ENOCH CHAPTER 1 ~ 10

THE BOOK OF ENOCH

The Book of Enoch is a canonical book in the Ethiopian Bible. It disappeared from Jewish interest by the end of the first centuries C.E., perhaps because of its messianic references to the Son of Man (Enoch 46ff.), which were used effectively by Christian apologists. It was later opposed by Christians because of its support for a twelve-month calendar with a focus on the Sabbath, which was becoming less and less acceptable to a Sunday-observing church, and so lost its valued position among most Christians after the council of Laodicea in 364, although it was still found quoted outside the Coptic tradition as late as the eighth century. The twelve-month calendar was also superseded by the intercalated lunar calendar in Rabbinical Judaism, effectively producing another barrier against the books of Enoch and Jubilees. Neither of these considerations applied to the Ethiopian church, which explains why the book survived there without break down to the present day.

Most scholars consider the book of Enoch to have been written in the main during the Maccabean period mid-second century B.C.E., but Ethiopian tradition attributes it to the Prophet Enoch himself. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian all considered the book authentic and canonical, mainly because it is clearly quoted in Jude 14-15. Enoch 39:12 reflects Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8, to mention only one outstanding example of canonical quotation. The book of Enoch is actually extensively paraphrased in the Greek Scripture, so that to exclude it from the canon while including those books that quote it authoritatively is inconsistent.

My versification relies on direct examination of the Ethiopic text or Greek, Latin and Aramaic fragments only in a very few passages. For the most part I have been dependent on the translation of Richard Laurence and R. H. Charles, or comments of George W. E. Nichelsburg, James C. VanderKam, Richard Laurence, R. H. Charles, George H. Schodde, Geza Vermes and Joshua Williams. In a few matters I have drawn my own conclusions.
Like the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Enoch is unusual in showing a configuration of characteristics in common with the Qur’an. The advanced angelology is the most evident of such aspects, but the similarity to judgement concepts augments that greatly. I find that the expression eretz Hamda in Psalm 106:24 is reflected in Enoch 89:40, where I translate the expression on that basis as “land of Muhammad”, ignoring the Ethiopic. A similar situation applies in Enoch 90:20. Considering that scholars disagree on what the original text might have been, one cannot be dogmatic on such a tenuous detail. The parallel nonetheless exists.

The extent of Enochian mysticism is astounding, being widespread not only in Jewish tradition, but Christianity and Islam as well. As such, this book should be interesting to a wide range of people. Its limited distribution until the 19th century explains, however, the fact that it has so largely been neglected. What follows may be a contribution, not in terms of scholarship, for the commentator can make no claims in that area for an Ethiopic text, but in terms of a literary and mystical contemplation.

The Book of Enoch, set in earliest time
Reveals the history of the world in rhyme
From fallen watchers to ten thousand years
That grace the universe as it appears.
I see with Enoch heaven’s tablet set
Portraying revelation in things met
And every action, thought, and word in seed
As though a thing eternally decreed,
And yet reflecting every hand’s free greed
That springs up in the good or evil deed.
I see with Enoch every passing cloud,
Its rains and snows and dews preaching aloud
The glories of Your days and weeks and name.
I see with Enoch, my Beloved, Your fame.

Week 1. Section I. Chapters 1-36 The Watchers

ENOCH 1

1 The words of Enoch’s blessing, by
Which he blessed the elect in sky
And righteous on earth, who will be
Living in troublous day’s decree
When all the wicked and godless
Are to be removed for redress.
2 And he took up his parable
And said heart and mind being full,
Enoch, a righteous man, whose eyes
Ælohim opened by surprise,
Saw visions of the Holy One
In the heavens, angels for fun
Showed me, and from them I heard all,
And from them understood the call,
But not unto this generation,
But rather for a remote nation
Which is to come. 3 Of the elect
I spoke, and took up my select
Parable about them. 4 The great
And holy One will come in state
Out from His dwelling, Ælohim
Eternal will tread, it may seem,
Upon the earth, even upon
Mount Sinai, [coming like the dawn
From His camp] and appearing in
The strength of His power from the sky,
The heaven of heavens. 5 And all that spy
It shall be struck with fear, for sin
The Watchers shall quake, and great fear
And trembling shall seize far and near
Unto the ends of the earth here.
6 And the high mountains shall be shaken,
And the high hills made low, forsaken,
Shall melt like wax before the flame.
7 Earth shall be wholly rent asunder,
All on earth perish at His name,
For judgement upon all and thunder.

