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| Enoch and the Fallen Angels |
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| Written by David Gaddy | |||
| Wednesday, 31 December 1969 23:59 | |||
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If I were to ask you who was the oldest human being to ever live, you could probably answer Methuselah. It is well popularized that Methuselah lived 969 years, the oldest ever recorded. But did you ...
If I were to ask you who was the oldest human being to ever live, you could probably answer Methuselah. It is well popularized that Methuselah lived 969 years, the oldest ever recorded. But did you know that Methuselah died before his father? You might ask how that could be true if Methuselah was the oldest. The answer is simple... Methuselah's father didn't die. His name was Enoch and he was the seventh from Adam in the geneology of Noah. The scriptures are short on Enoch, but they do tell us that he walked with God and Genesis 5:21-24 tells us that God took him into heaven. Hebrews 11:5 reiterates that God translated him to heaven. So what do we know about Enoch that we can pattern our lives by that example. If God was so pleased that he did not allow Enoch to die, then Enoch must've been a great man and follower of God. We all should strive to obtain that type of status with God. But how if the scriptures are so brief on the life of Enoch? This study will bring us to a better understanding of who Enoch was and what he did in his life. By the study of the Hebrew language used in Genesis as well as some well accepted ancient Hebrew writings, his character can be made known a little better to us. First off, Enoch was a prophet. How do we know? Well Jude tells us in his new testament epistle, but we'll come to that in a minute. First, let's look at what Enoch named his son... Methuselah. Genesis 5 is most often just glanced at or skipped over because it is a simple geneology. Well, in my experience in study, nothing in the Bible is there by mistake or for no reason. There is a reason God gave us this information. I suggest to you that if you consider every name, number, and place mentioned in the scriptures as important information that God placed there for your enlightenment, then you will find that it usually points to Christ in some way. Now an indepth study of the names in the geneology given in Genesis 5 will reveal that in hebrew, they all had ancient meanings that were lost in translation. When translated, names were transliterated or simply put, written down like they sounded. But most were based on more than one hebrew root to form a literal meaning. Now simply looking at a Hebrew Concordance won't reveal these meanings because the roots that form the words must be examined closely and not just the name itself. Luckily others have already done this work for us (I can't take credit because I'm just gleaning the field here). So let's look at the name Methuselah. It comes from the root muth, meaning "his death" and shalach, meaning "shall bring forth". So Methuselah means, "his death shall bring forth". To see the significance of this we can examine the life spans of those in this geneology, and conclude that Methuselah died in the same year that the flood came (More Details on this). So we can infer that Enoch was prophecying the flood when he named his son. Not to get off topic, but if we look at some of the other meanings of these names in Genesis 5, it may help us as we go forward in our study of Enoch. I'll list them in order as given in Genesis 5 along with a translation of the Hebrew roots in each name:
The Book of Enoch was indeed an ancient writing in the Jewish religion. However, it was not considered holy scripture. Likewise I am not implying in anyway that it is holy scripture either. But, that doesn't automatically make the contents of this book invalid nor untrue. I mean, if Jude, the brother of our Lord quoted from this book in his only contribution to our Holy Bible, then there has to be some merit to the writing. Upon further prodding into the history of this book, I also found that Jude wasn't the only early christian to employ this book. Other renowned christians from the first few centuries used it very often in their sermons and letters. Men like, Origen, Iraenus, and Jerome all have quoted and used this book. Probably the reason it was widely used by early christians is the fact that Christ is spoken of quite often in the book and that the conversion of the Gentiles is prevalent. But what really peaked my interest was what else is in the book. I got my hands on a translated copy of this ancient writing. And if this book is of the truth, then it brings more understanding to some very cryptic verses and gives us a whole different understanding about the flood and the events that led up to it. I preface this by reminding you that I do not consider the book to be "God Breathed". So you may either accept it's writings as truth or not. But regardless, it makes for an interesting read. So what does this strange book have to say? Well mostly, it covers the events that led to the flood. Specifically it defines in no uncertain terms what was meant in Genesis 6:1-9. This reading has always been a subject of question and debate. The scripture here begins with
Some say that this is a simple statement about the multiplying on the earth by men (being sons of God). But a careful examination of the Hebrew implies differently. The hebrew term bane el-o-heem' is translated here as "sons of God" and is only used a few times in scripture. Each time it is implicitly referring to angels. The Book of Enoch documents this event in detail and even presents us with the names of some of the offending angels that led about 200 angels to this action. Verse 4 here gives us more stangeness,
Now this english term giants here comes from nef-eel' in the hebrew (Nephalim would be the transliteration), which can imply large stature, but it is also from the root word, naw-fal' meaning fallen or cast down. These were abominations upon the earth but were mighty men of valour. They were most likely the roots of legends and myths in early cultures envolving the Titans and Hercules. The Book of Enoch refers to these extrordinary men as "the Watchers". All of this happened in what the book refers to as the "days of Jared". Let's stop for a second and go back to our list of names in Genesis 5. What did Jared's name mean? Shall Come Down. This could possibly be that other prophecy within a prophecy foretelling these angels coming down to earth. The Book of Enoch also tells us that these angels not only corrupted the seed of the earth, but also taught men hidden things of heaven that they weren't meant to know and introduced sorcery and metal forging to mankind. Enoch was close to God, so God gave him charge of being a liason to the offenders. Finally, God tells loyal angels to bind the fallen angels and cast them into an opening in the desert until judgement. Now with this in mind, let's look at a couple of scriptures that have always been a bit cryptic to us. First, there's another reference in Jude in verse 6 where Jude says
This sounds almost like another quote from the Book of Enoch. Also there's II Peter 2:4-5 which reads,
"Hell" in this verse comes from the Greek term, tar-tar-o'-o meaning the deepest part of the earth. This is also the only new testament usage of this term. The verse here even goes as far as to mention the flood in conjunction with this judgement. Well according to The Book of Enoch, the ulimate reason for the flood was the damage that these fallen angels did to God's creation. Mankind had become evil as a result of these happenings. Pay close attention to another wording there in Genesis 6 where it says:
I had always thought that "perfect in his generations" just meant that he was righteous in a generation that wasn't. But with this contamination of the world by angels under consideration, I speculate that this could more precisely mean that Noah's blood line or geneology was pure and free from the angelic corruption upon the earth. The rest of this book deals with Enoch's visits to heaven and hell as well as a few teachings and of course about his final translation into heaven. The next natural question is, why does any of this matter? To me, this was a fun and interesting journey that opens up a whole new possible idea to us about the earth's infancy. Like was stated at first, it also gives us an idea of who this Enoch was and why he was so special to God. But perhaps there is another modern application for this study as well. Matthew 24:37 tells us:
Of course, I know that in context here Jesus was explaining how that before the flood people were continuing on with their daily lives as usual up until the very end. And it will be that way again. But also remember that sometimes God likes to put these prophecies within prophecies. If the end times will be somewhat like the Days of Noah, then the more we know about the Days of Noah, the better prepared we will be.
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