The End of the Scroll. Herold Weiss

angels address God with a list of titles reminiscent of those used by the Greek successors of Alexander the Great: “Lord of lords, God of gods, King of kings (and God of the ages), the throne of thy glory (stands) unto all the generations of the ages, and Thy name holy and glorious and blessed unto all the ages.” This manner of address reveals a new universal, imperial understanding of God. The complaint of the souls of the dead is that Azazel has “revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn.” And Semjaza and his associates “have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and have revealed to them all kinds of sins. And the women have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness” (1 En. 9:6-9).

      In response to the complaint of the dead, God sends Gabriel to “proceed against the bastards so that the sons of the Watchers will kill each other in battle;” as a result, their hope to have eternal life [five hundred years] will not come to pass. God then sends Uriel to the son of Lamech with a message for Noah that the end is approaching with a deluge that will destroy the earth. He is to hide himself and save himself and his seed for all future generations. God also sends Rafael to bind Azazel and cast him into an opening in the desert and to cover the hole with big rocks. There he will be kept until the judgment, when he will be cast into the fire (this prefigures the fortunes of the dragon in the book of Revelation). Rafael is also told to heal the earth from the corruption brought about by the secrets revealed by Azazel, so that all sins are ascribed to him. Finally, God sends Michael to bind Semjaza and his associates. “Let them see their sons killing themselves. Then take them to the valleys of the earth for seventy generations till the day of their judgment. Then they shall be led off to the abyss of fire, the torment and prison where they shall be for ever. Any others who are condemned shall join them there so that all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers are destroyed.” Michael then is to destroy all wrong from the earth and let righteousness and truth flourish again in it with truth and joy for evermore (1 En. 10 – 11). It became popular in apocalyptic books to follow the lead of First Enoch and have the wicked taken to a place to wait until the time comes for them to be thrown into the fire, and to extend the geography of the earth to mythological locations that are appropriate for the eternal punishment of the wicked.

      This section of the book describes the punishment God has already established for the Watchers who brought about sin to earth. This, however, is their first “judgment.” Together with all mankind, they will also have to stand at the final judgment. The time between the two judgments is said to last seventy generations, that is the time between the life of Enoch and the writing of the Book of the Watchers. The seventy years of exile referred to by Jeremiah had caused Zechariah to wonder about its fulfillment. In the post-exilic chapters of Isaiah and in Ezra, about 444 B.C.E., Cyrus, the Persian, is identified as the Lord’s anointed who will finally restore the fortunes of Israel, after the non-establishment of the Davidic dynasty with Zerubbabel. In the Book of the Watchers, the messianic establishment of justice and peace must wait seventy generations, rather than years. It is not quite clear, however, when their counting starts. Evidently, messianic expectations have had many revivals with the passage of time, even to our own days. The ways in which they are related in time to previous events varies according to different agendas. Still, in all of them the judgment or judgments occupy central stage.

      Chapters 12 to 16 have Enoch in conversation with the Watchers who ask him to plead their cause to the Most High so that they may return to heaven. Enoch takes up their cause and pleads with God on their behalf, but God rejects their appeals. In the process, one reads that the Giants are now evil spirits (1 En. 15:8) who cause havoc among men and women until the time when the Watchers will face their final judgment (1 En. 16:1). While mediating on their behalf, Enoch is informed that though when they were in heaven the Watchers had learned many secrets, they actually learned only “worthless ones” (1 En. 16:2). Thus, their indiscretions on earth did not cause a major upheaval in heaven. Still, what they taught human beings had been the cause of much wickedness; therefore, they will not have peace until the judgment.

      In chapters 17 to 36, Enoch is given a guided tour of the universe. The tour starts in the West where fire receives the sun as it sets down and the mouths of the rivers and the waters of the deep are found. Also there he is shown the foundations and the cornerstone of the earth. Beyond is a place with no firmament and no earth or water beneath. An angel informs Enoch that this is the prison of the stars that disobeyed God and are waiting till their consummation at the judgment after 10,000 years. The spirit of the children born of the cohabitation of Watchers and women are not there. They are defiling mankind in different ways (1 En. 17 – 19; 21:5). At the center of a great mountain range with seven mountains, Enoch sees the highest mountain which, Michael informs him, is the throne of “the Holy Great One, the Lord of Glory, the Eternal King.” There is found the “fragrant tree no mortal is permitted to touch till the great judgment.… It shall be given to the righteous and holy. Its fruit shall be for food to the elect: it shall be transplanted to the holy place, to the temple of the Lord, the Eternal King” (1 En. 25:3-5). That the tree whose fruit could not be eaten is being kept for future transplantation after the judgment stresses the need for obedience now, and provides a model for John in Revelation. Following East from the middle of the earth, Enoch is shown valleys where the accursed are gathered for judgment in the presence of the righteous (1 En. 27:1). Further East he is shown mountains covered with wonderful aromatic trees: frankincense, myrrh, almond, nard, cinnamon, pepper, etc. Finally he arrives, east of the Persian and Indian oceans, to the garden of righteousness with fragrant trees and the tree of Wisdom. Its height is that of a fir, its leaves those of a carob and its fruit is like the clusters of the fruit of the vine with a strong aroma. Rafael now informs Enoch that this is the tree “of which thy father old (in years) and thy aged mother, who were before thee, have eaten, and they learned wisdom and their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked and they were driven out of the garden” (En. 32:6). By bringing up the expulsion of the first pair from the garden of Eden, and the reference to the tree that was not to be touched, the Book of the Watchers reaches back to the beginning, further back than the rebellion at Sinai, as the time when sin entered the world. Thus, the book reveals the origin of evil in the world, and informs the readers that the preservation of the tree for future transplanting is a sign that the original purpose of creation will be accomplished.

      From there, Enoch was taken to the ends of the earth where he saw great beasts and birds, all different from each other. To the East he saw where the heavens rest and the portals of heaven open. Through those portals the stars enter the heavens on their journeys West. Going North from there he saw other portals of heaven. From one of them comes the North Wind with cold, rain and snow. From the other two enter violence and affliction. After the tour of the whole universe, the Book of the Watchers ends with Enoch blessing “the Lord of Glory who has brought great and glorious wonders, to show the greatness of his work to the angels and to spirits and to men, that they might praise his work and all his creation … and bless him for ever” (En. 36:4). The book had began with Enoch’s blessings, and records his blessing of God throughout (1 En. 1:1; 11:1; 12:3; 22:14; 36:4). As demonstrated, the book is concerned to convince the reader that, even though angels who defiled themselves with women and brought into the world giants whose spirits cause men and women to sin, this is still God’s world. He has full control over his creation, and his original purpose for creation will be accomplished. The angels who defiled themselves and taught charms and arts to men are already in prison waiting for the final judgment which will eventually take care of all sinners. Then God will restore the world so that peace and joy will endure in it forever. Thus, while making a more extensive use of mythological descriptions, the Book of the Watchers follows the course established by Ezekiel and Zechariah. Its author gives to his contemporaries an explanation for the origin of evil and provides a vision of God’s dealing with it.

      It is to be noticed that, while The Book of the Watchers is aware of the sin of the first couple and of their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, it does not see their disobedience as the cosmic Fall of all creation. Still, its reference to the sin of the first couple is a move in the direction that gave place to the concept of the Fall. The entrance of sin in the human world is thought to have been brought about by the angels who defiled themselves with women and introduced warfare and medical charms and potions.