PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

1 Enoch 102:4-5
Be courageous, souls of the righteous who have died – souls of the righteous and
godly – and do not grieve that your souls have descended into Hades with grief
and your body of flesh has not been treated in accordance with your holy ways in
your life.
This encouragement is followed by a depiction of the oppressive sinners as those who
mock the idea of future post-mortal vindication, and rather choose to “eat, drink and be
merry” in the present, in 102:6-9.
As in Daniel and the Wisdom of Solomon, the “righteous” trust in the God who reveals his
“mysteries” to his persecuted people:
1 Enoch 103:1-3
I swear to you…. I understand this mystery…. That goodness and joy and honour
have been prepared and written down for the souls of those who have died while
godly.
Stuckenbruck reads this as a promise of reversal:
In the passage [103:1-4] the Enochic author promises the righteous a reversal of
the hard circumstances they have endured on earth; not only will they be restored
to life (v.4), they will be given an existence that is even better than “the lot of the
living” 28
The motif of reversal thus pervades this work, and invites hearers to patiently endure the
role of the righteous sufferer, as post-mortal vindication is awaited.
28 Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch, 518.
29