1 Enoch 98

And now I swear to you, both to the wise and to the foolish: you will go through many different things on the earth.

1And now I swear unto you, to the wise and to the foolish, For ye shall have manifold experiences on the earth.

NoteThe speaker is Enoch. This chapter belongs to the long closing section of the book (roughly chapters 92 to 105) that scholars call the Epistle of Enoch, a chain of sworn statements and "woe" sayings addressed to later generations. "Manifold experiences" renders a phrase whose exact sense in the Ethiopic is uncertain; it means something like "many things will come upon you," and from what follows the things are not good ones.

2For you men will put on more ornaments than a woman wears, and more colored clothes than a virgin wears. In royal state, in grand living, in power, in silver and gold and purple, in splendor and in food, they will be poured out like water.

2For ye men shall put on more adornments than a woman, And coloured garments more than a virgin: In royalty and in grandeur and in power, And in silver and in gold and in purple, And in splendour and in food they shall be poured out as water.

NotePurple cloth was dyed with a secretion taken from murex sea snails, thousands of them for a single garment, which made purple the most expensive color there was and the standard mark of kings and the very rich. Brightly colored clothing worked the same way: in 2 Samuel 13:18 the long colored robe is specifically what the unmarried daughters of the king wore. "Poured out as water" is an idiom for spending without measure, the way water is poured out and not counted.

3So they will be lacking in teaching and in wisdom, and by that they will perish, together with their possessions, and with all their glory and their splendor. In shame, in slaughter, and in great poverty, their spirits will be thrown into the furnace of fire.

3Therefore they shall be wanting in doctrine and wisdom, And they shall perish thereby together with their possessions; And with all their glory and their splendour, And in shame and in slaughter and in great destitution, Their spirits shall be cast into the furnace of fire.

NoteThe furnace is a smelting or pottery furnace, the hottest fire anyone in this period had seen or built. It is a stock image in this literature for punishment.

4I have sworn to you, you sinners: as a mountain has never become a slave, and a hill does not become a woman's servant girl, so sin was not sent down upon the earth. Man made it himself, and those who do it will fall under a great curse.

4I have sworn unto you, ye sinners, as a mountain has not become a slave, And a hill does not become the handmaid of a woman, Even so sin has not been sent upon the earth, But man of himself has created it, And under a great curse shall they fall who commit it.

NoteThe oath works by comparison with things that plainly never happen: a mountain cannot be made a slave, a hill cannot be made anyone's servant girl. What is being guaranteed is the second half of the sentence, that sin was not sent down onto the earth from outside it. Earlier chapters of this same book (6 to 16) tell how rebel angels, the Watchers, brought corruption down from heaven; here the origin of sin is laid on human beings themselves. The two accounts stand side by side in the book without being reconciled.

5And being unable to have children was not given to the woman. It is because of the deeds of her own hands that she dies without children.

5And barrenness has not been given to the woman, But on account of the deeds of her own hands she dies without children.

NoteIn the ancient world a woman's childlessness was ordinarily assumed to be something sent by God, and the verse denies exactly that. "The deeds of her own hands" is an everyday idiom for a person's own conduct, not for anything done with the hands in particular.

6I have sworn to you, you sinners, by the Holy Great One, that all your evil deeds are made known in the heavens, and that not one of your acts of oppression is covered up and hidden.

6I have sworn unto you, ye sinners, by the Holy Great One, That all your evil deeds are revealed in the heavens, And that none of your deeds of oppression are covered and hidden.

Note"The Holy Great One" is one of this book's regular titles for God. An oath was sworn by the greatest guarantor the speaker could name, so swearing by God stakes the claim on God's own name; the speaker is doing to his hearers what he demands they stop doing to each other.

7And do not think in your spirit, or say in your heart, that you do not know and do not see that every sin is written down every day in heaven, in the presence of the Most High.

7And do not think in your spirit nor say in your heart that ye do not know and that ye do not see that every sin is every day recorded in heaven in the presence of the Most High.

Note"Say in your heart" is an idiom for thinking privately to yourself. In this literature the heart is the seat of thought and decision rather than of feeling. "The Most High" translates a very old title for God, Elyon in Hebrew. "Recorded in heaven" belongs to a picture that runs all through 1 Enoch: heavenly books and tablets in which every human act is entered, as a royal treasury or a law court kept its ledgers.

