3 Enoch (Hebrew Enoch) 42
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: Metatron, the Angel, the Prince of the Presence, said to me: Come and I will show thee, where the waters are suspended in the highest, where fire is burning in the midst of hail, where lightnings lighten out of the midst of snowy mountains, where thunders are roaring in the celestial heights, where a flame is burning in the midst of the burning fire and where voices make themselves heard in the midst of thunder and earthquake.
- Then I went by his side and he took me by his hand and lifted me up on his wings and showed me all those things. I beheld the waters suspended on high in ‘Araboth Raqia‘ by (force of) the name YAH ’EHYE ’ASHER ’EHYE (Jah, I am that I am), and their fruits going down from heaven and watering the face of the world, as it is written (Ps. civ. 13): “(He watereth the mountains from his chambers:) the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy work”.
- And I saw fire and snow and hailstone that were mingled together within each other and yet were undamaged, by (force of) the name ’ESH ’OKELA (consuming fire), as it is written (Deut. iv. 24): “For the Lord, thy God, is a consuming fire”.
- And I saw lightnings that were lightening out of mountains of snow and yet were not damaged (quenched), by (force of) the name YAH SUR ‘OLAMIM (Jah, the everlasting rock), as it is written (Is. xxvi. 4): “For in Jah, YHWH, the everlasting rock”.
- And I saw thunders and voices that were roaring in the midst of fiery flames and were not damaged (silenced), by (force of) the name EL-SHADDAI RABBA (the Great God Almighty) as it is written (Gen. xvii. 1): “I am God Almighty”.
- And I beheld a flame (and) a glow (glowing flames) that were flaming and glowing in the midst of burning fire, and yet were not damaged (devoured), by (force of) the name YAD‘AL KES YAH (the hand upon the Throne of the Lord) as it is written (Ex. xvii. 16): “And he said: for the hand is upon the Throne of the Lord”.
- And I beheld rivers of fire in the midst of rivers of water and they were not damaged (quenched) by (force of) the name ‘OSE SHALOM (Maker of Peace) as it is written (Job xxv. 2): “He maketh peace in his high places”. For he makes peace between the fire and the water, between the hail and the fire, between the wind and the cloud, between the earthquake and the sparks.
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.