the-book-of-enoch-r-h-charles - Fallen Angels

Sect. IV Chapter LXXXIX. 60-63 201
everything that I shall command you that do ye. 60. And
I will deliver them over unto you duly numbered, and tell you
And
which of them are to be destroyed—and them destroy ye."
He gave over unto them those sheep. 61. And He called
another and spake unto him: "Observe and mark everything
that the shepherds will do to those sheep ; for they will destroy
more of them than I have commanded them. 62. And every
excess and the destruction which will be wrought through the
shepherds, record (namely) how many they destroy according to my
command, and how many according to their own caprice :
record
against every individual shepherd all the destruction he effects.
63. And read out before me by number how many they destroy,
and how many they deliver over for destruction, that I may have
this as a testimony against them, and know every deed of the shep-
herds, that I may comprehend and see what they do, whether or
seventy shepherds is » development of
the seventy years of Jeremiah, j ust as
the writer of Daniel had seen in Jere-
miah's seventy years seventy periods,
and the four divisions into which the
seventy shepherds fall correspond to the
four world empires in Daniel. It is
idle, however, to seek for chronological
exactness in the four periods into which
the writer of Enoch divides all history
between the fall of Jerusalem and the
Messianic kingdom. These four periods
are thus divided: 12 + 23 + 23 + 12.
No system, whether of Hilgenfeld,
Volkmar, or Wieseler, which attributes
a like number of years to each shep-
herd, can arrive at any but a forced
explanation of these numbers. As
8chiirer remarks, this division is
merely intended to denote two longer
periods coming between two shorter.
The limits of these periods are on
the whole not difficult to determine.
The first period begins with the attack
of Assyria on Israel, and ends with the
return from the captivity under Cyrus,
896i-7i_ The second extends from
Cyrus to the conquests of Alexander,
332 B.C., 89"-". The third extends
from this date to the transference of
the supremacy over Israel from the
Graeco-Egyptian to the Graeco-Syrian
power, 90^-''. The fourth extends
from this date, about 200 B.C., to the
establishment of the Messianic kingdom,
90''-". 60. Duly num-
bered. The number in each instance
to be destroyed was a definite one.
61. Another. According to 90". ^2
this ' another ' is an archangel and the
guardian angel of Israel, and hence,
probably, Michael. This task of the
heavenly scribe whs in the Babylonian
religion performed by NabCi, in the
Egyptian by Tliot. Here it is Michael
in all probability. But in 12^"^- 15^ 92^
it lias devolved on Enoch, in 4 Ezra
1^22-25 ojj Ezra, whereas in 2 Enoch
22" 'ii- on Vretil (? Dabriel as in Jel-
line's Belli lia-Midrasch, p. 180, accord-
ing to Kohler). See K. A. T? 400 sq.
63. Destroy. + ' of their own caprice
hce/hnpx. Comprehend = 'gmatte-
nouift. Emended from 'gwattSnomft
'