Week 1 Genesis 5
Enoch caught my attention because he was described a bit differently than the other men in the Adam-to-Noah list.
He also caught my attention because I was reading about him last December – about three weeks ago. The NT letter from Jude said that Enoch said: the Lord is coming with thousands of his holy ones. He will bring the people of the world to judgment. He will convict the ungodly of all the evil things they have done…and of all the insults that godless sinners have spoken against him.
I remember checking for the cross-reference to Jude’s quote and found out that Enoch actually didn’t say this back in Genesis. So I made a mental note of that and since I’m reading about Enoch I spent some time figuring out who Jude was quoting. I had to go outside-the-bible.
Turns out that Jude was quoting Enoch but he wasn’t quoting the OT.
Turns out that Enoch wrote a book called The Book of Enoch and in it he said: and behold! He comes with ten thousand Holy Ones to execute judgement upon them, and to destroy the impious, and to contend with all flesh, concerning everything that the sinners, and the impious, have done and wrought against Him.
So Jude’s version is more an idea-for-idea rendition than a word-for-word quote. Maybe he wrote it from memory.
Note: quotes from Jude 14-15 (NLT) and The Book of Enoch 1:9 translated by M. Knibb 1978 & found today at http://www.bookofenoch.org/ENOCH-McCracken2020.pdf