The Book of Enoch Summary: What the Book Says, Part by Part

In short1 Enoch tells of angels who came down to earth, took wives and fathered giants, of the judgment passed on them, and of Enoch, who went up to heaven, saw the secrets of the world and returned to hand them on to his sons. The book also includes visions of the end of days, a treatise on the courses of the heavenly lights and the calendar, and words of rebuke and comfort.

Most people who have heard of the Book of Enoch have heard one thing about it: fallen angels. That is true, but that story takes up eleven chapters out of one hundred and eight. Anyone who opens the book expecting a single continuous plot soon discovers that he is holding a small library: five works written by different authors, over some three hundred years, and bound together under one name.

What follows is a map of that library, work by work, and after it a summary of 2 Enoch, which is a separate book altogether.

The Book of the Watchers: chapters 1 to 36

This is the oldest and most famous part. It opens with a blessing that Enoch pronounces over the righteous, and a short sermon about nature, which keeps its laws, in contrast to human beings, who do not.

Then comes the story. Two hundred angels, led by Semyaza, swear an oath on Mount Hermon, come down to earth and take wives from among the daughters of men. The women give birth to giants, who eat everything that humans grow, and in the end the humans themselves. The angels teach humankind sorcery, weapons and jewelry, and the chief teacher is Azazel. The earth cries out, four faithful angels bring the cry before God, and the sentence is passed: Noah will be warned of the flood, Azazel will be bound in the desert, the giants will destroy one another, and the angels who sinned will be imprisoned until the day of judgment.

This is where Enoch comes in. The angels ask him to write a petition for mercy on their behalf. He ascends to heaven, sees the throne of glory in a house of fire and ice, and receives the answer: the petition is refused. In the last chapters of this part angels lead him on a journey to the ends of the earth, where he sees the prison of the stars, the place of the souls of the dead, the tree of life and the Garden of Eden.

The Book of Parables: chapters 37 to 71

The second part consists of three visions, which the book calls parables.

This is the beginning of the words of wisdom that I began to speak and to proclaim to those who live on the earth: Listen, you elders, and see, you young ones, the holy words I will speak before the Lord of Spirits.

1 Enoch 37:2

God is called here “the Lord of Spirits,” and beside him a new figure appears: the Chosen One, who is the Son of Man, chosen before the creation of the world, seated on the throne of glory and judging the kings and the mighty. Woven between the visions are passages about Noah and the flood, including the description of the two monsters, Leviathan and Behemoth. The part ends with Enoch's ascent to the heaven of heavens, and with a sentence that still surprises readers: “You are the Son of Man.”

The Astronomical Book: chapters 72 to 82

The third part is unlike all the rest. It has no plot and no judgment. The angel Uriel shows Enoch how the heavens work: the six gates through which the sun rises in the east and the six gates through which it sets in the west, the phases of the moon, the gates of the winds, and a calendar of exactly 364 days, divided into four equal seasons. At the end Enoch hands his books to his son Methuselah, and warns that in the days of the sinners the order of nature itself will go wrong. It is the driest part of the book, and perhaps the most important to those who wrote it: whoever gets the calendar wrong celebrates the festivals on the wrong days.

The Book of Dreams: chapters 83 to 90

Here Enoch tells Methuselah two dreams he had in his youth. In the first he sees the earth sinking into the abyss, that is, the flood, and prays that not all his descendants will perish. The second is the Animal Apocalypse: all of history, from Adam to the end of days, told as a fable in which the patriarchs are bulls, the people of Israel are sheep, and the nations are beasts of prey.

The Epistle of Enoch: chapters 91 to 108

The last part is a farewell address.

Written by Enoch the scribe: the teaching of wisdom, praised by all people and judge of the whole earth, for all my children who will live on the earth, and for the later generations who will do what is right and pursue peace.

1 Enoch 92:1

It contains the Apocalypse of Weeks, which divides history into ten periods, and after it a long series of woes addressed to the rich and the oppressors, and words of encouragement to the righteous, whose names are written in heaven. Toward the end comes the story of the birth of Noah, the baby who lit up the house and frightened his father. The book closes with a short chapter that presents itself as “a second book” which Enoch wrote for the last generations.

2 Enoch: ten heavens and thirty days

2 Enoch, also known as the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, was written later, and survived in Slavonic. It tells one continuous story.

Two very tall men wake Enoch from his sleep and take him upward, heaven after heaven. In the first heaven he sees the storehouses of snow and dew. In the second, imprisoned angels. In the third, paradise, and facing it a place of punishment. In the fourth, the courses of the sun and the moon. In the fifth, the companions of the angels who went down, standing in silence. In the sixth and seventh, the hosts of angels. In the tenth heaven he stands before God, is anointed with oil, puts on garments of glory, and writes 366 books at the dictation of the angel Pravuil.

Then God reveals to him the secrets of creation, and sends him back to earth for thirty days. In the second part of the book Enoch teaches his sons: how to treat people, how to treat animals, and what to beware of. At the end of the thirty days darkness falls on the earth, and Enoch is taken. His sons build an altar at the place from which he went up.

What holds it all together

Five works and one more book, many authors, and sometimes different opinions too. The Book of the Watchers blames evil on the angels, and the Epistle of Enoch declares that human beings created it themselves. And yet a few things recur in every part.

In all of them justice is delayed, and in all of them it is promised. In all of them the world is more orderly than it seems, and heaven is run like a kingdom that keeps records. And at the center of all of them stands one man who went up, saw, came back to tell, and took care to write everything down.

We are used to thinking of a book as the creation of one author, with a beginning, a middle and an end. The Book of Enoch came into being differently. Generations of writers added parts to it, each in the name of Enoch, like a family that keeps building rooms onto an old house. A summary can show the floor plan. To know what it feels like inside, you have to go in.