1 Enoch 87

1 Enoch 87

Verse 1

The verse describes a full out war and turmoil between human beings and the Nephilim, so that “the earth began to cry aloud.”

Verse 2

The verse describes beings that come from heaven who seem to be the seven Archangels.  The verse makes a distinction between four of them and three with them. 

Verse 3

The 3 archangels grasped Enoch and took him to a high place.

Verse 4

So that he would see the rest of the vision.

These last two verses describe an interaction between Enoch and his “vision”, it is hard to say what this part of the vision would represent.  What do the angels represent?  What does the viewer being taken to a high place represent?

For this reason this makes me think that this is the stage in the vision is Enoch’s present moment in which the vision switches from revelation of the past, into revelation of the future.

It would not be too foolish to assume that everything that Enoch has seen in the vision so far is what has happened before him, since Enoch was alive around this time after the population of the earth towards the beginning of the flood.  And as the angel tells him “’Remain here till thou seest everything that befalls those elephants, camels, and asses, and stars and the oxen, and all of them.’”

I then found out in 89:52 that Enoch sees Elijah join him in heaven.  Thus I conclude that this part of the vision actually represents the time he gets taken up to heaven. Since in 1 Enoch 89:52, Elijah actually joins him in heaven like if Enoch had been an interactive part of the vision all along.

It is interesting how Enoch saw all of this (the whole story of the world), and everything he was going to live through (the story of the world), in a vision before he lived through it.

June 2, 2012

2 Kings 3

2 Kings 3: 4-5

"Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams.  But when Ahab died the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel."

The "Mesha Stele" (a Moabite stone) was excavated in 1868 about 20 miles east of the dead sea in Jordan,

by Rev. Frederick Augustus Klein.

The stone is dated back to approximately 830 B.C. and is now kept in a museum in Paris.

On the stone is written King Mesha's own account of the rebellion mentioned in 2 Kings 3:4-5

and is as follows:

1. I am Mesha, son of KMSYT (Kemosh[-yat]), the king of Moab, the Di-
2. -bonite. My father was king of Moab thirty years, and I reign-
3. -ed after my father. And I built this high-place for Kemosh in QRH ("the citadel"), a high place of [sal-]
4. -vation because he saved me from all the kings (or "all the attackers"), and because let me be victorious over all my adversaries. Omr-
5. -i was king of Israel and he oppressed Moab for many days because Kemosh was angry with his
6. land. And his son replaced him; and he also said, "I will oppress Moab". In my days he spoke thus.
7. But I was victorious over him and his house. And Israel suffered everlasting destruction, And Omri had conquered the lan-
8. -d of Madaba, and he dwelt there during his reign and half the reign of his son, forty years. But Kemosh
9. returned it in my days. So I [re]built Baal Meon, and I the water reservoir in it. And I bu[ilt]
10. Qiryaten. The man of Gad had dwelt in Ataroth from of old; and the king of Israel
11. built Ataroth for him. But I fought against the city and took it. And I slew all the people [and]
12. the city became the property of Kemosh and Moab. And I carried from there the altar of/for its DVD ("its Davidic altar"?) and I
13. dragged it before Kemosh in Qerioit, and I settled in it men of Sharon m[en]
14. of Maharit. And Kemosh said to me, "Go! Seize Nebo against Israel." so I
15. proceeded by night and fought with it from the crack of dawn to midday, and I to-
16. -ok it and I slew all of them: seven thousand men and boys, and women and gi-
17. and maidens because I had dedicated it to Ashtar Kemosh I took [the ves-]
18. -sels of YHWH, and I dragged them before Kemosh. And the king of Israel had built
19. Yahaz, and he dwelt in it while he was fighting with me, but Kemosh drove him out before me. so
20. I took from Moab two hundred men, all his captains. And I brought them to Yahaz, And I seized it
21. in order to add (it) to Dibon. I (myself) have built the 'citadel', 'the wall(s) of the forest' and the wall
22. of the 'acropolis'. And I built its gates; And I built its towers. And
23. I built a royal palace; and I made the ramparts for the reservo[ir for] water in the mid-
24. -st of the city. But there was no cistern in the midst of the city, in the 'citadel,' so I said to all the people, "Make [for]
25. yourselves each man a cistern in his house". And I hewed the shaft for the 'citadel' with prisoner-
26. -s of Israel. I built Aroer, and I made the highway in the Arnon.
27. I built Beth-Bamot, because it was in ruins. I built Bezer, because it was
28. a ruin [with] the armed men of Dibon because all of Dibon was under orders and I ru-
29. -led [ove]r [the] hundreds in the towns which I have annexed to the land. And I bui-
30. -lt Medeba and Beth-Diblaten and Beth-Baal-Meon, and I carried there [my herdsmen]
31. [to herd] the small cattle of the land, and Horonain, in it dwelt the house of [D]VD...
32. [and] Kemosh [s]aid to me, "Go down, fight against Horonain". And I went down [and I fou-
33. -ght with the city and I took it and] Kemosh [re]turned it in my days. Then I went up from there te[n...]
34. [...a high] place of justice and I [...]