If Enoch’s words were written for a time
And generation remote from his clime,
It must be Ethiopia he means
And the faiths that remain upon its scenes,
And those folk still obscure in Rome and Greece,
For hardly anyone else reads the fleece.
Or else his words were written for the world
In the seventh week when the troubled curled
Upon all flesh shall bow backs under keen
Apostasy darker than that yet seen.
I read the words of Enoch, and I flee
From the great and common apostasy,
The Judeo-Christian Islamic sea
To find in You, Beloved, eternity.

8 But with the righteous He’ll make peace,
To protect the elect, increase
Mercy upon them. And they shall
Belong to Ælohim, and shall
Prosper, and they shall all be blessed.
And He will help them all for best,
And light shall appear to them, and
He’ll make peace with them in the land.

But with the righteous people You shall make
Peace or Islam in all for the world’s sake.
The chosen few who give You in Your due
The glory and the praise that will accrue
In mercy with each prayer begun to show
That Your divine oneness is here below,
Are those who from the dish belong to You.
Beloved, I see prosperity at hand
And blessing flowing through all of the land,
And yet Your light is near invisible
And Your help seems to come to those whose full
Garners of violence have risen high.
Send down a flame out of the riven sky
Upon the towers of the darkened strand.

9 And indeed, He shall come with ten
Thousands of His holy ones then
To execute judgement on all,
And to destroy ungodly thrall,
And to convict all flesh of all
The works of their ungodliness
That they have wickedly committed,
And of all the hard things remitted,
That ungodly sinners confess
Spoken against Him in badness.

Before Moses sang of creation’s due,
The blessèd Enoch knew and sang what’s true
Not only of the judgement of all men,
But of Sinai, and Your appearance then
In thunder and in glory and in cloud
To speak to humankind all in that crowd
In seed and loin, and so I cogitate
Sinai’s fair scenes prophetic and not late
With eyes of faith and hearing of the word
That millennium echoed and hearts stirred.
At Sinai You made peace, Beloved, Islam
With all the world to be born in that calm,
And ratified it till like wax again
Shall melt the earth and even hearts of men.

ENOCH 2

1 Observe everything that takes place
In the sky, how they change their race,
In orbits, and the luminaries
In the sky, in their functionaries
How they all rise and set in order
Each in its time, without rewarder
Fail not of their appointed order.

When Stonehenge was created it bespoke
The commandment that Enoch once awoke
To write in solace for the lonely sky:
Command to watch the stars go marching by.
When the earth mounds the Hopewell site were tall
Against the ravages of western wall
Their ramparts fled not before Your first call
To see the order of the moon and sigh.
Beloved, all things are now lost in the rate
Of calculation and the greater fate
Of speciality at heaven’s gate.
My tin roof magnifies the herd of rain
And dulls the soundings of my human pain,
But closes me off from seeing the train.

2 Look at the earth, and give heed to
What happens on it, things not few,
From first to last, how faithfully
And without change, by God’s decree
His works appear to you, 3 see how
The summer and the winter bow
In circuit, the whole earth is filled
With water, clouds and dew distilled
With rain upon it wonderfully.

