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.8.At that time I said: “How terrible this place is, and painful to look at!” 9.At that time answered Uriel, one of the holy angels, who was with me; he answered and said to me: “Enoch, why such fear and terror in thee concerning this terrible place and in the presence of this pain?” 10.And he said to me:“This is the prison of the angels, and here they are held to eternity.”CHAP.17.With this chapter commences the account by Enoch of a trip through heaven and earth in company with angels.1.With the word they the writer joins his account to the previous, referring to agents in the preceding narrative as the subject.As the following clearly show, the subject of took are the angels, chap.12.What is stated, Gen.v.24, of God is said here of the angels, for our verse has evidently been fashioned after that passage.These fiery images are, notwithstanding Dillmann’s objections, probably angels.In 14:11 we also have the Cherubim, and 19:1 states that angels can assume different forms, and in the Old Testament the angels are seldom known as such when they first appear; and adding to this the general indefinite character of the angelology of this first portion of the book, and the passages Dan.x.16; Tob.xii.19,.Hoffmann’s interpretation of angels is undoubtedly correct.—2, 3.He, indefinite subject; Place of the whirlwind, probably from Job xxxvii.9.—3.As thunder is joined with lightning the places here are shining.The writer’s views are principally based on Job xxxvi.30-37; v.15; xxxviii.25; cf.En.41:3; 44:59 (60:13-15).Bow, with which the arrows, i.e.the lightning, are shot, according to Ps.vii.12, 13; Hab.iii.9; Lam.ii.4; iii.12, and the arrows as in Ps.xviii.14; lxxvii.17, 18; and cxliv.6; the quiver, Lam.iii.12, 13; the sword, Ps.vii.12; Deut.xxxii.41.—4.Water of life, cf.the fountain of life, in Prov.x.11; xiii.14; xiv.27; xvi.22; but water of life, Apoc.xxii.17.The fire in the west is the great mass of fire from which the sun daily receives its necessary portion, 23:4; 72:4.—5, 6.It is curious that a writer whose object it is to oppose the entrance of Greek ideas should resort to Greek myths himself for his ideas, for that his statements here are not based on Old Testament premises is self-evident.The river of fire is the GTR, Od.10, 513.That he mentions only this one stream by name, and that one, too, being an unimportant one in the lower world of the Greeks (cf.Preller.Gr.Mythologie, 3d ed., p.671 sq.) finds its explanation in its name, as suiting the connection.This stream of fire empties into the Okeanos, an idea indeed strange to the Greeks, who, however, locate Hades near the Okeanos; cf.Hesiod, Theogony, 744, 760, 767, 779 (all later interpolations in Hes.cf.Flach, Die Hes.Gedichte, p.58).Enoch’s description is very much like Virgil’s, Aen.vi.259, 323, 549 sqq.All the great rivers, i.e.probably the other rivers of the lower world.Where all flesh wander is Hades, cf.chap.22.The Old Testament pictures Sheol as the receptacle of all the dead, in 1 Kings ii.2; Job xxx.23; Ps.lxxxix.48.—7.What is meant by these mountains is uncertain, as nothing like it is found in the Old Testament.CHAP.18, 1.The winds are kept by God in repositories, on which cf.Job xxxvii.9-13; Jer.x.13; li.16; Ps.cxxxv.7, and En.34-36; 41:4; 60:11, 12; and the object of such repositories is given Job xxxviii.22 sqq.The foundations of the earth is a frequent biblical expression, cf.Isa.xxiv.18; Jer.xxxi.37; Mich.vi.2; Ps.xviii.15; lxxxii.5; Prov.viii.29.—2.Corner-stone of the earth, cf.Job xxxviii.6, and in general Ps.xxiv.2; lxxxix.11; Prov.iii.19; xxx.4; Isa.xlviii.12.The four winds carrying the earth is probably the author’s explanation of Job xxvi.7, with the assistance of Job ix.6 and Ps.lxxv.3.—3.The pillars of heaven, Job xxvi.11, are here declared to be the winds, for by their expansion they support the heavens.—4.distinct from the winds that support the heavens are those that turn the heavens and the luminaries; cf.72:5; 73:2.—5.A third class of winds are those that carry the clouds; evidently an explanation of Job xxxvi.29; xxxvii.16.The paths of the angels on which they as servants of God and mediums of revelation descend from the heavenly home, 15:10, on the earth, as in Jacob’s dream, Gen.xxviii.12 sqq.It is aptly brought in here in connection with the winds.—6.From the west, whither he had gone, 17:4, Enoch now proceeds to the south.It burns, being in the south.The seven hills are in a group, six of them forming an angle.In the division of the earth between the sons of Noah, so minutely recorded in the book of the Jubilees, chap.8, it is stated, p.37, that the hills of fire formed a portion of Ham’s inheritance.—7.Those to the south are red, probably because the heat is more intense there.—8.In the angle formed by the six others stands the seventh, like the throne of God, of sapphire, after Ezek.I.26.—10.In the south he again sees the great Okeanos.—11.He is still in the south, where naturally the pool of fire, as the place of punishment for the angels, could be expected.Without number, in the sense of which cannot be numbered, a clause modifying the following words.Heavenly fire, the same as in Gen.xix.24; Ps.xi.6; Ezek.xxxviii.23.—12.The place here pictured is a different one from the preceding, as chap.21, which enlarges on these topics, shows.—13.This latter place is occupied by disobedient stars.The seven is simply a round number, cf [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]