Enoch is first mentioned in Genesis 4&5. There are two particularly intriguing verses about him:
Gen. 5:24
Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
Hebrews 11:5
By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.
These say that Enoch was taken, but they don’t say where he was taken to. However, we know that Enoch wasn’t taken to Heaven because, as the Lord Jesus says thousands of years after Gen. 4&5 , ‘No one has ascended into heaven…’ (John 3:13). So, what did happen to Enoch?
Because we aren’t actually told, all anyone can do is give an educated suggestion. To do this, we are going to look at some other facts the Bible tells us about Enoch’s life:
We know that Enoch ‘walked with God’ — which means he was a godly person (just as Noah was: Gen. 6:8): ‘he was commended as having please God’ — and we know that he was contemporary with a very ungodly man, Lamech (compare the family trees in Gen. 4:1,17-18 and Gen. 5:3-18): in Gen. 2:18-25 God said that a husband was to have only one wife, but Lamech was the first person to break this by having two spouses (Gen. 4:19); he also boasts about murdering someone who hurt him (Gen. 4:23-24).
With this in mind, the suggestion, based on Heb. 11:5, is that God took Enoch away from Lamech, so that Lamech couldn’t kill Enoch — Lamech was looking for Enoch, but he couldn’t find him. God saved Enoch from death at the hands of Lamech.
After this, though, we know that Enoch would still have died a natural death, just like everybody else does. Heb. 11:13 goes on to say this about the people in has mentioned, including Enoch:
These all died in faith…
The apostle Paul confirms this when he says that ‘…death reigned from Adam to Moses…’ (Rom. 5:14; Enoch lived between Adam and Moses). So, sometime after God saved Enoch from Lamech, Enoch died peacefully.
Excellent study..it is amazing what God reveals whenever we put our pride aside and allow God’s will to be done instead of ours..God is spirit and must be worshiped in spirit AND in truth!! As Christians we must strive to walk with God , just like Enoch did…by faith is the only way we can please God..and by faith we must trust that whatever the Word declares is truth indeed! The bible plainly states three things, 1. No man has seen God(the father) at anytime (John 1:18) 2. No man hath ascended to Heaven( 3rd heaven or God’s throne)( John 3:13) 3. God is the only one with immortality(1 Timothy 6:16). God bless you and anyone who reads this.. continue to study & pray to the Lord for wisdom ..keep asking, seeking, knocking..He will answer!
What does it mean that he was “translated”?
Hi WoundedEgo,
Thanks for the question.
“Translated” simply means “taken”.
(A) “Translated” and (B) “translation” are translations (excuse the pun!) that some versions of the Bible (e.g. KJV) use to render the Greek words (A) metatithemi and (B) metathesis in Heb. 11:5. “Translated” and “translation” have a kind of mystical sound to them, don’t they; but other other translations of the Bible (e.g. NASB, ESV,) simply translate the Greek as (A) “took” and (B) “taken” (or equivalents). “Translated” simply means “taken”.
It’s also worth noting that Heb. 11:5 is quoting from Gen. 5:24 which (even in versions like the KJV) simply says that Enoch was ‘taken’ by God.
As the answer above suggests, God took Enoch away from Lamech — translated/took him to a different place on the Earth — so that Lamech couldn’t kill him. Later, Enoch died a peaceful death (Heb. 11:13); one day, when the Lord Jesus returns to the earth, he will be raised to life again at the resurrection.
In 2 Kings 2:11 it says that Elijah was taken to heaven in a chariot of fire on a wirlwind. But in John 3:13 Jesus says no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven – the Son of Man. Is this a contradiction? I believe the Bible is God’s Word. I’m really trying to understand this. Help!!
While we don’t know exactly what happened with Elijah, we do know that later a letter was sent by him to Jehoram, king of Judah. So obviously he was in a position where he could write letters and knew what the situation of Judah was at that time.
What I personally assume is that Elijah’s work in Israel where he had been was done, and that Elisha was now ready to fully take over. Given how close they were, something was needed to separate them (and in the end, it took a chariot of fire to do that). When it says Elijah was “taken up to heaven in a whirlwind” he was just carried up into the air, not into heaven, God’s dwelling place, and then he was placed down somewhere else on the earth where he lived a quiet life for some time and then died (following the verses mentioned above about everyone dying).