In winter I observe the glowing sky
At mid-morning red on the southern try,
A fire indeed, and yet a frozen flame
That looks down on a world in icy claim,
And praise, Beloved, again Your lovely name.
In summer when I waken from my sleep
And gaze through darkened trees before the deep
Glow of the white night sky in the earth’s game
Of whirling at the sun and without shame,
I praise, Beloved, again Your gloried fame.
As seasons pass I linger at the gate
That raises me to gaze on Your estate
And wonder that the incommensurate
Enters the human heart early and late.

ENOCH 3

Observe and see how all the trees
In winter seem in their degrees
To wither and shed all their leaves,
But fourteen kinds whose green achieves
Unlost old foliage two or three
Until they all sprout in their leaves.

Fourteen infallibles grace the world’s rim,
But few outside the law know her and him.
The evergreen trees still remind my soul,
How far they stretch from this place to their goal,
Saw-toothed horizon girding half the earth
And showing but a drop of those souls’ worth.
Beloved, let me swim in the air around
The spinning ball of world and hear the sound
Of Your praise on the lips of tree and ground
That spread abroad out through the northlands’ bound.
The evergreens still sprout their narrow leaves
To guide my heart and mind in Your reprieves,
And strike my soul with loving memory
Of Your true names beneath each greening tree.

ENOCH 4

Again observe the summer days,
Sun above the earth in its rays.
Then seek your shade and shelter from
The sun’s heat and its rays that come
On earth with growing, burning heat,
Not to tread on earth with bare feet,
Nor on a rock for intense heat.

In Turkey by the grand Euphrates stream
I meet the coming summer heat and beam.
The young ones all jump off the moving bus
To dip themselves and cooling from the fuss
Of pilgrimage within that shadeless brook
And then return to see the driver’s look
And hear complaint for every dampened seat.
Out to the tombs of hajji and to meet
The local saints for sacrifice and feet
That dance out wedding circles on the stone
Too hot to touch, and yet the oaks atone
Where all the little goats are stretched to eat,
Beloved, meet me in Turkey and once more
We shall feast at Hajji Kuresh tomb door.

ENOCH 5

1 Observe how the trees sprout with green
Leaves and bear fruit where they are seen,
So take heed and know all His works,
And recognize He never shirks,
But lives always to make them so.
2 And all His works in this way go
On thus from year to year for aye,
And all the tasks they finish by
Him do not change under the sun,
But as ordained, so it is done.

All things of your creation make me see
How from beginning to eternity
You never shirk. Let me not take shirk now
Caressing some graven image’s brow,
But constant as the grazing multitude
Of what You made in flower and field and wood
Take on the round of doing as I should
From week to week and day to night somehow.
Who knows if nature herself feels temptation
To part from Your divine set contemplation
To seek a path untrodden, unknown, great?
Who knows if man is unique in his state
Imagining he makes free choice to slate
Originality as his rebate?

3 And look how the sea and the streams
In the same way fulfil their schemes
From His commandments without change.
4 But you, unsteadfast in your range,
Have not done the commands of YHWH,
But you have turned away to do
And speak proud and hard words with your
Impure mouths against His great power.

The little horn of Daniel stands up here
To speak words proud and harsh and full of gear
Against the Most High and Anointed one.
I see that Enoch saw this before done.
The little horn speaks softly, full of grace
And mercy as though coming from Your face
Today as it proclaims Your law is void
And Sabbath is a day no more employed.
Beloved, let me be like the sea and streams
To keep Your law as faithfully as seems
The waters to run downhill as they flow,
Or beat upon the sand and rocky shore.
Then I shall have pure mouth to say Your name
And not be guilty of such horrid shame.

You hard-hearted, you’ll find no peace.
5 Therefore shall you and without cease
Regret your days, and all the years
Of your life shall perish in fears,
And your destruction’s years shall be
Multiplied and eternally
In execration, and you shall
Find no mercy. 6 In those days shall
You make your names an eternal
Execration unto all who
Are righteous, and by you all who
Curse, shall curse, and all sinners and
Godless imprecate by your hand,
And for you the godless there shall
Be a curse. 7 And all of these . . . shall
Rejoice, and for sins there shall be
Forgiveness of sins, and mercy
And peace and forbearance, there shall
Be salvation unto them, and
A goodly light. On other hand,
For all of you sinners there shall
Be no salvation, but on you
Shall abide a curse hereunto.

