Enoch 83
1 And now, my son Methuselah, I will show thee all my visions which I have seen, recounting them before thee.
2 Two visions I saw before I took a wife, and the one was quite unlike the other: the first when I was learning to write: the second before I took thy mother, when I saw a terrible vision. And regarding them I prayed to the Lord.
3 I had laid me down in the house of my grandfather Mahalalel, when I saw in a vision how the heaven collapsed and was borne off and fell to the earth.
4 And when it fell to the earth I saw how the earth was swallowed up in a great abyss, and mountains were suspended on mountains, and hills sank down on hills, and high trees were rent from their stems, and hurled down and sunk in the abyss.
5 And thereupon a word fell into my mouth, and I lifted up my voice to cry aloud, and said: 'The earth is destroyed.'
6 And my grandfather Mahalalel waked me as I lay near him, and said unto me: 'Why dost thou cry so, my son, and why dost thou make such lamentation?'
7 And I recounted to him the whole vision which I had seen, and he said unto me: 'A terrible thing hast thou seen, my son, and of grave moment is thy dream-vision as to the secrets of all the sin of the earth: it must sink into the abyss and be destroyed with a great destruction.
8 And now, my son, arise and make petition to the Lord of glory, since thou art a believer, that a remnant may remain on the earth, and that He may not destroy the whole earth.
9 My son, from heaven all this will come upon the earth, and upon the earth there will be great destruction.
10 After that I arose and prayed and implored and besought, and wrote down my prayer for the generations of the world, and I will show everything to thee, my son Methuselah.
11 And when I had gone forth below and seen the heaven, and the sun rising in the east, and the moon setting in the west, and a few stars, and the whole earth, and everything as He had known it in the beginning, then I blessed the Lord of judgement and extolled Him because He had made the sun to go forth from the windows of the east, and he ascended and rose on the face of the heaven, and set out and kept traversing the path shown unto him.
Common Questions About Enoch 83
What is the first of Enoch's two early dream-visions described in chapter 83?
Before he married, while staying at his grandfather Mahalalel's house, Enoch dreamed that the heaven collapsed and fell to earth, the earth was swallowed into a great abyss, mountains crashed onto mountains, and trees were torn up and hurled into the abyss, a vision so terrifying that he cried out 'the earth is destroyed' and woke his grandfather.
How does Mahalalel interpret Enoch's vision, and how does Enoch respond?
Mahalalel tells Enoch that the vision reveals the secret of the earth's coming sin and its destruction, and urges him to pray that God would preserve a remnant rather than destroy the whole earth; Enoch does so, and afterward, seeing the sun rise and moon set in their ordinary courses, he blesses the Lord of judgment for keeping the natural order intact despite what he had seen.
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Questions to Think About
- Enoch's grandfather doesn't dismiss his terrifying dream but takes it seriously and directs him toward prayer rather than panic. When you're shaken by something disturbing, whether a dream, a fear, or bad news, who in your life helps direct that fear toward prayer rather than despair?
- After his terrifying vision, Enoch finds comfort in the ordinary, faithful rising of the sun and setting of the moon. What ordinary, reliable rhythms in your own life remind you that God's faithfulness continues even after a frightening or unsettling experience?
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