Hebrews Chapter Eleven, Enoch

 

Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God.

 

Very little is written in the Bible about Enoch. Yes, there are non-canonical books of Enoch, written roughly between 300 BC to after the time of Christ for the latter two. Neither the Jews nor the Christian church recognizes these books as inspired in the same sense as the Biblical prophets.

I mention 1-3 Enoch because of a parallel passage between 1 Enoch 1:9, and Jude 14, where we have the only words Enoch was recorded to have said that were preserved for us. Jude’s verse is a scathing condemnation to the men of his time, who have corrupted all their ways, warning how God would come with vengeance, and the saints with Him. It seems to be a clear allusion to the coming of Christ in power when our Lord returns in the Second Coming. It is clear that, like Abel, Enoch was a prophet, and the prophecy the Holy Spirit chose to retain for our sakes was the consummation of God’s plan in bringing His Christ to reign and to recompense the ungodly for their wicked ways.

 

It is written that Enoch was taken, or raptured, by faith. He avoided death by being translated alive into Heaven and into his Lord’s presence. Suppose that Enoch prophesied between the time he begat Methuselah at 65, and the time he was translated at the age of 365. Even if Enoch preached until the final day he was on earth, the world went on for another 669 years before the Flood. Enoch’s son, Methuselah, lived until the year the Flood began. His son, Lamech (Noah’s father) lived to 777, dying 5 years prior to the Flood. It seemed that, like Lot, God reserved the judgment of the ungodly until the last righteous men were gone from the earth. Enoch had been raptured, and Methuselah finally passed on when Noah entered the ark at 600 years of age, Genesis 7:6.

 

These details do convey a point. Think back 669 years ago, or 1355 by the time of this writing. Ages, ago, yes? Even if we possessed the longevity the antediluvians did, 669 years is a long time to forget or ignore the prating of a religiously zealous maniac. However, Enoch’s mania was taken up by Noah, his great grandson, 2 Peter 2:5, who without doubt contributed his own prophesies of the coming doom the Flood represented in the century between its proclamation and execution. More on this when we touch on the verse concerning Noah, God willing.

 

Enoch’s faith saved him; moreover, it pleased God. What was Enoch’s testimony? “Enoch walked with God three hundred years,” Genesis 5:22. This verse lends credence to the idea that Enoch began his prophetic ministry after Methuselah’s birth, since the writer ascribes a period of three centuries to walking with God, culminating with walking no more, because God took him, Genesis 5:24. Like Elijah, Enoch did not see death prior to or because of the Flood. Since we know from Scripture that it is appointed for all men to die once, and then the judgment (Hebrews 9:27) it seems plausible to me at least that Enoch and Elijah will be the two witnesses for the first 3 and one half years of the Tribulation period, Revelation 11:3. But that is a consideration that takes us outside the pail of this commentary, so I digress. What we know for certain is that, while Abel’s testimony was that his faith compelled him to offer to God that which God commanded, rather than what Abel found personally acceptable. Enoch’s testimony was that he walked with the Lord for centuries—a testimony unknown to any other saint in any dispensation—and pleased God due to his humble fidelity and trust in God’s preservative and salvific power. By his faith he did not see death.