It is the matter of cursing that brings
Distinction between princes and their kings.
All may have sinned but some gain the release
From guilt and punishment because Your peace
Falls on those who lift up Your gracious name
In reverence and in repentance’ claim.
Who lift Your name ungodly but to show
Instead of repenting the way they go
Are those who abuse Your name and are made
To be an imprecation where they stayed.
Beloved, give me salvation that is found
In Your mercy for those who bow to ground,
And for the ones who lift Your name in praise
And not to vain idols in babbling craze.

But for the elect there shall be
Light, joy and peace eternally,
And they shall inherit the earth.

Both Psalm and Jesus quote this blessèd word
That Your meek ones shall from their poverty
Arise in faith and hope to fill the sea
With Your praises once their hearts have been stirred
And once their great salvation has occurred.
The meek elect reign in light, joy to see
Islam or Your peace and eternally,
Or so I have from that blessed word inferred.
Belovèd, bless David’s pure heart to find
The strength to quote these lovely words and true.
Bless Jesus for his witness to Your own.
Bless every divine guide sent with the kind
And holy message that brings me to You.
Bless those who bow before Your righteous throne.

8 And then there’ll be bestowed a worth
Of wisdom upon the elect,
And they shall all live and reflect,
And never sin again, not through
Ungodliness or pride to do,
But they who are wise shall be humble.
9 And they shall not be ones to stumble
Transgressing, never shall they sin
All the days of their life to win,
Nor die of the divine anger
Or wrath, but they’ll at last concur
To complete the number of days
Of their life. And their lives shall stay
Increased in peace, and the years of
Their joy shall be added in love,
In eternal gladness and peace,
All days of their life shall not cease.

I see the morning sky behind the trees
From the bed were I lie waked by the breeze,
And in their round of growth in green and blowing,
And in their winter sleep after the sowing,
I see the changeless cycles of Your deep
And sacred universe above my sleep.
The spirits that guard all the marvels of
Your great creation in eternal love
Let nothing fall except by Your command.
So year by year the willows, aspens stand.
The chambered printing of the backlit green
Is like a vision to my heart unseen,
And in that vision I arise to do
As unceasingly Your will as the view.

ENOCH 6

1 And it happened when sons of men
Had multiplied in those times then
Were born to them beautiful and
Lovely daughters, then angels’ band,
The children of the sky, saw and
Lusted for them, said each to each,
2 “Come, let us choose us wives like peach
From among the children of men
And get us also some children.”

The sons of God in Genesis account
Turn out here to be angels in amount.
I might have thought the sons of God were those
Who minded p’s and q’s upon their toes
And obeyed every statute that arose
In Your instruction from Your wisdom’s fount.
So son of God is angel, though such are
Created and not born to be a star.
Beloved, a son of man set here below,
I look into the sky to see the show,
And wonder what the angels there aloft
Are thinking about as they gaze down oft
On me and mine. I doubt experiment
In gene splicing is now what angels meant.

3 And Semjaza, who was their leader,
Said to them, “I fear as a pleader
That you indeed will not agree
To do this deed, and shall go free,
While I alone shall have to pay
The penalty of a great sin.”
4 And they all answered him to say,
“Let us all swear an oath and spin
Upon ourselves curses if we
Abandon this plan treacherously.”

This swearing is a thing I must avow
Always results in tragedy somehow.
No wonder the brave dunkards threw the lot
Of swearers out of dunkard house and plot.
So angels swore to do the wrong together
Despite the change in circumstance or weather.
Beloved, let me not join in covenant
With any in the city where they rant
Of virtue and perfume. Let me remain
In piety of nature without stain
Of promises I cannot, should not keep.
Let me remain till angels learn to weep.
Beloved, the company is charged with all
The stealth that keeps its wealth within the stall.

