The next section is longer, and it covers four chapters in the Ethiopian numbering system, but the chapters are very short.
2.1 Contemplate all the events in the sky; how the lights in the sky do not change their courses, how each rises and sets in order, each at its proper time, and they do not transgress their law.
2.2 Consider the earth and understand from the work that is done upon it, from the beginning to the end, that no work of God changes as it becomes manifest.
2.3 Consider the summer and the winter; how the whole earth is full of water and the clouds and dew and rain rest upon it.
3.1 Contemplate and see how all the trees appear withered and all their leaves are stripped - with the exception of the fourteen trees, which are not stripped, which remain with the old leaves until the new come after two or three years.
4.1 And, again, contemplate the days of summer, how at its beginning the Sun is above it. You seek shelter and shade because of the heat of the Sun and the earth burns with scorching heat, and you cannot tread upon the earth or upon a rock, because Of its heat.
5.1 Contemplate how the trees are covered with green leaves and bear fruit. And understand, in respect of everything, and perceive how He Who Lives Forever made all these things for you.
5.2 And how His works are before Him in each succeeding year, and all His works serve Him and do not change; but as God has decreed - so everything is done.
5.3 And consider how the seas and rivers together complete their tasks.
5.4 But you have not persevered in, nor observed, the Law of the Lord. But you have transgressed and have spoken proud and hard words with your unclean mouth against his majesty. You hard of heart! You will not have peace!
5.5 And because of this you will curse your days, and the years of your life you will destroy. And the eternal curse will increase and you will not reserve mercy.
5.6 In those days, you will transform your name into an eternal curse to all the righteous. And they will curse you sinners forever.
5.7 For the chosen; there will be light, joy, and peace, and they will inherit the earth. But for you, the impious, there will be a curse.
5.8 When wisdom is given to the chosen they will all live, and will not again do wrong, either through forgetfulness, or through pride. But those who possess wisdom will be humble.
5.9 They will not again do wrong, and they will not be judged in all the days of their life, and they will not die of wrath or anger. But they will complete the number of the days of their life. And their life will grow in peace, and the years Of their joy will increase in gladness and eternal peace; all the days of their life.
Chapter two starts with the word contemplate. In the ancient languages, the words we translate with contemplate had a much deeper meaning than merely giving it some thought. To contemplate is to bring the subject into your heart and make it a part of you. If you have read the article I wrote on the Topology of the Human Soul and the Struggle for Holiness, you know that most ancient people considered the heart to be the seat of the mind, not the brain. To take the sky into your heart is actually to expand your soul to encompass the sky. Most people today would have a hard time expanding their soul to encompass the clothes they’re wearing. But the ancients spent a lot more of their time inside themselves, and they were less self-limited in the things they could do and did in the spirit.
Enoch looks for God by studying His works. Starting with the sky, Enoch takes us on a trip through the things that he contemplated on his spiritual journey to obtain his visions and his meeting with God. Enoch was impressed by the order and consistency of God’s creation. The only verse in chapter four gives us a clue to the home of Enoch. He lived in a place where the summer sun was very hot, and it made the ground unbearable to walk upon. But what impressed Enoch the most was the cycles of the trees and plants. Invariably they followed the same timing and progression from year to year, almost as though they watched the sky too.
Enoch took these observations of nature as lessons for life under God. And God took Enoch’s faith and his attempt to live according to the order he observed as righteousness. Enoch was a friend to God. They chatted as friends. We shall see in future verses that God the Father even bragged a little to Enoch about His only begotten Son.
Enoch then makes all these observations into a personal exhortation to righteousness in his readers. The fourth verse of chapter five begins in the second person to list the faults of Enoch’s fellow humans. The indictment is telling, and applies even more today than in Enoch’s time: You have not continued to keep, nor even observe, the law of the Lord. Far worse, you have actively blasphemed the Lord your God with foul cursing from your own mouth, which you have made a practice of using for sin. The rest of this passage is a prediction of the punishment God will mete out upon those who assault Him in actions and words. This ends with the sinners becoming a byword for wrongdoing, their very names taking on the denotation of curses.
Finally, Enoch talks about the blessings God will bestow upon the ones who follow Him, the Chosen, or as Robert Charles termed it, the elect. Before I go on I want to warn anyone who would take this terminology to mean they are superior to any other human being. God did not single out people beforehand to be damned or saved based upon some arbitrary whim. Nor did He decree that there are people of some better essence than others thus making them Chosen or Elect, as some heretical teachers would have you believe as they stimulate your itching ears. Don’t puff yourself up with false pride. God, being eternal, knows the end from before the beginning, and He loves you anyway. Therefore, the ones whom he knew would receive His Son are chosen to become by grace what He is by nature, not sharing in the essence of God, but sharing in the energies of God.
That said, God has big plans for those who are chosen. And Enoch begins laying them out in outline here. The final verse of the passage is a blessing and a great hope for all believers. Do you struggle with an inability to understand the will of God for your life? Are you having difficulty making choices? Enoch says you will be given wisdom to keep you from all wrong, and you will be protected from harm, until the day God appointed for you life to end. Bask in this hope.
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