1 Enoch 87
Study resource: not ScriptureR. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
1And again I saw how they began to gore each other and to devour each other, and the earth began to cry aloud.
2And I raised mine eyes again to heaven, and I saw in the vision, and behold there came forth from heaven beings who were like white men: and four went forth from that place and three with them.
3And those three that had last come forth grasped me by my hand and took me up, away from the generations of the earth, and raised me up to a lofty place, and showed me a tower raised high above the earth, and all the hills were lower.
4And one said unto me: ‘Remain here till thou seest everything that befalls those elephants, camels, and asses, and the stars and the oxen, and all of them.’
The chapter, studied
Taken Up to Watch the Judgment
The violence spreads until the oxen gore and devour each other and the earth itself cries out. Enoch sees beings "like white men" descend from heaven, four, then three more, and the last three seize him, lift him up, and set him on a high tower above the hills to watch what happens to the giants and the fallen stars.
The "white men" descending from heaven are the book's picture of holy, obedient angels, deliberately set against the fallen stars of chapter 86: both descend, but one group comes to corrupt and the other to execute judgment. Enoch is not left to watch from the ground; he is physically lifted "to a lofty place" above the coming devastation, a visionary device the book uses again in the chapters that follow.
The command given to Enoch: "Remain here till thou seest everything that befalls those elephants, camels, and asses, and the stars and the oxen" — makes plain that judgment, not the corruption itself, is the point of this section of the vision. The reader has already been shown the sin; now the text turns to consequence.
Enoch as an observer taken up to watch heavenly acts belongs to a visionary pattern scripture itself uses: a shared convention of apocalyptic literature for staging a scene too large to watch from ground level.
Doors into the 66
- Revelation 4:1 — "A door was opened in heaven… Come up hither" is the same lifting-up-to-watch device John experiences before his own judgment visions.
- Ezekiel 8:3 — "The spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven" gives Ezekiel the same elevated vantage this chapter grants Enoch on the tower.
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.
1And again I saw how they began to gore each other and to devour each other, and the earth began to cry aloud.
2And I raised mine eyes again to heaven, and I saw in the vision, and behold there came forth from heaven beings who were like white men: and four went forth from that place and three with them.
3And those three that had last come forth grasped me by my hand and took me up, away from the generations of the earth, and raised me up to a lofty place, and showed me a tower raised high above the earth, and all the hills were lower.
4And one said unto me: ‘Remain here till thou seest everything that befalls those elephants, camels, and asses, and the stars and the oxen, and all of them.’
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.