5 Then they swore all together and
Bound themselves under curses’ band.
6 And they were in all two hundred,
In days of Jared descended
Upon the top of Mount Hermon,
And so they called it Mount Hermon,
Because they had sworn binding them
By curses in their stratagem.
7 And these are the names of their leaders,
Samlazaz, their leader of feeders,
Araklba, Rameel, as well
As Kokablel, Tamlel, Ramlel,
And Danel, and Ezeqeel,
Baraqijal, and Asael,
And Armaros, and Batarel,
Ananel, Zaqlel, Samsapeel,
Satarel, Turel, Jomjael,
And Sariel, their chiefs of tens,
Arrayed parade and regimens.

Instinct to reproduce is set by You,
Beloved, for those created things that do.
To follow instinct is obeying true,
But following example of creation
Instead of staying in the righteous station
That You appoint, is gross unnaturalness.
Each in its place is something that You bless.
Each out of place receives the curse of all
And gets turned out of sacred, blessèd hall.
I see that even holy angels fall,
Beloved, I flee to You to do Your will
And so escape the punishment and pill.
Let me in love obey Your commands still
As seeing the unseen celestial hill.

ENOCH 7

1 And all the others together
With them took them wives for each fer,
And each chose for himself one, and
They started going in the land
To defile themselves with them, 2 and
They taught them charms and enchantments,
And the cutting of roots for sense,
And gave knowledge of every plant.
3 And the women became pregnant,
And each gave birth to great giant,
And whose height was three thousand ells,
Who consumed all men’s seeds and shells.
4 When they could no longer keep them,
The giants turned fast against them,
5 And ate up people, birds, and beasts,
And reptiles, and fish, in their feasts
They also ate each other up,
And washed it down with blood in cup.
6 So earth itself came to accuse
The lawless ones for their abuse.

The violence that Noah saw before
The Flood was one of a far greater store
Than man to man against the dark intruder.
A threatened man is not a quiet brooder.
But giants are another thing indeed
As Hollywood has taught the modern breed.
The vision of Enoch is greater yet
Than what’s portrayed, I think, on screen in jet.
The fabled serpent with two heads was not
One with a greater appetite that got
Its patron into trouble with its greed.
Beloved, let me not feed the monster held
In bosom, loved, and then at last propelled
Out with loathing for what should have been quelled.

ENOCH 8

1 And Azazel taught men to make
Swords, and knives, and shields for his sake,
And breastplates, and made known to them
The earth metals and stratagem
Of working them, and bracelets, and
Ornaments, and then the demand
Of antimony, and the way
To beautify of eyelids gay,
And every kind of costly stone,
And colourings of root and bone.
2 And there arose much godlessness,
And fornication to excess,
And all of them were led astray,
And became corrupt in their way.

Azazel is the fallen angel that
Taught military industry the fat
Is found in selling fear since human pouch
For containing fear’s never full, I vouch,
Though stomach is soon filled with wheat and corn.
Such policy for marketing was born
Long before the United States found out
The profit lay in turning round about
And selling arms to both sides in the rout.
Such greed and graft was known too long before
The empire hit upon the British shore
To guide the world to light and bombs galore.
Beloved, I see the ornaments return
Shining in the light of cities that burn.

3 Semjaza taught enchantments, and
Root-cuttings, Armaros command
To solve enchantments, the angel
Baraqijal astrology,
The constellations Kokabel,
Ezeqeel clouds’ symmetry,
Araqiel the signs of earth,
Shamsiel signs of the sun’s dearth,
And Sariel the moon in course.
And as men perished under force,
They cried in anguish, and their cry
Went up, went up into the sky.

