1 Enoch 103

CIII. Different Destinies of the Righteous and the Sinners: fresh Objections of the Sinners.

1Now, therefore, I swear to you, the righteous, by the glory of the Great and Honoured and*1-4. The writer turns to the righteous, and assures them from the heavenly tablets and the holy books that every good thing is in store for them.*A more solemn oath than in xcviii. 1, 4, 6, etc. 2Mighty One in dominion, and by His greatness I swear to you. I know a mystery And have read the heavenly tablets, And have seen the holy books, And have found written therein and inscribed regarding them: 3That all goodness and joy and glory are prepared for them, And written down for the spirits of those who have died in righteousness, And that manifold good shall be given to you in recompense for your labours, And that your lot is abundantly beyond the lot of the living.*Where are these blessings to be enjoyed, in Sheol, or in the spiritual theocracy set up after the final judgement? There seems to be only a resurrection of the spirit. 4And the spirits of you who have died in righteousness shall live and rejoice, And their spirits shall not perish, nor their memorial from before the face of the Great One Unto all the generations of the world: wherefore no longer fear their contumely. 5Woe to you, ye sinners, when ye have died, If ye die in the wealth of your sins, And those who are like you say regarding you: “Blessed are the sinners: they have seen all their days.*5-8. The wicked are not at an end after death. Darkness, chains and a burning fire await them. 6And now they have died in prosperity and in wealth, And have not seen tribulation or murder in their life; And they have died in honour, And judgement has not been executed on them during their life.” 7Know ye, that their souls will be made to descend into Sheol And they shall be wretched in their great tribulation.*See lxiii. 10 (note). Here, unlike in cii. 5, 11, it is the final place of punishment. Our text is a development of Jub. vii. 29, as it adds to Sheol one of the characteristics of Gehenna. See v. 8a. 8And into darkness and chains and a burning flame where there is grievous judgement shall your spirits enter; And the great judgement shall be for all the generations of the world. Woe to you, for ye shall have no peace. 9Say not in regard to the righteous and good who are in life: “In our troubled days we have toiled laboriously and experienced every trouble, And met with much evil and been consumed, And have become few and our spirit small.*9-15. An ironical description of the lot of the righteous. Cf. the Sadducean view in cii. 6, 7.*From this verse to the end of the chapter 1g stands frequently alone, exhibiting nearly sixty variations, mostly between ist and 3rd plurals. The MSS. evidence goes to prove that the 3rd person was original, for whereas 1g gives the 3rd person in all but seven instances (these are confined to vv. 14 and 15), all other MSS. with few exceptions give the 1st person. Thus the wicked assume the role of the righteous and speak in their person in ciii. 9-15. Yet in civ. 1-6 the author addresses his reply not directly to the sinners who have just spoken but to the righteous (cf. ciii. 1), and returns to the sinners in civ. 7-9.*Not 'humble 'but 'poor-spirited'. 10And we have been destroyed and have not found any to help us even with a word: We have been tortured [and destroyed], and not hoped to see life from day to day.*ɑ-1gt. So 1gt but with a change of persons. 'There has been none to help us in word or deed: we are powerless and have found nothing' t, β. 11We hoped to be the head and have become the tail: We have toiled laboriously and had no satisfaction in our toil; And we have become the food of the sinners and the unrighteous, And they have laid their yoke heavily upon us. 12They have had dominion over us that hated us† and smote us; And to those that hated us† we have bowed our necks But they pitied us not.*I think this is a dittograph from the line before, and 'that smote us' belongs to this line. Thus we have: 'They have had dominion over us hat hated us. And to those that smote us we have bowed our necks, But they pitied us not.' 13We desired to get away from them that we might escape and be at rest, But found no place whereunto we should flee and be safe from them. 14And we complained to the rulers in our tribulation, And cried out against those who devoured us, But they did not attend to our cries And would not hearken to our voice.*14, 15. These verses help to fix the date of xci-civ. In lxxxiii-xc the rulers appear as the divinely appointed leaders of the righteous. Here they are shown as the aiders and abettors of the persecutors. These enemies are the Sadducees, sinners, apostates, and paganizers. The righteous are the Pharisaic party. These issues only became clear in the Maccabean period, and after the breach between John Hyrcanus and the Pharisees. 'Dispersed' and 'murdered' point to Jannaeus, and the date 94-79 B.C. Possibly it is later, 70-64 B.C., when for the last time Sadducees and rulers acted in concert. 15And they helped those who robbed us and devoured us and those who made us few; and they concealed their oppression, and they did not remove from us the yoke of those that devoured us and dispersed us and murdered us, and they concealed their murder, and remembered not that they had lifted up their hands against us.