1 Enoch 9

Then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven. They saw a great deal of blood being spilled on the earth, and every kind of lawless act being done on the earth.

1And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth.

NoteMichael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel are named angels. Michael and Gabriel appear in the book of Daniel, and Raphael in the book of Tobit; Uriel is known mainly from books like this one. In 1 Enoch these four are the chief angels, whose standing job is to look down on the earth and carry what they see, and what human beings cry out, up to God.

2And they said to one another: 'The earth, emptied of the people who lived on it, cries out, and the sound of their crying goes up to the gates of heaven.

2And they said one to another: ‘The earth made †without inhabitant cries the voice of their cryings† up to the gates of heaven.

NoteCharles printed daggers (†...†) around this line to warn that the manuscript wording is damaged or garbled and cannot be translated with confidence. The literal words run: 'the earth made without inhabitant cries the voice of their cryings.' The rendering takes the most common reconstruction, that the earth has been emptied of its people and so cries out; other scholars read it as the earth crying out because of the blood spilled on it, in the manner of Genesis 4, where Abel's blood cries from the ground.

3And now the souls of human beings bring their plea to you, the holy ones of heaven. They say, "Take our case before the Most High."'

3And now to you, the holy ones of heaven, the souls of men make their suit, saying, “Bring our cause before the Most High.”’

Note'Make their suit' is legal language: the souls are petitioners filing a case, and they are asking the angels to act as their advocates and enter that case in a higher court. 'The holy ones of heaven' is a standard phrase for the angels. 'The Most High' is a title for God, common in Genesis, Daniel and the Psalms.

4And they said to the Lord of the ages: 'Lord of lords, God of gods, King of kings, and God of the ages, the throne of your glory stands through every generation of every age, and your name is holy and glorious and blessed through all the ages!

4And they said to the Lord of the ages: ‘Lord of lords, God of gods, King of kings, 〈and God of the ages〉, the throne of Thy glory (standeth) unto all the generations of the ages, and Thy name holy and glorious and blessed unto all the ages!

NoteThe angle brackets 〈 〉 around 'and God of the ages' are Charles's mark for words he supplied from a different manuscript than his main one; round brackets, as around '(standeth)', mark words he added to make English sense of a compressed original. 'Lord of lords, God of gods, King of kings' is a stacked series of superlatives drawn from Deuteronomy and the Psalms, the ancient way of saying 'highest of all of that kind.' An 'age' here translates a word that means both a vast stretch of time and the world that fills it, so 'unto all the ages' means for as long as time runs.

5You made all things, and you have power over all things. All things are uncovered and open before you. You see everything, and nothing can hide itself from you.

5Thou hast made all things, and power over all things hast Thou: and all things are naked and open in Thy sight, and Thou seest all things, and nothing can hide itself from Thee.

6You see what Azâzêl has done. He has taught every kind of wrongdoing on the earth, and he has made known the everlasting secrets that were kept in heaven, the ones human beings were trying hard to learn.

6Thou seest what Azâzêl hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn:

NoteAzâzêl is one of the fallen angels of the earlier chapters of this book, who taught human beings to make swords and shields and knives, and taught women the use of cosmetics and jewelry. The 'eternal secrets' are the heavenly knowledge he handed down, craft, metalworking, sorcery and the reading of signs. The circumflex accents in Azâzêl and Semjâzâ are Charles's way of marking long vowels in the Ethiopic; they are not pronunciation the reader needs to reproduce. The name is connected by many readers with the goat sent out 'for Azazel' on the Day of Atonement in Leviticus 16.

7And you see Semjâzâ, to whom you gave the authority to rule over the others who are with him.

7And Semjâzâ, to whom Thou hast given authority to bear rule over his associates.

NoteSemjâzâ is the leader of the band of angels described in chapter 6 of this book, who bound his two hundred followers by a mutual oath before they came down. 'His associates' means the angels under his command, and the complaint is that he used a delegated authority for this.

8They have gone to the daughters of human beings on the earth. They have slept with the women, and have made themselves unclean, and have shown the women every kind of sin.

8And they have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins.

Note'The daughters of men' means human women, and the phrase is quoted from Genesis 6:1-4, where the sons of God take wives from the daughters of men. 'Defiled themselves' is the vocabulary of ritual uncleanness: the offense is framed as a crossing of a boundary that was meant to hold, heavenly beings mixing with earthly ones.

9And the women have given birth to giants, and because of this the whole earth has been filled with blood and wrongdoing.

9And the women have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness.

NoteThe giants are the offspring of those unions, called Nephilim in the Hebrew of Genesis 6:4 and gigantes in the Greek of this book. Chapter 7 describes them consuming everything human beings could produce and then turning on human beings themselves, which is why their birth is said to have filled the earth with blood.

10And now, look: the souls of those who have died are crying out and bringing their plea to the gates of heaven. Their weeping has risen up, and it cannot stop, because of the lawless deeds being done on the earth.

10And now, behold, the souls of those who have died are crying and making their suit to the gates of heaven, and their lamentations have ascended: and cannot cease because of the lawless deeds which are wrought on the earth.

Note'The gates of heaven' pictures heaven as a walled city or a temple, with gates where petitions are received and heard. A cry that reaches the gates is a case that has been formally lodged rather than merely uttered.

11And you know all things before they happen. You see these things, and you allow them, and you do not tell us what we are to do to them about all this.'

11And Thou knowest all things before they come to pass, and Thou seest these things and Thou dost suffer them, and Thou dost not say to us what we are to do to them in regard to these.’

NoteIn older English 'suffer' means permit or tolerate, not undergo pain; 'Thou dost suffer them' is 'you let them go on.' The final clause is a request for orders: the angels are saying they have been given no instruction about what action to take against the offenders, and this sets up the commands God issues in the next chapter.