The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

En«4i FIFTH COPY 239
[and perishing in those waters], ^And the ship floated above the waters, and
all the oxen [and wild asses and camels] and elephants sank in the waters
[...]
Only E to be compared.
Ll.
10-13 (En. 88: 3). Ll. lo-ii. 'Behold one of those four who had come out threw (them)
from heaven, and he assembled and took all the great stars' E. Commentators on this passage
assume there is a lacuna in the text after 'threw, stoned', wagara.
I think rather that the Greek
translator misunderstood the impersonal construction, well known in Syriac (for the Palmyrene
see J. Cantineau, SyriUy xix (1933), 184): r^mSlt, 'soUicitus sum, mihi ipsi curae est, statutum
est'; see the note to i xxvii 20.
L. II. )X'K'W K^3D1D En®: kawdkibta 'abiydna E; cf. ]^VrW f in En^ i 4
(En. 86:3).
'and
Ll.
11/12. The passage 'and he assembled (E*^) and he took (E"^^)' in E (other manuscripts
they were assembled and taken') was probably missing in our Aramaic scroll; cf. a similar
omission of 'were assembled' in En. 89: 5 (below, line 19).
It is mainly from this chapter, En. 88, that a phrase in the Epistle of Jude 13 is drawn: darepcs
rrXavfJTai ots 6 (article omitted in the Bodmer papyrus, P^^) ^0^09 TOV GKOTOVS cts atcova rcr'qprjTai;
for the text of the Old Latin see the Beuron edition, vol. 26/1, pp. 425-6. The earth's abyss into
which the numerous stars are cast (88: 3) is 'narrow, deep, steep, and dark' (88: i). This is not
yet the definitive place of punishment of the sinning stars, 'an abyss filled with a blazing fire and
full of columns of fire', 90: 24; see a similar description of the abode of the seven sinning stars
in chapters 18 and 21. Thus, it is only 88: i which speaks of darkness in the abyss.—En. 88: i
takes up 10: 4-8 (Raphael imprisons *A^a'el); 88: 2 corresponds to 10: 9-10 (Gabriel incites the
descendants of the Watchers to kill one another); 88: 3 summarizes 10: 11-15.
Ll. 13-16 (En. 89: i). This verse summarizes En. 10: 1-3. 'One of the four', sent on a secret
mission to Noah, is the archangel Sari'el; see the note to En^ i iii 7.
L. 14. After 'and instructed him' the whole passage in E, 'in a secret, without his being
terrified; he was born a bull, and became man' was not in En«.—mn mS7 En®: 'a great
boat' E.
L. 15. They dwelt' E; read 'they entered', 1]^S7] or 1[^^S7] required by (Xmi?)^.—
E omits one of the synonyms fl^'DDI n^'DH.
Ll. 16-17 (En. 89: 2). This verse is much shorter in En® than in E; in the latter: 'And again
I raised my eyes towards heaven and I saw a high roof, and seven cataracts thereon and these
cataracts flowed into an enclosure (ba-I-'asad)
in abundant masses of water.'—l^'STTD translates
nS*^^? of Gen. 7: II and 8: 2.—Note that at v. 3 (lines 17 and 18) two mentions
enclosure, '(on the earth) in this great enclosure', diba mid^r bawi'etu
of
'asad 'abiy, and 'this
enclosure (, till all the earth)', lawe^itu 'asad ^iska kwillu meder {meder E