1 Enoch 26
Study resource: not ScriptureR. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
1And I went from thence to the middle of the earth, and I saw a blessed place in which there were trees with branches abiding and blooming [of a dismembered tree].
2And there I saw a holy mountain, and underneath the mountain to the east there was a stream and it flowed towards the south.
3And I saw towards the east another mountain higher than this, and between them a deep and narrow ravine: in it also ran a stream underneath the mountain.
4And to the west thereof there was another mountain, lower than the former and of small elevation, and a ravine deep and dry between them: and another deep and dry ravine was at the extremities of the three mountains.
5And all the ravines were deep and narrow, (being formed) of hard rock, and trees were not planted upon them.
6And I marvelled at the rocks, and I marvelled at the ravine, yea, I marveled very much.
The chapter, studied
The Navel of the Earth
Enoch travels to the middle of the earth and sees a blessed, tree-covered place, a holy mountain with a stream flowing south beneath it, and a set of neighboring mountains and dry ravines that make up a strikingly ordered landscape.
"The middle of the earth" is the chapter's key phrase, and Second Temple readers understood the geography this way: Jerusalem sits at the earth's center, and this holy mountain is best read as that same reference point. The careful, ringed arrangement of mountains, streams, and ravines continues the tour's habit of finding meaning-laden order in landscape rather than random terrain.
The scene sets up chapter 27's turn directly: the deep, dry, tree-less ravine among these blessed mountains turns out not to be neutral emptiness but reserved ground for judgment, so the wonder Enoch expresses here: he "marvelled... very much" — is the reader's first hint that something is being withheld from full explanation.
Doors into the 66
- Ezekiel 5:5 — echoes Jerusalem set 'in the midst of the nations' as the earth's reference point
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.
Michael S. Heiser
A Companion to the Book of Enoch: A Reader's Commentary, Vol. I — The Book of the Watchers (2019)
A verse-by-verse reader's commentary on chapters 1–36: the closest thing in print to a study Bible for this section.
1And I went from thence to the middle of the earth, and I saw a blessed place in which there were trees with branches abiding and blooming [of a dismembered tree].
2And there I saw a holy mountain, and underneath the mountain to the east there was a stream and it flowed towards the south.
3And I saw towards the east another mountain higher than this, and between them a deep and narrow ravine: in it also ran a stream underneath the mountain.
4And to the west thereof there was another mountain, lower than the former and of small elevation, and a ravine deep and dry between them: and another deep and dry ravine was at the extremities of the three mountains.
5And all the ravines were deep and narrow, (being formed) of hard rock, and trees were not planted upon them.
6And I marvelled at the rocks, and I marvelled at the ravine, yea, I marveled very much.
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.