3 Enoch (English) in: Near East – Hebrew
4.
R. Ishmael said:
I asked Metatron, “Why does your Creator call you by seventy names? You are more important than all the princes, higher than all the angels, more loved than all the servants, more honored than all the mighty, great, and splendid ones in kingly positions, so why do they call you ‘Youth’ in the high heavens?”
He answered, “Because I am Enoch, the son of Jared. When the people-group of the flood sinned and did confused things, they said to Yahweh, ‘Leave us, we don’t want to know about you,’ then the Sacred One – may he be blessed! – removed me from them to be a witness against them in the high heavens to all the inhabitants of earth, so that they wouldn’t say, ‘The Merciful One is cruel.’
“What sins had all those multitudes committed, they, their wives, their sons, their daughters, their horses, their mules, their cattle, their property, and all the animals wild and domesticated, and the birds of the world, which the Sacred One – may he be blessed! – destroyed off the face of the earth in the flood waters? What did they do that they would die along with them?
“And so the Sacred One – may he be blessed! – lifted me up in their lifetime before their eyes to be a witness against them to the future world. And the Sacred One – may he be blessed! – assigned me to be a prince and a ruler among the ministering angels.
“At that time three of the ministering angels, Uzza, Azza, and Azazel, came out and brought charges against me in the high heavens. They said in the presence of the Sacred One – may he be blessed! – “Didn’t the First Ones rightly say in your presence, ‘Do not create humans!’
“The Sacred One – may he be blessed! – answered them, ‘I have made you and I will support you. I will carry you and I will rescue you.’
“As soon as they saw me, they said in his presence, ‘Lord of the Universe! What right does this one have to ascend to the great heights? Isn’t he one from among those who perished in the days of the Flood? What is he doing in the Raquia?’
“Again, the Sacred One – may he be blessed! – answered them, ‘Who do you think you are, that you enter to speak in my presence! I am happier with this one than with all of you, and so he will be a prince and a ruler over you in the high heavens!’
“So then they all stood up and went out to meet me. They prostrated themselves before me and said, ‘You are blessed and your father is blessed because your Creator favors you!’
“And because I am small and a youth in comparison with them with regard to days, months and years, this is the reason they call me ‘Youth.'”
(…)
48c.
I seized him, and I took him and appointed him, that is to say, Metatron, my servant who is unique among all the inhabitants of heaven. I made him strong in the generation of the first human. But when I saw that the people of the generation of the flood were corrupt, I removed my Shekinah from among them. I lifted it up on high with a sound of a trumpet and with a shout, as it is written, “Elohim ascended amid a shout, Yahweh amid the sound of a ram’s horn.”
(g.i) Hebrew — (g.ii) Alexander (1983) — (g.iii) Odeberg (1928) — (g.iv) Nyland (2010) — (g.v) Secondary sources
– Nyland, A., Complete Books of Enoch, (Self-published, 2010).
Flood Stories 