1 Enoch 103
Study resource: not ScriptureR. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
1Now, therefore, I swear to you, the righteous, by the glory of the Great and Honoured and
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The chapter, studied
The Oath: Your Lot Is Better Than the Living Think
Enoch swears by God's own greatness that he has read "the heavenly tablets" and seen the fate written there for the righteous dead. He promises that everything good is stored up for "the spirits of those who have died in righteousness," that their reward far exceeds anything available to the living, and that their memory before God will never perish.
This chapter answers the doubt chapter 102 let the sinners voice. Enoch does not merely reassert comfort: he swears it, grounding the oath in something he claims to have actually seen: "I have read the heavenly tablets, and have seen the holy books, and have found written therein" (vv.2).
The promise itself is specific rather than vague: "your lot is abundantly beyond the lot of the living" (v.3), and the righteous dead "shall live and rejoice," their spirits not perishing "nor their memorial from before the face of the Great One unto all the generations of the world" (v.4). Whatever this section of the book goes on to say beyond what survives here, what remains closes on assurance rather than doubt.
For a Christian reader, the shape of the argument, real suffering now, a hidden record being kept, a reward that outweighs present appearances, runs in the same direction Paul takes it: present suffering "not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed," though 1 Enoch reaches that comfort by oath and vision, not by the resurrection of Christ.
Doors into the 66
- Romans 8:18 — the reward that outweighs present suffering stands beside Paul's own reasoning that present sufferings are "not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us".
- Daniel 12:13 — "your lot is abundantly beyond the lot of the living" echoes the promise given to Daniel himself: "thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days".
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.
1Now, therefore, I swear to you, the righteous, by the glory of the Great and Honoured and
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.