A House of Fire and Ice: Enoch Before the Throne of Glory
A wall of crystal surrounded by tongues of fire, a house as hot as fire and as cold as ice, and a throne that cannot be looked at. This is heaven in the earliest account of a human who went up to see it.
In shortEnoch sees a wall built of crystal stones and surrounded by tongues of fire, then a great house that is hot as fire and cold as ice, and after it a second, greater house built of flames of fire. In the second house stands a lofty throne, and on it sits “the Great Glory,” whose robe shines brighter than the sun and is whiter than snow.
How do you describe a place that must not be seen? The author of chapter 14 of 1 Enoch faced a hard literary problem. He wanted to tell of a man who went up to heaven and stood before God, and he wanted the reader to feel what that man felt. The solution he found was to build heaven out of materials that cannot exist together.
The result is one of the most influential chapters in the book, and one of the shortest. The whole ascent, from the clouds to the throne, takes fewer than twenty verses.
An envoy with a letter
The background is almost clerical. The Watchers, who came down to earth and sinned, know that their sentence has been passed, and ask Enoch to write a petition for mercy on their behalf. It may be the strangest legal document in ancient literature: a plea from angels, drafted by a human. Enoch writes it, sits down to read it by the waters of Dan, and falls asleep. In his dream clouds call to him, the winds carry him, and he finds himself in heaven, in front of a wall.
The first house
I went into the tongues of fire and came near a great hall built of crystal stones. The walls of that house were like a floor of crystal bricks, and its floor too was crystal. Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and the lightning, with fiery cherubim between them, and their sky was like water. Fire blazed all around the walls, and its doors burned with fire. I went into that hall. It was hot as fire and cold as ice, and there was neither pleasure nor life inside it. Fear covered me, and trembling seized me.
1 Enoch 14:10–13
Everything here is built of opposites. The walls are made of crystal, that is, of ice, and they are surrounded by tongues of fire that do not melt them. The ceiling is the path of the stars and the lightning. And then comes the sentence that is hard to forget: the house is hot as fire and cold as ice.
It is worth noticing, too, what this house lacks. “There was neither pleasure nor life inside it.” Anyone who expects heaven to be a pleasant place will be disappointed. Enoch is not enraptured. He trembles, falls on his face, and only from there, from the floor, does he see what comes next.
The second house
Beyond the first house a second one opens, greater than the first, built entirely of flames of fire, and the author admits that he is unable to describe its splendor.
I looked and saw in it a lofty throne. Its appearance was like ice, and around it was something like the shining sun, and the voices of cherubim. From beneath the lofty throne came rivers of blazing fire, and I could not look at it. The Great Glory sat on it. His robe shone brighter than the sun and was whiter than snow.
1 Enoch 14:18–20
Here too fire and ice come together: the throne looks like ice, and rivers of fire flow from beneath it. And the caution is worth noticing. The author describes the throne, the rivers and the garment, a robe brighter than the sun and whiter than snow. The one who wears the robe he does not describe at all. Even the angels cannot enter there, and the myriads standing around do not come near.
The author adds a small, calculated remark here: although myriads upon myriads stand before him, he needs no counsel from anyone. The court of an earthly king is full of advisers, and the king depends on them. In this court everyone is present, and no one is needed.
A building we have seen before
A wall, an outer house, and an inner house that no one enters. Anyone who knew the Temple in Jerusalem recognized the plan at once: a court, a sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies. Enoch's heaven is built like a temple, and Enoch passes through it like a priest, all the way to the place that only the high priest entered, once a year.
The vision itself has ancestors too. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, with the seraphim standing above it. Ezekiel saw a chariot of living creatures and wheels, and above it a firmament “as the colour of the terrible crystal.” But in both those cases the prophet stays on the ground, and the vision comes to him. With Enoch the direction is reversed: it is the human who goes up. As far as we know, this is the first time in Jewish literature that such a journey is described in detail.
Later, in the Book of Daniel, a very similar picture appears: a throne like the fiery flame, wheels like burning fire, a fiery stream issuing from before it, and thousand thousands standing in attendance. The two authors were apparently drawing on the same tradition.
The answer
It is easy to forget, amid all this fire, that Enoch came with a letter. God calls him with his own mouth, “Come here, Enoch,” and gives him the answer for the angels. It is short and stinging:
Go and say to the Watchers of heaven who sent you to plead for them: You should be pleading for humankind, and not humankind for you.
1 Enoch 15:2
This sentence turns the normal order upside down. Angels are supposed to pray for human beings. Here a human being prays for angels, and stands in a place the angels cannot enter. The whole story leads to this moment. The angels came down from heaven and lost their place there. One man went up, and got further than they did.
What grew from this chapter
From these few verses a whole literature grew. 2 Enoch expanded the ascent into a journey through ten heavens. 3 Enoch, the latest of them all, opens with the very same picture: a human being who goes up and stands before the throne. The Hekhalot literature, centuries later, described sages who ascend from palace to palace, with guards standing at every gate. And the rabbis of the Mishnah, who knew the pull of such visions, ruled that the chariot may not be expounded even to a single student, unless he is wise and understands on his own. The Talmud tells of four who entered the orchard, and only one of them, Rabbi Akiva, came out in peace.
The worry is understandable. Anyone who reads chapter 14 can see that the author was not trying to tempt anyone to go up. His heaven is not a place to stay in. It is hot there and cold there at the same time, and there is no pleasure in it. It is a place you go to in order to ask a question, and from which you come back, if you come back, with an answer you did not always want to hear.
And perhaps that is the most honest thing about the vision. People have imagined heaven many times as a garden, a banquet or a warm home. This ancient author imagined it as a place where language breaks, and left us the pieces: fire that does not melt ice, and a garment whose wearer cannot be seen.