The arts of fallen angels still hold sway
Upon the earth I walk from day to day.
Metal and ointments still gain upper hand
For violence and beauty in the land.
And fornication and enchantments find
An eager following of fair and blind.
The sun and moon and stars still tell the folk
Their future and their fortune at a stroke.
And men in anguish still lift up a prayer,
Mute often for not knowing Your name there,
And hope oppression might find change of air.
And after all the centuries I trow
Your hearing is the same both then and now.
Rise up, Beloved, and take hold of the plough.

ENOCH 9

1 And then Michael, Uriel, and
Raphael, and Gabriel in band
Looked down from heaven and saw much blood
Shed on the earth, the lawless flood
Of what was done on earth. 2 And they
Said one to each other “Earth’s way
In desolation cries with voice
Of their weeping up to the choice
Gates of the sky. 3 And now to you,
The holy ones of heaven, view
The souls of men that make their suit,
Saying ‘Bring our cause of dispute
Before the Most High.’” 4 And they said,
To the Lord of the ages said
“Lord of lords, God of every god,
King of kings, and Ælohim shod
With ages, the throne of Your glory
Stands to all generations’ story,
And Your name holy, glorious and
Blessed unto all the ages grand!

The four archangels kept four sacred gates
And at their posts stand waiting for estates
Of humankind to rest them in Your will.
They raise the prayers of every Jack and Bill
Against the evils of both air and earth
Until the floods assuage and become dearth.
Michael like God opens the gate of law
For Uriel, Your light, to come in awe,
Your healing with Raphael, awareness,
Makes way for Gabriel, hero, to bless
My cries often to You, Beloved, until
They savour of the salt, honey, and fill
Your courts with angel songs that bear witness.
Beloved, I move among the gates’ address.

5 “You’ve made all things, and have all power,
And all things are naked in flower
Before Your sight, and You see all
And nothing hides from You at all.
6 “You see what Azazel has done,
Who has taught all the wicked fun
On earth and gave away the deep
Eternal secrets that You keep
In heaven, which men strove to learn,
7 “And Semjaza You did not spurn
To give authority to rule
Over his fellows played the fool
And they have gone to human girls
Upon the earth, and slept like churls
With women, 8 “and they have defiled
Themselves, and revealed to them wild,
Wicked sins. 9 “And the women gave
Birth to giants, such to enslave
The whole earth thereby to be filled
With unrighteousness and blood spilled.
10 “And now, indeed, the souls of those
Who have died cry against their foes
Up to the gates of heaven, and their
Lamentations have filled the air,
And cannot cease because of deeds
Of lawlessness done on earth’s weeds.
11 “And You know all things before they
Come to pass, and You see the fray,
And You allow them, do not say
To us what we’re to do to them
Because of what they haw and hem.”

“You’ve made all things and have all power” in brief
Is principle of thought before relief
Of any sort of philosophic dream.
You are not just a god of those that seem.
Your deity is not based on the mind
Of humankind in contemplation blind,
Nor is it the expression of the way
The structured mind in myth joins in the fray.
You’re Sovereign simply because what You made
As Creator was successful and stayed.
Beloved, though lawlessness may raise a head
Where angels in the past feared not to tread,
Your reign is still contained in all that shows
Its face each day to the dawn and the rose.

ENOCH 10

1 Then said Most High, Holy and Great,
Sent Uriel to Lemech’s son,
2 And told him “Go to Noah’s state
And tell him in my name to run
And hide, and show him what’s to come
Upon the whole country in sum
To be destroyed in a deluge
On the entire land, a flood huge
That will destroy all that’s on it.
3 “And now instruct him not to sit,
How that he may escape and his
Descendants saved on earth, that is,
For all their generations coming.”
4 Again YHWH said to Raphael,
“Bind Azazel hand and foot humming,
And cast him into darkness’ hell,
And make a hollow in the ground,
Desert which is in Dudael,
And cast him where he may be found.

