CHAP. 12.—
Enoch was hidden, probably to receive the revelation that now follows, as Noah was to hide himself for a similar purpose, 10: 2; based upon Gen. v. 24. The Targums of Jonathan ben Uziel and of Jerusalem both interpret the il:J7 as a retiring from the earth and associating with higher beings.
—2. Holy ones, cf. note on 9: 3, and is found in all the three parts of this book. Watchmen, a standard name for all classes of angels, good and bad (for the fallen angels are also called thus, 1: 5; 10: 9, 15; 12: 4; 13: 4, 10; 14: 1, 3; 15: 2; 16: 1, 2; 91: 15), and strictly confined to this portion of the book, the nearest approach to it in the Parables being those that do not sleep, 39: 12, 13; 61: 12; 71: 7. They are mentioned first in Dan. iv. 17. For the writer of the Parables the term seems to indicate exclusively one class of angels, viz. the archangels; cf. 71: 7; while in the first part it is used in this limited sense in 20 only, a chapter of doubtful authenticity. Cf. the Old Testament statements concerning the prophets as watchmen, Isa. xxi. 11, 12; lii. 8; lxii. 6; Jer. vi. 17; Ezek.
iii. 17; xxxiii. 7; Hab. ii. 1; cf. 1 Clem. ad Corinth, 56: 1.
—3. King of the world; cf. note on 1: 3. The scribe; cf. verse 4; 15: 1; 92: 1. The book of the Jubilees remarks that Enoch was the first to teach men writing. This was probably a kind of official title, which is modified 12: 4 and 92: 1, as scribe of justice, he being just himself, 15: 1; 71: 14-16; and announcing the just judgment, 39: 2; 81: 6; 82: 1; 108: 1; and writing books for this purpose, 104: 13; 108: 9; cf. the interesting remarks of Dillmann, in Allg. Enleitung, p. xli. sq.
—4. Cf. Jude 6 and En. 15: 3 s□□.
—5. Cf. 10: 9-12. The forbidden union between an Israelite and a heathen could be forgiven, Ezra x. 19, but not that between angel and woman.
—6. Cf. on 10: 9.
CHAP. 13. —
Azazel alone is here addressed, in harmony with 10: 4 s□□.
—3. To them all, i.e. to Semjaza and the other angels.
—4, 5. The greatest of the fall is expressed by the fact that they who are of heaven cannot now raise even their eyes upwards out of shame for their deeds, 14: 7; 15: 3 s□□. Being cut off from the communion with God is one of the most terrible things an Israelite could conceive of, and thus this separation is one of the horrors of the Sheol; cf. Job vii. 7-10; Ps. lxxxviii. Writing was comparatively rare in the Old Testament, but was evidently a common thing in the time of the author of this book, and the statement here undoubtedly refers also to Enoch’s literary character. Writing instead of speaking the petition is the tribute of reverence paid to the majesty of God, and is taken from the customs of earth’s royalty. Furthermore, it seems that even Enoch could not speak to God, for none of his numerous questions are addressed to him, although God speaks to him, 14: 24; 15: 1.
—6. Patience, i.e. that God should have patience with them. The angels, originally spiritual, 15: 4, 6, are represented here after their fall as possessing soul and body, like man; cf. 19: 1.
—7. He goes in a south-western direction to the river Dan in the country of Dan. This river, a tributary of the Jordan, is also called the smaller Jordan, Josephus, Anti□□. i. 10, 1; v. 3, 1; viii. 8, 4. The banks of flowing water were favorite places for prayer, Dan. viii. 2; x. 4. As Hermon was a
desecrated place, Enoch could not expect to receive a revelation there.
—8. Sons of heaven; cf. note on 6: 2. Revelations through dreams were frequent in the Old Testament; Gen. xx. 3; xxxi. 10 s□□.; xlvi. 2; 1 Sam.xxviii. 6; 1 Kings iii. 5; Job xxxiii. 15, etc.; and Josephus, Bel. Jud. iii. 8, 3. Philo wrote a special work on this subject, （閃族語）.
