1 Enoch 101
Study resource: not ScriptureR. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
1Observe the heaven, ye children of heaven, and every work of the Most High, and fear ye Him and work no evil in His presence.
2If He closes the windows of heaven, and withholds the rain and the dew from descending on the earth on your account, what will ye do then?
3And if He sends His anger upon you because of your deeds, ye cannot petition Him; for ye spake proud and insolent words against His righteousness: therefore ye shall have no peace.
4And see ye not the sailors of the ships, how their ships are tossed to and fro by the waves, and are shaken by the winds, and are in sore trouble?
5And therefore do they fear because all their goodly possessions go upon the sea with them, and they have evil forebodings of heart that the sea will swallow them and they will perish therein.
6Are not the entire sea and all its waters, and all its movements, the work of the Most High, and has He not set limits to its doings, and confined it throughout by the sand?
7And at His reproof it is afraid and dries up, and all its fish die and all that is in it; but ye sinners that are on the earth fear Him not.
8Has He not made the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein? Who has given understanding and wisdom to everything that moves on the earth and in the sea?
9Do not the sailors of the ships fear the sea? Yet sinners fear not the Most High.
The chapter, studied
The Sailors Fear the Storm; The Sinners Fear Nothing
Enoch calls his readers to observe the heavens and fear the Most High who made them. He points to sailors, who fear the sea because it carries everything they own, and to the sea itself, which "is afraid and dries up" at God's reproof: then contrasts both with sinners on dry land, who fear nothing at all.
The argument works by comparison rather than direct threat: even hardened sailors "fear" the sea because their goods and lives ride on it, and the sea itself shrinks back "at His reproof" (v.7): yet human sinners, who owe their whole existence to the same Maker, "fear Him not" (v.9). The natural world outperforms humanity at basic reverence.
This is a nature-argument in a very Old Testament key: creation obeying its Maker as a rebuke to the creature who won't. It reads like a compressed version of the Psalms' praise of a sea that has been given "limits" and is "confined...by the sand" (v.6), except turned outward here as an accusation rather than inward as worship.
The chapter's closing question: "Do not the sailors of the ships fear the sea? Yet sinners fear not the Most High" — lands as one clean, memorable line, the kind of nature-to-morality argument a reader of the Psalms will recognize instantly even without a direct quotation anywhere in the chapter.
Doors into the 66
- Psalms 107:23 — "the sailors of the ships" in sore trouble on the waves stands beside the Psalm's picture of those "that go down to the sea in ships".
- Jonah 1:5 — sailors afraid amid a storm at sea echoes the mariners of Jonah's ship who "were afraid, and cried every man unto his god".
Teachers on this ground
R. H. Charles
The Book of Enoch (1917)
The public-domain translation this shelf reads, with the critical introduction the field still builds on.
Johnny Enlow
The Book of Enoch: Paraphrase and Commentary (2025)
A living teacher's paraphrase of the whole book with his own running commentary, from the prophetic stream.
1Observe the heaven, ye children of heaven, and every work of the Most High, and fear ye Him and work no evil in His presence.
2If He closes the windows of heaven, and withholds the rain and the dew from descending on the earth on your account, what will ye do then?
3And if He sends His anger upon you because of your deeds, ye cannot petition Him; for ye spake proud and insolent words against His righteousness: therefore ye shall have no peace.
4And see ye not the sailors of the ships, how their ships are tossed to and fro by the waves, and are shaken by the winds, and are in sore trouble?
5And therefore do they fear because all their goodly possessions go upon the sea with them, and they have evil forebodings of heart that the sea will swallow them and they will perish therein.
6Are not the entire sea and all its waters, and all its movements, the work of the Most High, and has He not set limits to its doings, and confined it throughout by the sand?
7And at His reproof it is afraid and dries up, and all its fish die and all that is in it; but ye sinners that are on the earth fear Him not.
8Has He not made the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein? Who has given understanding and wisdom to everything that moves on the earth and in the sea?
9Do not the sailors of the ships fear the sea? Yet sinners fear not the Most High.
The language it was written in
Aramaic (the Qumran fragments' language); parts possibly Hebrew. The Parables (chs. 37–71) have no Qumran witness and their original language is debated.
What survives, and where
Aramaic: Dead Sea Scrolls
Eleven fragmentary manuscripts from Qumran Cave 4 covering every section except the Parables (3rd c. BC – 1st c. AD).
Greek
Substantial portions: chs. 1–32 (Codex Panopolitanus), quotations in Syncellus, and the Chester Beatty papyrus of the Epistle.
Ge’ez (Ethiopic)
The only complete text, preserved by the Ethiopian church, whose canon receives the book; the base of every full translation.
What you are reading here
R. H. Charles's 1917 English translation, made from the Ge’ez against the Greek and Aramaic evidence then known — public domain, quotable in full.
No tagged word floor exists for the Aramaic or Ge’ez text; word-by-word study on this shelf awaits a future ingest. What stands here is the manuscript story itself.