The light of God or Uriel was sent,
Beloved, to Noah to show what was meant
To come upon the earth. The sacred ark
That saved them from the massive flood and dark
Was manifest the second gate of power
That mediates to humankind the hour
Of divine love. Tariqat is the way
Beyond and within law that saves the day.
It is not enough to keep Your law right,
One must come in the ark, out of the night,
Or perish in obedience’ fond hope
That You reward in automatic scope
The outward deed, despite intention to
Seek benefit for self. Noah’s light’s true.

5 “And place upon him rough and jagged
Rocks, cover him with darkness ragged,
And let him stay there and for ever,
Cover his face, light from him sever.
6 “And on the day of judgement great
He shall be cast into his fate
Of fire, heal the earth of corruption
By which angels have made eruption,
7 “And proclaim healing of the earth,
That they may heal plagues on its girth,
And that all sons of men may not
Perish through secret things they got
From the Watchers disclosed and taught
To their sons. 8 “And the whole earth has
Been corrupted through the works as
Were taught by Azazel, his sin.”

You sent the healing angel Raphael
To bind Azazel, cast in Dudael
In darkness covered and with covered face
That he might not see what light’s in that place.
For light is everywhere in all creation,
The first thing that You made, illumination.
And even angel faces must be veiled
To keep out light for faith and duty failed.
Azazel taught the world of men to see
The mystic light of evil works and be
Repositories of those darkened arts
That begot bastards from their chosen tarts,
And chained the Zohar to forbidden deeds
Corrupting flesh and forging light-filled creeds.

9 And to Gabriel said YHWH to win,
“Proceed against the bastards and
The reprobates, against the band
Of fornication, and destroy
The Watchers’ bastard children from
Amongst men and cause them in sum
To go out, send them against each
Other in battle to destroy
For length of days they shall not reach,
10 “And no request may they employ
To be granted their fathers on
Their own behalf, for they hope on
To live eternal life, and yet
Five hundred years for each is set.”

The hero of Your reign named Gabriel
Went out by Your command to set a spell
Upon the sons of Watchers and to make
Them destroy one another for their fate.
So from healing awareness for the sake
Of Raphael is changed to something great
In Gabriel the archangel of truth
Who went into the earth and without ruth
To carry out Your divine orders and
Bring in five hundred years the soul and hand
To bright reality and out of pain
And out of dark illusion’s vast refrain.
Beloved, Your angel unveils at request
Reality and settles on the nest.

11 And YHWH said to Michael, “Go, bind
Semjaza and his fellows blind
Who have united themselves to
Women to defile themselves too
With them in all their uncleanness.
12 “And when their sons have killed likeness
In one another, and they’ve seen
Destruction of their loved ones’ scene,
Bind them fast for seventy of
Generations in valleys of
The earth, till their judgement day come
And consummation, till the rum
Judgement eternal take its place.
13 “In those days they shall have to face
Abyss of fire, and the torment
And prison where they shall be sent
Confined for ever. 14 “Who shall be
Condemned, destroyed will then on be
Bound with them to the end of all
Earth’s generations and their call.

For seventy generations, seven weeks
Of time until the day of Judgement peeks,
You bind the wicked Watchers to their fate
Of staying hidden from events of state.
I stand well in the generation’s gate
Of the last week, its second generation
And look out on the great apostate nation
That denies You, Your oneness, and Your law
And pretends to come to Your throne for awe
While in gyration of an idol’s claw.
I wait the day and grasp the hour when You
Will shake from my heart and my world the crew
Of evil and of violence, in dew
Come to fulfil, destroy, tear down, renew.

15 “Destroy all reprobate spirits,
Each son of the Watchers that sits,
Because they have wronged humankind.
16 “Destroy all wrong from face and mind
Of all the earth and let every
Evil work come to an end free,
And let the plant of righteousness
And truth appear, it shall progress
A blessing, works of righteousness
And truth shall be planted in truth
And joy for evermore and ruth.