—9. Ublesjael, being stationed between Lebanon and Sênêsêr, must have been a real, not imagined place, but what one is uncertain. The same must be said of Sênêsêr. As a mark of their lamentation, they have their faces covered; cf. 2 Sam. xv. 30; Isa. xxv. 7; Esth.vi. 12.—10. Words of justice, i.e. the just punishment. Being important, this vision is farther explained in chap. 14-16.
CHAP. 14,
— 1. As the following is to be a minute description of the vision, it is very properly preceded by its own superscription. The angels are from eternity, in the sense of the biblical（閃族語） not eternity absolutely and metaphysically, but only subjectively, from a time hidden 閃族語) to the author; cf. Orelli, Heb. Synonyma d. Zeit und Ewigkeit, p. 69 s□□. and note on 10: 4, 10 and 15: 3, 4, 6, 7, 10; 12: 4; 15: 3.
—2. Tongue of flesh, to emphasize his privilege as a human being, who is of flesh, to rebuke the angels who are spiritual. The contrast is strengthened by the fact that the author here evidently, as in 15, especially verse 8, and as it is probably done Gen. vi. 3, and Ps. lxxviii. 39, and certainly in the New Testament (cf. Wendt, Fleisch und Geist, p. 42, s□□.), attaches to the idea of flesh the ethical idea of moral weakness; cf. also 84: 1; cf. the similar idea in Isa. viii. 1.
—4. The judgment has been passed, i.e. decided upon by the unchangeable God, 65: 10, like the biblical n7:J.
—5. Cf. note on 13: 4, 5.
—6. note on 10: 9.
—7. Cf. note on 10: 10. Speak, probably from falsely reading λαλε1v for λαpε1v, and should be: ye will not receive. The writing is of course Enoch’s petition. To this and the following Irenaeus refers in adv. Haer. iv. 30, when he says: Sed et Enoch sine circumcisione placens Deo, cum esset homo, legatione ad angelos fungebatur et translatus est et conservatur usque nunc testis judicii Dei, quoniam angeli quidam transgressi deciderunt in terram in judicium, homo autem placens translatus est in salutem.
—8. The picture here is evidently taken from passages like Isa. xix. 1 and the places where God is said to descend on a cloud, Ex. xix. 9; xxxiv. 4; Lev. xvi. 2; Num. xi. 25; xii. 5. In the Ascensio Isaiae, chap. vii., viii., in which Isaiah ascends up to the seventh through the other six heavens, the manner of the ascent is not stated, except that the angels caused it. The statements here are certainly connected with Isa. vi.; Ezek. i. and x.; Dan. vii. 9, 10.
—9. These holy places are surrounded by walls of the purest substances. In Zech. ii. 5 the Lord is himself a wall of fire, and fire is the symbol of purity, Prov. xxv. 22; Jer. xxiii. 29; Mal.
iii. 2.
—10. The picture is taken from the shape of an earthly temple; behind the wall is the （閃族語）or （閃族語）.
—11. Water, because transparent.
—13. is an expression of his awful feelings in seeing these astounding phenomena.
—14. Cf. Ezek. i. 28; Dan. viii. 17, 18; x. 9; Ascensio Isaiae, ix. 1, 2.
—15. Now he sees the holy of holies, whose doors are open, which is to explain how in the following he can narrate what was within, although he did not enter; cf. the similar description in Pirke Elieser, c. 4. His not entering is explained by Ex. xxxiii. 20; Judg. vi. 22 sq.; xiii. 22; 1 Sam. vi. 19 sq.
—16. You, i.e. the readers.
—17. Cf. verse 11.
—18. Hoar-frost, to express the intensity of the whiteness; cf. Dan. vii. 9. Throne, the prophet Isaiah in his ascent finds a throne in each one of the seven heavens; cf. Ascensio Isaiae vii. 14 s□□. and Isa. vi. 1 s□□.
—19. Cf. Dan. vii. 10.
—20. Ascensio Isaiae ix. 27. Et vidi quendam stantem, cujus gloria superabat omnia, et gloria ejus magna erat et mirabilis.
