Who Was Enoch in the Bible?
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Who was Enoch in the Bible? He was a man from the generations before the flood, the son of Jared and the father of Methuselah. Genesis 5 says he "walked with God" and that his life ended in an unusual way: "he was not; for God took him."
The Bible says very little about him, only a few verses in Genesis and three brief mentions in the New Testament. Later Jewish writings expanded his story greatly. This post looks first at what the biblical passages state, then at what later texts added.
What Does Genesis 5 Say About Enoch?
Genesis 5 is a genealogy, a list of generations from Adam to Noah. According to Genesis 5:18, Jared "lived an hundred sixty and two years, and he begat Enoch." Enoch's own entry reads, in Genesis 5:21-24:
"And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."
Three details stand out.
First, the numbers. Enoch was 65 when Methuselah was born, he lived 300 more years, and his total lifespan was 365 years. That is far shorter than the other men in the list, most of whom live more than 900 years.
Second, the phrase "walked with God." It appears twice in Enoch's entry. Most entries in the chapter simply say a man lived, had children, and died. The same phrase is later used of Noah in Genesis 6:9.
Third, the ending. Every other entry in Genesis 5 except Noah's ends with "and he died." Enoch's entry ends instead with "he was not; for God took him." The text does not explain what this means.
How Have Readers Understood "God Took Him"?
Interpreters have read this phrase in more than one way.
Many Jewish and Christian readers understand it to mean that God took Enoch away without his experiencing death. They point to the break in the chapter's pattern, since "and he died" is missing, and to Hebrews 11:5, discussed below. The difficulty is that Genesis itself does not say where Enoch went or explicitly say that he did not die.
Some rabbinic interpreters, as recorded in Genesis Rabbah (a collection of rabbinic teaching on Genesis from about the 5th century AD), read the phrase as describing an early death. Those who hold this reading note that elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, God's "taking" someone can refer to death, as in Ezekiel 24:16, where the prophet is told his wife will be taken from him. The difficulty is that this reading must explain why Genesis departs from its usual wording "and he died" only for Enoch.
Who Was the Other Enoch in Genesis?
Genesis names two different men called Enoch. Genesis 4:17 says: "And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch."
This Enoch is Cain's son, from the line of Cain. The Enoch who walked with God belongs to the line of Seth, Adam's third son. The two are easy to confuse, but Genesis places them in separate family lines.
What Does the New Testament Say About Enoch?
Enoch appears three times in the New Testament.
Luke 3:37 includes him in the genealogy of Jesus: "Which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared." The verse continues the line back toward Adam. Mathusala is the Greek form of Methuselah.
Hebrews 11:5 lists him among examples of faith: "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God." Here "translated" means carried from one place to another. The phrase "he pleased God" matches the way the Greek Septuagint, an ancient translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, renders "walked with God" in Genesis 5:24.
Jude 14-15 attributes a prophecy to him: "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
Jude's phrase "the seventh from Adam" counts Adam as the first: Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch. Jude's words closely match 1 Enoch 1:9, which is explored in a separate post comparing Jude and 1 Enoch.
What Did Later Texts Add About Enoch?
The brief biblical record left room for later writers to say more. This is a separate category from what the biblical passages state.
The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church include 1 Enoch and Jubilees in their Bible. Rabbinic Jewish, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles do not.
In 1 Enoch, Enoch is a visionary who travels through heaven and earth with angels and carries God's judgment to the fallen Watchers. In 1 Enoch 12:4, in R. H. Charles's translation, he is addressed as "Enoch, thou scribe of righteousness." The book presents him as a writer and a witness.
Jubilees, a retelling of Genesis and part of Exodus from about the 2nd century BC, expands his story in Jubilees 4:17-24. In Charles's translation, Enoch is the first man to learn writing, knowledge, and wisdom. He writes down the signs of heaven so people can know the seasons, sees in a vision what will happen until the day of judgment, and spends six jubilees of years with the angels. He testifies against the Watchers, and he is taken into the Garden of Eden, where he writes down the judgment of the world.
The Wisdom of Ben Sira, also called Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, from the early 2nd century BC, briefly praises Enoch in Sirach 44:16. It describes him as pleasing the Lord, being translated, and serving as "an example of repentance to all generations." Sirach is part of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Old Testaments and appears among the Apocrypha in some Protestant Bibles, including the original 1611 King James Version.
What Remains Debated?
Readers still discuss how much the biblical passages alone say about Enoch and how much has been read into them from later sources. Some see the later writings as preserving older memories about Enoch. Others see them as creative expansions built on the brief Genesis account. Many readers hold positions in between, valuing the later texts as witnesses to how ancient communities understood Enoch without treating them as Scripture.
Questions to Keep Studying
1. Why might the Genesis 5 genealogy differ from the Cain genealogy in Genesis 4 in its names and details?
2. What, if anything, did Enoch's lifespan of 365 years signify to ancient readers?
3. How did early Christian writers outside the New Testament speak about Enoch's being taken?
4. How does Enoch's story compare with the account of Elijah being taken up in 2 Kings 2?
Enoch occupies only a few verses of the Bible, yet he became one of the most discussed figures of the ancient world. Separating what Genesis, Luke, Hebrews, and Jude say from what later texts added gives a clear foundation for further study.
BIBL 101, Rightly Dividing the Word, makes this kind of separation a habit, from testing cross-references to see which passages are true parallels to setting Jude 14-15 beside 1 Enoch 1:9 and noting what each one has that the other lacks.
At Enoch Ascension Christian University, we don't teach what to think. We awaken truth and walk in love. Explore our programs at enochascension.com.
Sources and Further Reading
• Genesis 4:17; 5:18-24; 6:9; Luke 3:37; Hebrews 11:5; Jude 14-15 (King James Version).
• 1 Enoch 1:9 and 12:4, in R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912).
• Jubilees 4:17-24, in R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1902).
• Sirach 44:16 (Apocrypha).
• James C. VanderKam, Enoch: A Man for All Generations (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995).
• Genesis Rabbah 25:1.
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