Let every son of Watcher born in me
Die forthwith and die for eternity.
The evil work that would turn from Your grace
In each marsh marigold that stands in place,
And every basswood beetle showing face,
To raise a pillar on the harvest crust,
I conjure You to turn it all to dust.
Beloved, I seek the breezes that alone
Bent birch and aspen as beneath Your throne,
And tie the grabbish knot to the unknown,
Until, Beloved, the Watchers cast and groan.
Beloved, again I fly up with the skit
Of titmouse and play havoc with my wit,
Only returning to the place You sit.

17 “Then all the righteous shall escape,
And they shall live until they shape
Thousands of children, all the days
Of their youth their old age complete
In peace as Islam at God’s feet.

Let the righteous in me escape the flood
Of Watchers with their sons and fading blood.
Then the righteous in me be multiplied
In righteous sons before the harsh descried
Desert the wheels among the truly tried
To find the last of the wadi’s clear mud.
Let me complete my days, Beloved, so You
Will find my peace and praise always in view,
To need neither petition nor the due
In penance for the evil things I do.
When last my youth and old age comes to sprint
Across Your golden street, then take the hint,
Beloved, that I embrace the fallen star
To ride the chariot to where You are.

18 “And then the whole earth shall be tilled
In righteousness, and all be filled
With planted trees and full of blessing.
And all desirable trees with dressing
Shall be planted on it, and they
Shall plant vines on it in that day,
And the vine that they plant on it
Shall yield grape juice abundant, fit,
And as for all the seed that’s sown,
Each measure shall bear thousand grown,
And each measure of olives yield
Ten presses of oil in the field.

The fourteen lovely trees whose leaves do not
Wither in winter nor dry out and spot
Remain before my visioned eyes to make
Their praises and their passions for Your sake.
All trees desired and lovely to the eyes
Of Ahmed silently steer toward the skies
To bear the vine that makes the grape juice run,
To carry bitter olives under sun
Until the fat and fluids of my heart
Rejoice to find that You’re not One apart
But intimately reflected upon
The screen of nothingness opened at dawn.
Beloved, I measure out the thousand seed
And find in You the measure that I need.

20 “And cleanse the earth from all oppression,
From all unrighteousness, suppression,
From all sin, from all godlessness,
And all uncleanness to oppress
Upon the earth, destroy from off
The earth who do wickedly, scoff.

Oh my Beloved, the prayer of Enoch then
Was without a doubt efficacious when
The flood of waters wiped the earth once clean
And wickedness disappeared from the scene.
The promise made with rainbow in the sky
Seemed then a mercy with the glowing try,
But now beyond the wars and pestilence
I return to the prayers of Enoch’s tents.
I pray again, as Enoch did of old,
To cleanse both earth and my heart of the cold
Unwillingness to bow before Your will
And reap the benefit that You have still
For those who pause to know that You are one
And all on earth in good for You is done.

21 “And all the children of men shall
Become righteous, all nations shall
Offer adoration and shall
Praise Me, and all shall worship Me.
22 “And the earth shall be cleansed and free
From all defilement, from all sin,
And from all punishment within,
And from all torment, and I will
Never again send in its fill
From generation’s very door
To generations evermore.

I lie submitted and still before You,
An earth, a hill, a sea, horizon’s view,
Waiting for that strike from Your hand to set
The punishment upon my flesh well met
In flood and furnace, till in love I burn
Unquenched by flood waters and what they earn.
I lie submitted, waiting for the stroke
That shall relieve my soul of sin and smoke.
The punishment of fire and quick desire
And torment shall raise up funeral pyre
Of all things but Your sacred, final will.
I wait for You uplifted on the hill
That looks out on a hundred islands far
Beneath a setting sun, a moon and star.

AUTHOR: THOMAS G. MCELWAIN

Copyright © 2007 Adams & McElwain Publishers and Thomas McElwain First Published in two volumes, The Beloved and I 2005, and Led of the Beloved, 2006. Second Edition, 2010 Third and revised edition, 2012 All rights reserved. No part of this verse commentary on the sacred Scriptures may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from publisher.

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