Halfway Through Enoch's Vision

A note

Now set it back into its own century. What was the community that first heard this actually worried about? Simply imagining that changes the temperature of every line.

• Notes from reading a canonical and a non-canonical text next to each other.
• One verse, read slowly, with one word held up to the light.
• A direct look at the part of this text that rarely gets preached.

Let me set the terms. This is not an argument about doctrinal correctness. It is one reader's account of what the text can be made to yield. I am going to leave the ending open on purpose.

3וְנִבְחַ֥ר מָ֙וֶת֙ מֵֽחַיִּי֔ם לְכֹ֗ל הַשְּׁאֵרִית֙ הַנִּשְׁאָרִ֔ים מִן־הַמִּשְׁפָּחָ֥ה הָֽרָעָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את בְּכָל־הַמְּקֹמֹ֤ות הַנִּשְׁאָרִים֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר הִדַּחְתִּ֣ים שָׁ֔ם נְאֻ֖ם יְהוָ֥ה צְבָאֹֽות׃ ס

エレミヤ書 8:3（レニングラード写本（ヘブライ語））

The first time I read this passage I understood nothing at all. I carried that incomprehension around for years, and then one afternoon it turned slightly, the way a key turns, and something opened. What follows is an attempt to describe the turn.

Pull a single verse out of its paragraph and you can make it say almost anything. This particular verse has been made to say a great deal. Which is precisely why it deserves to be read with what stands on either side of it.

Closing

Some people are consoled by this verse and others are wounded by it, often in the same room. The writer almost certainly did not anticipate that. It is left for readers to carry.（ネヘミヤ記 4:14-17）