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

Sect. V] Chapters CTII. 10— CIV. 1 259
15. And they helped those who robbed us and devoured us
and those who made us few ; and they concealed their oppres-
sion, and they did not remove from us the yoke of those that
devoured us and dispersed us and murdered us, and they con-
cealed their murder, and remembered not that they had lifted
up their hands against us."
Asmrances given to the BigJifeovs : Admonitions to Sinners
and the Falsifiers of the Words of Uprightness.
CIV. 1. I swear unto you, that in heaven the angels
'in our tribulation'. 14,15. These
verses furnish materials towards deter-
mining the date of 91-104. In 83-
90 the rulers are regarded as the
divinely appointed leaders of the right-
eous. In this section, on the other
hand, the rulers appear as the aiders
and abettors of the enemies of the
righteous. These enemies are the
Sadduoees, sinners, apostates, and
paganizers, while the righteous are
the Pharisaic party. The iisues be-
tween these parties as they appear
in this book could not have been so
clearly defined before the Maccabean
times. Nor again could this book
have been written before the breach
between John Hyrcanus and the
Pharisees. But the date must be
brought down still further, if we are
to explain literally such statements as
' dispersed us and murdered us ', and
' their murder ', where the murder of
the righteous is meant ; for there was
no blood spilt between the parties till
the reign of Jannaeus, 94 B. c. The
later limit is not hard to determine.
The close confederacy which here pre-
vails between the Saddacees and the
rulers did not exist under the Herodlan
princes, but only under the later Maccabean
princes. Hence this section was
written before 64 B.C., and may be
assigned either to the years 94-79 B.C.
or 70-64 B.C., during which periods the
S3
Pharisees were oppressed by the rulers
and Sadducees. But the rest of the sec-
tion is against taking the words ' mur-
der ', &o. literally. We should probably
regard them merely as the description
of a severe but not murderous persecu-
tion ;
see Special Introd. (pp. 221, 222).
15. They helped (iff,0). gmt 'you
have helped', q 'thou hast helped'.
The yoke of those that (gi(jm,foJ}). qt,
0-foJ> ' their yoke but' Dispersed
us and murdered us. These words
taken literally would apply well to the
actual destruction and dispersion of the
Pharisaic families under Jannaeus.
CIV. 1-6. Instead of answering
directly the wicked who have thus
derisively described the lot of the
righteous in this life, the author turns
to the righteous and addresses them.
This is exactly what he did in the
opening of 103. He returns to the
sinners in 104'"^ In these verses
the author practically concedes that the
wicked have rightly described the lot of
the righteous in this life ;
but he holds
out a sure hope, a hope however not to
be fulfilled in the transitory Messianic
kingdom on earth, but to be directed to
the blessed future that is awaiting them
in heaven : the angels are mindful of
them for good even now, and in due
time they will become ' companions of
the hosts of heaven'. 1. Unto
you. + ' ye righteous ' t'0. The angels
'