The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

PARTIAL RECONSTRUCTION 301
*[.,.] ^scarcely had Mahawai finished relating what [• . . 'Ohya ^said to]
him: "Well, I have heard (tell) of wonders. If an unpregnant (woman) (lit.
empty) could give birth [. . .''].'
The context of this passage is thus that of a vision seen by Mahawai, in
which his father Baraq'el participated in one way or another. 'Ohyah remains
incredulous of the threats that this dream predicted, and he makes fun of
his adversary by a series of comparisons: *If an unpregnant woman could
bear children, [if..., I would have believed you].' It is by a similar figure of
speech that Esau expresses to Jacob the impossibility of there being brotherly
love and true peace between them and between their descendants: 'If the
pig could change his skin and have his bristle as soft as wool. . . , if the
wolves..., if the lion..., if the crows . . .', Jub. 37: 20-3. A very long series
of analogous phrases is found in the Middle Persian Kawdn or 'Book of
Giants' (Henning, pp. 61-2).
The text of 6Q8 i is slightly reminiscent of that of fragment c of the
Kawan (Henning, pp. 56-7 and 60):
{page i)'. . . hard . . . arrow . . . bow, he that. . . Sam (read 'Ohyah) said:
"Blessed be . . . had [he?] seen this, he would not have died." Then Shahmizad
(read: Semihazah) said to Sam, his [son]: "All that Mahawai . . . ,
is spoilt( ?)." Thereupon he said to ...: "We are ... until.. . and .. ."
{page 2)'... that are in( ?) the fiery hell( ?)... As my father, Virogdad (read:
Baraq'el), was ...". Shahmizad said: "It is true what he says. He says one of
thousands (to be understood: he says much less than he could say). For one
of thousands ..." Sam thereupon began . . . Mahawai, too, in many places
. . . until to that place ... he might escape( ?) and . . .'.
In another fragment of the same manuscript of the Middle Persian Kawdn,
Enoch {^hwn\wx) foretells the fertility of the earth in Messianic times, amplifying
the description of En. 10: 19 (cf. En^ i v 7-10, above, pp. 189-92).
See Henning, pp. 57 and 61, fragment /, p. 2:
'. . . wild ass, ibex,..., ram, goat, gazelle,.. ., oryx, of each two hundred,
a pair ... the other wild beasts, birds, and animals . . . and their wine [shall
be] six thousand jugs . . . irritation( ?) of water(?). .. and their oil. ..'
I have no doubt at all that this passage overlaps with another Aramaic
fragment from Qumran published by me in DJD i, p. 97 and pi. XIX,