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

Sect. V.] Chapter CIII. 4-9. 295
peace. 9. Say not in regard to the righteous and good who
9. From this verse to the end of this chapter the variations
are nearly sixty in G alone, but these are mainly between the
1st and 3rd plurals in the verbs and the corresponding suffixes,
verbal and substantival. G favours throughout the 3rd pi.,
whereas G 1 in the main agrees with Din. in giving the 1st pi.
The question now arises on which person, the 1st or 3rd,
are we to decide. The evidence of the MSS. would go to prove
that the 3rd 'person was the original ; for in about fifty instances
Din. gives the 1st person and never the 3rd; G gives the 3rd
person in all, except seven instances, confined to vv. 14 and
15. All other MSS. agree with Din. And the evidence of the
context is in the same direction, ciii. 9-15 are pronounced deri-
sively by the sinners of the righteous. For in cii. 6-8, when the
sinners declare that the righteous live in trouble and darkness
and have no advantage over the wicked beyond the grave, the
author (10) in reply points to the nature of their death and the
purity of their life. To this the sinners rejoin (11), 'despite all
that they go down to Sheol in woe as we.' The author now
addresses himself first to the righteous (ciii. 1-4) and then to the
sinners. In the case of the latter he gives their glorification of
their own life (5, 6) and their depreciation of the life of the
righteous (9-15). In these verses the wicked describe the wretched-
ness and helplessness of the present life of the righteous, just as in
cii. 6, 7 they had described the wretchedness of the future of the
righteous. The author could not, as Din. imagines, represent the
departed righteous who were in bliss as discouraging the righteous
who were still living, and as arraigning, as it were, the justice
of God. At the close of these words the author addresses his
reply (civ. 1-6) not directly to the sinners who have just spoken
but to the righteous, just as in the opening of ciii, and returns to
15. These verses are in the mouth of with the future life of the righteous,
the wicked a sarcastic description of In these verses the wicked show that
the lot of the righteous : see ciii. 9, in every respect the life of the right-
Crit. Note. As in vv. 5, 6, the eous on earth is a wretched one and
wicked extol the life of the wicked, contrary to every expectation raised
so here they depreciate the life of by the O.T.: in fact the righteous
the righteous—the earthly life, for suffer all the penalties that were to
in cii. 6, 7 they had similarly dealt befall the wicked. 9. In regard