The Translation of Enoch

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Of the later, more obedient children of Adam and Eve, the eldest was a son, whom his mother called Seth. His name means the “appointed” one; and perhaps Eve had again in her heart the hope that he should be the saviour who was to redeem her race. But Christ’s coming was thousands of years away. Of Seth’s life, the Bible tells us nothing, except that he lived to be very old; about nine hundred years is the span of life mentioned for each of the early members of his race. Thus death’s hand was long held off from the prey which had been promised it; and the earth was peopled rapidly. The next death distinctly told after that of Abel, is of Adam himself. “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”

‎Before Adam’s death, Enoch, one of his descendants in the seventh generation, had apparently won back for himself that personal intimacy with God, which Adam had forfeited. Enoch’s story is told in a single sentence. He had dwelled for three hundred and sixty-five years as the faithful worshipper and servitor of God, then “God took him.” The phrase, so different from that in which the Bible mentions life’s ending, has commonly been supposed to mean that Enoch was borne up to Heaven without passing through the narrow gate of death.