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Bible Dictionaries
Enoch
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
or ("consecrated".)
1. Cain's oldest son; and the city (probably a village of rude huts) which he built and named after him (Genesis 4:17-18). The similarity of names in Cain's line and Seth's line is no proof of the persons being identical, for many of the seemingly like names are from distract roots. Moreover, the fewness of names at that early time, and the relationship and occasional intercourse between the families, account for the similarity or identity of the other names. Details are given especially as to Lamech and Enoch, marking the utter distinctness of those so named in the two lines.
2. Son of Jared; father of Methuselah. Seventh from Adam (seven indicating divine completeness, Enoch typifying perfected humanity). As angels fell to the earth by transgression, so this man was raised to heaven by pleasing God (Irenaeus, 4:15, sec. 2). Of Noah and Enoch alone it is written that they "walked with God" (Genesis 5:24; Genesis 6:9); others "walked before God" (Genesis 17:1). But walking with God is a relic of the first paradise when man talked and walked with God in holy familiarity, and an anticipation of the second (Revelation 21:3; Revelation 22:3-4). The secret spring of his walk with God was "faith"; faith was the ground of his" pleasing God" (which answers to "walking with God" in Genesis 5, compare Amos 3:3); his "pleasing God" was the ground of his being "translated that he should not see death" (Hebrews 11:5-6).
"Translation" implies a sudden removal from mortality to immortality without death, such as shall pass over the living saints at Christ's coming (1 Corinthians 15:51-52), of whom Enoch is a type. After the monotonous repetition of the same record of patriarchs, "lived" so many years, "begat sons and daughters, ... and he died," the account of Enoch's walk with God and translation without death stands forth in brighter relief. His years, 365 (the number of days in one year), were fewer, than his predecessors'; but in his fewer years there was that to record which was not in their immensely lengthened years, he moreover begat sons and daughters, and yet found family ties no hindrance to his walking with God as a family man. Nay, it was not until "after he begat Methuselah" that it is written "Enoch walked with God." God's gift of children awakened in him a new love to God and a deeper sense of responsibility.
Enoch in the antediluvian generation, and Elijah in the postdiluvian, witnessed before Christ in their own persons to the truth of the resurrection of the body and its existence in heaven. The fathers mostly made them the two witnesses slain by the beast, but afterward raised to heaven (Revelation 11). This view, if true, would be one answer to the objection against their translation, that "it is appointed unto men once to die" (Hebrews 9:27), and that "death passed upon all men for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). Enoch's translation was an appropriate testimony to the truth he announced, "Behold the Lord cometh ... to execute judgment" in the face of a mocking, infidel world. Judges 1:14 stamps with inspired sanction the current TRADITION of the Jews as to Enoch's prophecies. The language "Enoch prophesied, saying," favors tradition rather than the Book of Enoch being the source from whence Jude drew.
So Paul mentions Jannes and Jambres the Egyptian magicians, names drawn from tradition, not from Scripture (2 Timothy 3:8). Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and others allude to the Book of Enoch Bruce the Abyssinian traveler brought home three Ethiopic copies from Alexandria, which Lawrence translated in 1821. The Ethiopic was translated from the Greek, the Greek from the Hebrew. The Apostolic Constitutions, Origen (contra Celsus), Jerome, and Augustine deny its canonicity.
It vindicates God's government of the world, spiritual and natural, recognizes the Trinity, also Messiah "the Son of man" (the name "Jesus" never occurs), "the Elect One" from eternity, before whom "all kings shall fall down, and on whom they shall fix their hopes," the supreme Judge, who shall punish eternally the wicked and reward the just. If the book belong to the period just before our Lord's coming, it gives an interesting view of believing Jews' opinions concerning Messiah at that time. No sure proof establishes its existence before the Christian era.
3. Third son of Midian, Abraham's son by Keturah (Genesis 25:4).
4. Reuben's oldest son, head of the family of Hanochites (Genesis 46:9; Numbers 26:5). See HANOCH for a fourth Enoch, so the KJV has it.
These files are public domain.
Fausset, Andrew R. Entry for 'Enoch'. Fausset's Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/fbd/e/enoch.html. 1949.
