3 Enoch (Hebrew Enoch) 2
Each verse number opens that verse. The numbers follow Odeberg’s 1928 edition. 3 Enoch (Hebrew Enoch) has the history and the issues with this book.
- R. Ishmael said: In that hour the eagles of the Merkaba, the flaming ’Ophannim and the Seraphim of consuming fire asked Metatron, saying to him:
- “Youth! Why sufferest thou one born of woman to enter and behold the Merkaba? From which nation, from which tribe is this one? What is his character?”
- Metatron answered and said to them: “From the nation of Israel whom the Holy One, blessed be He, chose for his people from among seventy tongues (nations), from the tribe of Levi, whom he set aside as a contribution to his name and from the seed of Aaron whom the Holy One, blessed be He, did choose for his servant and put upon him the crown of priesthood on Sinai”.
- Forthwith they spake and said: “Indeed, this one is worthy to behold the Merkaba”. And they said: “Happy is the people that is in such a case!” (Ps. cxliv. 15).
Hugo Odeberg’s translation in 3 Enoch or The Hebrew Book of Enoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928). Public domain in the United States only, because the book was published in 1928. Odeberg died in 1973, so the translation is still under copyright in countries that count 70 years from the author’s death. The verses are transcribed from the Internet Archive scan 3enochorhebrewbo00unse (Princeton Theological Seminary Library); translation pages 22–23, missing from that scan, are from the scan ksigaxiienochorthehebrewbookofenoch_202012. Odeberg’s chapter summaries, critical apparatus, notes, and italics are left out, and the underdots in his transliterations are not reproduced. Where he prints parallel recensions in columns, the first column, which carries his base manuscript A, is used. His additional sections 15B, 22B, 22C, and 48B–48D are not included; chapter 48 is his 48A.