1 Enoch 93
Study resource: not ScriptureR. H. Charles translation (1917) · public domain
1And after that Enoch both gave and began to recount from the books.
2And Enoch said: ‘Concerning the children of righteousness and concerning the elect of the world, And concerning the plant of uprightness, I will speak these things, Yea, I Enoch will declare (them) unto you, my sons: According to that which appeared to me in the heavenly vision, And which I have known through the word of the holy angels, And have learnt from the heavenly tablets.’
3And Enoch began to recount from the books and said: ‘I was born the seventh in the first week, While judgement and righteousness still endured.
4And after me there shall arise in the second week great wickedness, And deceit shall have sprung up; And in it there shall be the first end. And in it a man shall be saved; And after it is ended unrighteousness shall grow up, And a law shall be made for the sinners.
5And after that in the third week at its close A man shall be elected as the plant of righteous judgement, And his posterity shall become the plant of righteousness for evermore.
6And after that in the fourth week, at its close, Visions of the holy and righteous shall be seen, And a law for all generations and an enclosure shall be made for them.
7And after that in the fifth week, at its close, The house of glory and dominion shall be built for ever.
8And after that in the sixth week all who live in it shall be blinded, And the hearts of all of them shall godlessly forsake wisdom. And in it a man shall ascend; And at its close the house of dominion shall be burnt with fire, And the whole race of the chosen root shall be dispersed.
9And after that in the seventh week shall an apostate generation arise, And many shall be its deeds, And all its deeds shall be apostate.
10And at its close shall be elected The elect righteous of the eternal plant of righteousness, To receive sevenfold instruction concerning all His creation.
11[For who is there of all the children of men that is able to hear the voice of the Holy One without being troubled? And who can think His thoughts? and who is there that can behold all the works of heaven?
12And how should there be one who could behold the heaven, and who is there that could understand the things of heaven and see a soul or a spirit and could tell thereof, or ascend and see all their ends and think them or do like them?
13And who is there of all men that could know what is the breadth and the length of the earth, and to whom has been shown the measure of all of them?
14Or is there any one who could discern the length of the heaven and how great is its height, and upon what it is founded, and how great is the number of the stars, and where all the luminaries rest?]
The chapter, studied
The Weeks of the World, Counted From Enoch Himself
Enoch recounts world history as a sequence of "weeks," claiming to speak from what he "learnt from the heavenly tablets." He places his own birth in the first week, then traces the next six weeks through a man who is saved from a great wickedness, an elect man whose descendants become "the plant of righteousness," a revealed law, a house of glory, a man who ascends followed by a house burned with fire, and finally an apostate generation. The chapter closes by asking who could ever fully grasp the width of the earth, the height of the heavens, or the number of the stars.
Enoch opens by placing himself precisely inside the timeline: "I was born the seventh in the first week." That detail matches how the New Testament itself identifies him: Jude calls him "Enoch, the seventh from Adam" — which gives a Christian reader real confidence that this scheme is counting generations the same way Genesis and Jude both do.
The weeks that follow read as a compressed sketch of Old Testament history for anyone who already knows the story: "great wickedness" and "a man...saved" in the second week (the flood and Noah); a man "elected" whose "posterity shall become the plant of righteousness for evermore" in the third week (Abraham and his line); "a law for all generations and an enclosure" in the fourth week (Sinai); "the house of glory and dominion...built for ever" in the fifth week (Solomon's Temple); a man who "ascends" followed by "the house of dominion" being "burnt with fire" in the sixth week; and an "apostate generation" in the seventh, the writer's own troubled era. No figure is named outright, the chapter speaks in types, but the shape tracks the Old Testament's own history closely.
The chapter's second half (vv.11-14) turns from history to humility: who can measure "the breadth and the length of the earth," count the stars, or say "where all the luminaries rest"? It is the same kind of question Job hears out of the whirlwind: a reminder that even a visionary who has "learnt from the heavenly tablets" still stands under a wisdom he cannot fully search out.
Read together with chapter 91's weeks eight through ten, this "Apocalypse of Weeks" gives the whole Epistle its backbone: history has a fixed count and moves toward a real judgment, a conviction the woes that follow simply assume rather than argue for again.
Doors into the 66
- Jude 1:14 — "I was born the seventh in the first week" matches Jude's own description of Enoch as "the seventh from Adam".
- Genesis 7:1 — "a man shall be saved" amid "great wickedness" in the second week stands beside Noah's rescue from the flood.
- Job 38:4 — the questions of vv.13-14 about measuring the earth echo the Lord's own questions to Job out of the whirlwind.
- 1 Kings 8:13 — "the house of glory and dominion" built in the fifth week stands beside Solomon's building of the Temple.
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 after that Enoch both gave and began to recount from the books.
2And Enoch said: ‘Concerning the children of righteousness and concerning the elect of the world, And concerning the plant of uprightness, I will speak these things, Yea, I Enoch will declare (them) unto you, my sons: According to that which appeared to me in the heavenly vision, And which I have known through the word of the holy angels, And have learnt from the heavenly tablets.’
3And Enoch began to recount from the books and said: ‘I was born the seventh in the first week, While judgement and righteousness still endured.
4And after me there shall arise in the second week great wickedness, And deceit shall have sprung up; And in it there shall be the first end. And in it a man shall be saved; And after it is ended unrighteousness shall grow up, And a law shall be made for the sinners.
5And after that in the third week at its close A man shall be elected as the plant of righteous judgement, And his posterity shall become the plant of righteousness for evermore.
6And after that in the fourth week, at its close, Visions of the holy and righteous shall be seen, And a law for all generations and an enclosure shall be made for them.
7And after that in the fifth week, at its close, The house of glory and dominion shall be built for ever.
8And after that in the sixth week all who live in it shall be blinded, And the hearts of all of them shall godlessly forsake wisdom. And in it a man shall ascend; And at its close the house of dominion shall be burnt with fire, And the whole race of the chosen root shall be dispersed.
9And after that in the seventh week shall an apostate generation arise, And many shall be its deeds, And all its deeds shall be apostate.
10And at its close shall be elected The elect righteous of the eternal plant of righteousness, To receive sevenfold instruction concerning all His creation.
11[For who is there of all the children of men that is able to hear the voice of the Holy One without being troubled? And who can think His thoughts? and who is there that can behold all the works of heaven?
12And how should there be one who could behold the heaven, and who is there that could understand the things of heaven and see a soul or a spirit and could tell thereof, or ascend and see all their ends and think them or do like them?
13And who is there of all men that could know what is the breadth and the length of the earth, and to whom has been shown the measure of all of them?
14Or is there any one who could discern the length of the heaven and how great is its height, and upon what it is founded, and how great is the number of the stars, and where all the luminaries rest?]
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.