1 Enoch 58
Study resource: not ScriptureR. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
1And I began to speak the third Parable concerning the righteous and elect.
2Blessed are ye, ye righteous and elect, For glorious shall be your lot.
3And the righteous shall be in the light of the sun, And the elect in the light of eternal life: The days of their life shall be unending, And the days of the holy without number.
4And they shall seek the light and find righteousness with the Lord of Spirits: There shall be peace to the righteous in the name of the Eternal Lord.
5And after this it shall be said to the holy in heaven That they should seek out the secrets of righteousness, the heritage of faith: For it has become bright as the sun upon earth, And the darkness is past.
6And there shall be a light that never endeth, And to a limit (lit. ‘number’) of days they shall not come, For the darkness shall first have been destroyed, [And the light established before the Lord of Spirits] And the light of uprightness established for ever before the Lord of Spirits.
The chapter, studied
Blessed Are the Elect: The Third Parable Opens
Enoch begins "the third Parable concerning the righteous and elect," pronouncing them blessed: theirs will be "the light of the sun" and "the light of eternal life," days without number, and peace "in the name of the Eternal Lord." The chapter promises a light that never ends, once darkness itself has been destroyed.
The Third Parable opens, like the first two, with a formal declaration of subject, "concerning the righteous and elect", and moves immediately into beatitude language, blessing the righteous before any judgment scene is described. The repeated pairing "light of the sun... light of eternal life" treats ordinary daylight as a picture of, not a substitute for, the unending light still to come.
"The darkness is past" and "the darkness shall first have been destroyed" frame darkness itself, not merely sinners, as the thing that must be removed before the light can be established "for ever before the Lord of Spirits": judgment clears the way for the promised blessing rather than only punishing wrongdoers.
Doors into the 66
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. II — The Parables of Enoch (2020)
The reader's commentary continued into the Son of Man visions of these chapters.
1And I began to speak the third Parable concerning the righteous and elect.
2Blessed are ye, ye righteous and elect, For glorious shall be your lot.
3And the righteous shall be in the light of the sun, And the elect in the light of eternal life: The days of their life shall be unending, And the days of the holy without number.
4And they shall seek the light and find righteousness with the Lord of Spirits: There shall be peace to the righteous in the name of the Eternal Lord.
5And after this it shall be said to the holy in heaven That they should seek out the secrets of righteousness, the heritage of faith: For it has become bright as the sun upon earth, And the darkness is past.
6And there shall be a light that never endeth, And to a limit (lit. ‘number’) of days they shall not come, For the darkness shall first have been destroyed, [And the light established before the Lord of Spirits] And the light of uprightness established for ever before the Lord of Spirits.
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.