The book of Enoch : translated from Professor Dillmann's Ethiopic ...

Sect. v.] Chapters XCL iS — XC/If. 2. 271
gracious to the righteous and will give him eternal upright-
ness, and will give him power, and he will live in goodness
and righteousness, and will walk in eternal light. 5. And
sin will perish in darkness for ever, and will no more be seen
from that day for evermore.
XCIII. 1. And after that Enoch began to recount from
the books. 2. And Enoch spake :
l Concerning the children
of righteousness and concerning the elect of the world and
the plant of uprightness—of these I will speak to you and
sleep, will arise.' 4. To the righteous. G reads tofc&fa ' to
righteousness.'
XCIII. 1. For W G reads wVM.. 2. Plant of uprightness.
grace. These words are further explained
in ver. 4. 4. Power.
Uprightness and power will no longer
be dissevered. In eternal light: see
xxxviii. 4 (note). 5. Cf. x. 16, 20.
XCIII. 1-10. In these verses we
have an account of the great events
of the world during the first seven
weeks of its history. These seven
belong to the past, the three last
weeks described in xci. 12-17 belong
to the future. As this Apocalypse
of Weeks comes from a different au-
thor and date to the Dream-visions,
lxxxiii-xc, we are relieved of the
task of harmonizing them, on which
many critics have laboured and to no
purpose. We are not to regard the
ten weeks as being definite and equal
periods of 700 years each, as Wieseler,
Hoffmann, and others have done ;
for,
not to press the fact that this reckon-
ing would place the book after Christ,
the facts recorded as occurring in the
individual weeks would not fall within
the limits assigned them by this
theory. Dln.'s scheme of seventy
generations of varying length, seven
generations to each week, is still more
unsatisfactory. In the first five weeks,
seven actual generations are taken
for each week ; but in the sixth and
seventh weeks fourteen or more gene-
rations are compressed into the needful
seven. .Rather we are to regard the
ten weeks as periods of varying
length, each one of which is marked,
especially towards its close, by some
great event—the first by the birth of
Enoch : the second by the corruption
of primitive man and the Flood : the
third by the call of Abraham : the
fourth by the revelation of the law
and the occupation of Palestine : the
fifth by the building of the Temple
the sixth by the apostasy of Israel
and the destruction of the Temple
the seventh by the publication of
Enoch's writings. Cf. also Le Livre
d? Henoch, par T. G. Peter, Geneve,
1890. 1. From the books. These
were either written by Enoch, ac-
cording to some sections ; or by the
angel that accompanied him, accord-
ing to others : cf. xxxiii. 3,4; xl. 8
lxxiv. 2; lxxxi. 1, 2. In the next
verse Enoch appeals to visions, angels,
and the heavenly tables, as the source
of his revelations. 2. These dis-
closures are for the children of right-
eousness : cf. xcii. 1 . The elect of
the world. This designation of the
elect is not found elsewhere in Enoch.
The plant of uprightness : see x.