8From now on you know that all the oppression you carry out is written down every day until the day when you are judged.

8From henceforth ye know that all your oppression wherewith ye oppress is written down every day till the day of your judgement.

9Trouble is coming to you, you fools, for your foolishness will destroy you. You do wrong against the wise, and so good fortune will not be your share.

9Woe to you, ye fools, for through your folly shall ye perish: and ye transgress against the wise, and so good hap shall not be your portion.

Note"Hap" is an old English word for chance or luck, surviving now only in "happen" and "perhaps." Charles uses "good hap" where we would say good fortune, and "your portion" for the share allotted to you.

10And now, know that you are made ready for the day of destruction. So do not hope to live, you sinners, but you will go away and die, for you know of no ransom. You are made ready for the day of the great judgment, for the day of distress and great shame for your spirits.

10And now, know ye that ye are prepared for the day of destruction: wherefore do not hope to live, ye sinners, but ye shall depart and die; for ye know no ransom; for ye are prepared for the day of the great judgement, for the day of tribulation and great shame for your spirits.

NoteA ransom was the price paid to buy back a captive or a slave, and in some ancient laws the payment that could be accepted in place of a life that had been forfeited (Exodus 21:30). To "know no ransom" is to have no such payment available: there is nothing that can be handed over to buy the sentence off.

11Trouble is coming to you, you stubborn-hearted, who do wicked things and eat blood. Where do you get good things to eat and drink and be filled with? From all the good things the Lord the Most High has placed in plenty on the earth. Therefore you will have no peace.

11Woe to you, ye obstinate of heart, who work wickedness and eat blood: Whence have ye good things to eat and to drink and to be filled? From all the good things which the Lord the Most High has placed in abundance on the earth; therefore ye shall have no peace.

NoteTo "eat blood" means eating meat with the blood still in it. Draining the blood was required of all humanity in Genesis 9:4 and of Israel in Leviticus 17, on the stated ground that a creature's life is in its blood, so the phrase marks the eater as lawless at the most basic level; it can also carry the wider sense of bloodshed. The question and answer that follow are compressed and the manuscripts are difficult here: the point seems to be that everything these people gorge on comes from what God has put on the earth, though the text does not spell out the connection. "You will have no peace" is the fixed closing curse of this part of the book and recurs at the end of many of these woes.

12Trouble is coming to you who love doing what is wrong. Why do you hope that good fortune will come to you? Know that you will be handed over to the righteous, and they will cut off your necks and kill you, and show you no mercy.

12Woe to you who love the deeds of unrighteousness: wherefore do ye hope for good hap unto yourselves? know that ye shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous, and they shall cut off your necks and slay you, and have no mercy upon you.

NoteCutting off the neck means beheading, the death of the condemned and of prisoners taken in war, carried out with a sword. The saying pictures the people who have been oppressed as the ones who end up carrying out the sentence.

13Trouble is coming to you who are glad when the righteous suffer, for no grave will be dug for you.

13Woe to you who rejoice in the tribulation of the righteous; for no grave shall be dug for you.

NoteTo be left unburied was the worst disgrace an ancient person could imagine: the body exposed to dogs and birds instead of being laid with the family dead. Curses of this shape appear throughout the Hebrew Bible, as when Jeremiah 22:19 promises a king "the burial of an ass."

14Trouble is coming to you who treat the words of the righteous as worthless, for you will have no hope of life.

14Woe to you who set at nought the words of the righteous; for ye shall have no hope of life.

Note"Set at nought" is older English for treating something as worth nothing at all, dismissing it with contempt.

15Trouble is coming to you who write down lying and godless words, for they write down their lies so that people may hear them and act in a godless way toward their neighbor.

15Woe to you who write down lying and godless words; for they write down their lies that men may hear them and act godlessly towards (their) neighbour.

NoteIn a world where few could write and written books were rare and expensive, a text carried authority simply by being written down; the accusation here is that people are manufacturing false writings that others will take as true. The verse also switches in mid-sentence from "you" to "they." That shift is in the text itself and is common in these sayings; it is not a slip in the translation.

16Therefore they will have no peace, but will die a sudden death.

16Therefore they shall have no peace but die a sudden death.