss: now that abyss was narrow and deep, and horrible and dark.
Chapters 85 to 90 of Enoch retell history as an animal fable: human beings appear as cattle and sheep, and angels appear either as stars or as men in white. "Those four who had come forth first" are the four white figures of the previous chapter, who came down out of the sky in human shape. "That first star which had fallen from the heaven" is the leader of the angels who, in chapter 86, left the sky and mated with human women. Binding a prisoner "hand and foot" and dropping him into a pit is the standard picture in this book for the confinement of those angels.
2And one of them drew a sword and gave it to those elephants and camels and donkeys. Then they began to strike each other, and the whole earth shook because of them.
2And one of them drew a sword, and gave it to those elephants and camels and asses: then they began to smite each other, and the whole earth quaked because of them.
The elephants, camels and donkeys are the offspring produced in chapter 86 when the fallen stars mated with the cattle: three kinds of outsized animal standing for three kinds of giant, the beings Genesis 6 calls Nephilim. Handing them a sword and letting them turn on one another is this book's way of telling how the giants destroyed each other before the flood.
3And as I kept watching in the vision, one of those four who had come out threw stones from the sky. He gathered up all the great stars whose sexual organs were like those of horses, tied them all hand and foot, and threw them into a pit in the earth.
3And as I was beholding in the vision, lo, one of those four who had come forth stoned (them) from heaven, and gathered and took all the great stars whose privy members were like those of horses, and bound them all hand and foot, and cast them in an abyss of the earth.
Charles's older English says the stars' "privy members were like those of horses," privy members being a polite older term for genitals. The comparison with horses is lifted from Ezekiel 23:20, where it is a stock image for unrestrained lust; here it identifies these particular stars as the angels who took human wives, as against the ordinary stars of the sky. The words translated "stoned (them) from heaven" are obscure in the Ethiopic manuscripts, and Charles bracketed "them" because the object of the verb is not actually in the text.
← → to turn the page · P for plain English · click a verse to select it