1 Enoch / Chapter 43

1 Enoch 43

4 verses • Ge'ez (Ethiopic)

Translator's Introduction

What This Chapter Is About

Enoch sees flashes of lightning and the stars of heaven. He asks the angel about the lightning and is told that the flashes represent the stars themselves in their blessed state. The stars are called by name and answer the Lord of Spirits, each keeping its ordained course.

What Makes This Chapter Remarkable

The personification of stars as obedient servants who answer when called by name echoes Isaiah 40:26 ('He calls them all by name') and Baruch 3:34-35 ('The stars shone in their watches and were glad; he called them, and they said Here we are!'). The cosmos is presented as a community of obedient worshipers.

Translation Friction

The relationship between lightning and stars is obscure — the Ge'ez text may be describing a visionary experience where celestial phenomena blend together, or it may reflect a cosmological theory linking lightning to stellar activity. The chapter is very brief and may be fragmentary.

Connections

Isaiah 40:26 — God calls stars by name. Baruch 3:34-35 — stars respond 'Here we are!' Psalm 147:4 — God counts and names the stars. Job 38:31-33 — God governs stellar constellations. The obedient-stars motif contrasts with the 'stars that transgressed' in 1 Enoch 18:13-16.

1 Enoch 43:1

Ge'ez: wa-re'iku berhanāta — 'and I saw lightnings'

I saw other lightnings and the stars of heaven, and I saw how he called them all by their names and they responded to him.

REF And I saw other lightnings and the stars of heaven, and I saw how He called them all by their names and they hearkened unto Him.

Notes & Key Terms

Translator Notes

  1. God calling stars 'by name' implies intimate knowledge and sovereign authority — naming in the ancient world conferred power over the named. The stars' obedient response ('they hearkened') contrasts with the disobedient stars/angels of 1 Enoch 18:13-16 who left their prescribed courses.
1 Enoch 43:2

Ge'ez: wa-re'iku meznāhomu — 'and I saw their balance/measure'

I saw how they are measured on a righteous balance according to their proportion of light. I saw the width of their spaces and the day of their appearing, how their revolution produces lightning. I saw their circuit according to the number of the angels, and how they keep faith with one another.

REF And I saw how they are weighed in a righteous balance according to their proportions of light: I saw the width of their spaces and the day of their appearing, and how their revolution produces lightning: and I saw their revolution according to the number of the angels, and how they keep faith with each other.

Notes & Key Terms

Translator Notes

  1. The 'righteous balance' applied to stars parallels the moral weighing of human deeds in 41:1. The same standard of justice governs both cosmic and human realms.
  2. Stars 'keeping faith with each other' (as in 41:4) extends the covenant metaphor to the entire cosmos. The created order is a web of mutual faithfulness — a moral universe where deviation is the exception, not the rule.
1 Enoch 43:3

Ge'ez: wa-se'alku mal'aka — 'and I asked the angel'

I asked the angel who accompanied me and showed me what was hidden: 'What are these?'

REF And I asked the angel who went with me who showed me what was hidden: 'What are these?'

Notes & Key Terms

Translator Notes

  1. Enoch's question follows the standard apocalyptic dialogue pattern: the seer observes, asks, and receives interpretation. The brevity of the question here suggests either textual damage or a deliberately terse literary style in this cosmological section.
1 Enoch 43:4

Ge'ez: wa-yebēlani — 'and he said to me'

He told me: 'The Lord of Spirits has shown you their symbolic meaning. These are the names of the holy ones who dwell on earth and believe in the name of the Lord of Spirits forever and ever.'

REF And he said to me: 'The Lord of Spirits hath showed thee their parabolic meaning: these are the names of the holy who dwell on the earth and believe in the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.'

Notes & Key Terms

Translator Notes

  1. The interpretive key: the stars represent the righteous who live on earth. Each named star corresponds to a named holy one whose faithfulness mirrors stellar obedience. This astral symbolism for the righteous appears also in Daniel 12:3 ('those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever').
  2. The identification of stars with righteous humans closes the cosmological-ethical circle: the same order that governs the heavens governs moral reality.
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