—21. Cf. note on verse 2. That God’s residence cannot be entered by man is stated also 3 Macc. ii. 14 s□□.; cf. Ascensio Isaiae iii. 8 s□□.
—22. The angels are servants, not advisers of God, hence they are not required in his（閃族語）; cf. note on i. 9.
—24. Word, not the（閃族語）, but probably the（閃族語） or command of God personified. Dillmann says it is equal to: Come here to hear my holy word; cf. Langen, p. 268, and the personification of the word of God in Ps. cxlvii. 15; Isa. lv. 11.
—25. To the door, according to verse 21.
CHAP. 15
—1, 2. Scribe of justice; cf. 12: 3. Angels interceding for men is biblical; cf. Job v. 1; xxxiii. 23;
Zech. i. 12 s□□.(Tob. xii. 12-15; 2 Macc. iii. 25 s□□.; Philo, De Gig. § 4.); Apoc. viii. 3, and in En. 9: 3; 40:
6, 7; 47: 2; 89: 76; 104: 1.
—3. Cf. 12: 4; Jude 6.
—4. The contrast lies here between spiritual and eternal on the one hand, and flesh and mortality on the other. The angels, being eternal, did not require propagation as a means of the preservation of their kind, and thus their lust had caused them to step out of their sphere.Their guilt was increased by the result of this unnatural union, the wicked giants.
—5. Man, being mortal, did not sin by propagating his kind; cf. Test. Naphtali, 3.
—6. That the angels are spiritual is not definitely stated in the Old Testament, but repeatedly in the New; cf. 1 Cor. xiv. 12, 32; Heb. i. 14; Apoc. xxii. 6; Acts viii. 26, 29, 39.
—8, 9. Giants were the product of this lustful connection, and being the children of spiritual fathers, but begotten in sin, they are evil spirits. Syncellus has also 15: 8-16: 1, and gives a good text. Justin Martyr (Apol. brev. ii. 5) remarks(一畅串閃族語), but in his Apol. pro Christ. ad Anton. Pium he calls these angels themselves （閃族語）. Tertul. Apol. 22 adopts the first view: Quomodo de angelis quibusdam sua sponte coruptis corruptio gens daemonum evaserit, etc.; as also do the Pseudo-Clement., 8, 18.
—10 is omitted in the Gr., but was undoubtedly in the original, as it suits the connection.
—11, 12. The Ethiopic text is evidently not pure here, and departs considerably from the Gr., the latter having the transitive 在φαvf（εlv, instead of the intransitive be destroyed, and instead of the strange word clouds (閃族語) and the negative in verse 12 must be erased, as the sense and the Gr., which has simply i:（閃族語, demand. The sense is, according to the Gr.: The spirits of the giants destroy, practice injustice, cause destruction, make attacks, fight and struggle, throw down on the earth and assault, but eat nothing, assume ghostly forms or produce them, but become thirsty and rush upon mankind. But the acc. of the Ethiopic is better than the Kαl τwv yuvαlKwv of the Gr. On the view of later authorities on the subject of demons, cf. Hoffmann, p. 203 s□□.; Langen, pp. 322, 323.
CHAP. 16
—1. Evidently simply continuation of the preceding. The （閃族語） of Syncellus, which Dillmann calls a müssige sinnsstrende Glosse, does not belong to the text. In this book the judgments, both the first and the final, have many different names, e.g. the great judgment, 19: 1; 22: 4; 25: 4; 100: 4; 103: 8; or day of the great judgment, 84: 4; 94: 9; 98: 10; 99: 15; 104:5; or great day of the judgment, 10: 6; 22: 11; day of completion, 10: 12; while the Parables have, the great day, 54: 6; or day of trouble, 45: 2.
—2. Clemens Alex. refers to this strange statement in his remarks, Strom.V. p. 550 (ed. Sylburg. 1641), cf. Justin. Apol. B.; Epiph. adv. Haer., 1: 4; Tertul. De Cultu Fem. 1: 10.
