The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

282 THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK Enastr^ 7 i-iii
of the moon this verb has the same meaning as the Arabic qawi *to be strong, to become stronger,
to gather strength', for it is during the day that the moon increases its visibility by a fourteenth
part of its light.
Ll. [2], 5, 8, II, [13]. *7S71, *and (the moon) enters' one of the twelve gates of the sun, six in
the east and six in the west; see En. 72: 2-31 and Charles's note, not quite exact, to verse 8
of this chapter (pp. 152-3 of the 1912 edition). The table of the gates of the moon according to
an Ethiopic manuscript is given above, p. 278.
Ll. 3, 6, 9, 12. The verb H^'SS is the Peal passive of *to subtract, to reduce'.—
miniD should be separated into mini ]D, as the copyist of Enastr* wrote it: mini 2Q.
The phrase... is a simple repetition of the formula which precedes it.
iii
L. 2. In the word n^Tnn I see a nominal derivative of the verb mH, *to hollow out, to
carve, to cut' (Judaeo-Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew, Mishnaic Hebrew; hrt in Ugaritic and
in Arabic), no doubt equivalent to the Syriac Ifrdtd, 'fraction'. The phrase of lines i end-2
is found in En. 72: 27 where I add between (...) the part omitted in E: *and the sun has
completed (the circuit of) its sections, ^ar^HHihu, (which are in the first gate (literal
translation of the Aramaic expression SSyinn n HTlin "TD)), and again it turns
on these sections and it enters through this gate during thirty mornings'.—Note that the
grammatical gender of XB?!D1Z? is ambivalent: feminine in the pronominal suffix of n^Tnri
and in the verbal form of X12?ttl& D^S? (on another fragment of Enastr^), masculine in the
forms mU^D (line 2 of our fragment) and (line 5).
Ll. 2/3. At the end of line 2 I add X*irH& to correspond with line 6. The phrase I^'IXSI
^S71 3*1X7 KinC? repeats and takes up ^S71
arrangement at lines 5 and 6.
Ll. 3, 6, [9]. The verb
in line i. The same stylistic
signifies here *to darken (itself)' and not *to receive, to take', as
wrongly understood by the Greek translator of this astronomical document in En. 73: 6 and 7.
Ll. 3, 7, [9]. ''1j?1: see the note to ii 2.
Ll. 4 and [8].
lit. *and it reigns (over such and such a fraction of its light)'. The author
imagines that during the day the moon presents the inverse image of its nocturnal phase, but
increased by a fourteenth fraction of its light. Thus on the 24th of the preceding month (col.
ii, lines 3-5) it appears in the night with 4J (= 9/14) parts of its surface invisible and with 2\
(= 5/14) visible; after it sets, in the course of the following day, it waxes to 5/7 of its light, in
other words it is covered by 2/7 of its surface. At iii 1-4, on the other hand, the moon is 4/7 clear
and
3/7 dark during the night; the morning after, it increases its covered surface to 4J
(= 9/14), whilst it 'reigns' over only 2J (= 5/14) parts of its light.
L. 7. *and is equivalent'; this phrase repeats the formula which precedes it; cf. the note
to ii 3.—D^2?: the translation 'exactly', lit. '(light . . .) complete', remains uncertain.
L. 10.1 do not know whether the text here, and in the description of the following days, must
have contained the clause .... '1tZ?1 (cf. line 7) or not (cf. line 3).
The key to the correct interpretation of the calendar detailed in Enastr^ ^'^^
is found at iii 1-2 (and 5-6). We read here that on the eighth of a month,