He walked and pleased God - the miracle of Enoch

The Miracle of Enoch’s Translation

Genesis 5:19-24; Hebrews 11:5.

Coming to the brief yet blessed biography of Enoch, we discover that everything about his testimony and translation is miraculous. The first mention of this saint is in Genesis 5, a register of births and deaths and a chapter of remarkable longevity. 

If we add together the lifespan of those who are named, we have a period of 8,575 years. Enoch had the shortest lifespan, 365 years, and his son Methuselah lived 969 years—31 years short of a millennium. The testimony of Enoch. The unstained testimony of this patriarch was a miracle of grace. The Enoch we are considering, the son of Jared, must not be confused with a previous Enoch, Cain’s eldest son (Genesis 4:17, 18).


(1) He walked with God.

Twice over we have the phrase, “he walked with God” (Genesis 5:22, 24). The repetition emphasises how conspicuous this phase of his character was. Although Enoch begat sons and daughters, he did not find family ties and trials to be incompatible with a life of devotion to God. 

Family responsibilities never quenched the fire of his piety, and family joys were not permitted to detract from the goal of his consecrated life. It is somewhat interesting to note that only after the birth of Methuselah, when Enoch was 65 years of age, does the record say that he walked with God. 

The gift of a child possibly awakened in him a new love for God, as well as a deeper sense of his responsibility as a father. Further, although Enoch lived in a contaminated age, he kept himself unspotted from the corrupt world surrounding him. We can gather something of the wickedness of the antediluvian age he lived in and witnessed from the prophecy Jude quotes. 

Even in his apostate time, Enoch demonstrated the hope of immortality. The repeated phrase, “he walked with God,” affords one of those particular examples of the effects of God’s grace and contains the principle of all that was excellent in Enoch’s character. It is only of Enoch and Noah that we read that they “walked with God” (Genesis 5:9, 24). 

“Others walked before God” (Genesis 17:1). Such a walk implies agreement, for how can two walk together except there be agreement in mind and will? (Amos 3:3)Familiarity, for how can two walk together unless they open to each other their confidences? God and Enoch were friends and communicated to each other their secrets (John 14:21, 22); affection, for love is the essence of material intercourse. 

God and Enoch loved each other, and thus avoided any possible estrangement (Psalm 37:4). Fausset suggests that the phrase, “walking with God,” may have been a relic of the first Paradise, when man walked and talked with God in holy familiarity, and an anticipation of the second Paradise (Revelation 21:3, 22:3, 4).

(2) He pleased God.

Before his translation, Enoch had _ this testimony that “he pleased God.” This added feature, which the LXX translates as “he walked with God,” denotes, as Faus-set reminds us, a steady continuance in well-doing, and a life spent in the immediate presence of, and in constant communion with, God. 

He was a fitting type of Christ of whom God said, “This is Mywell-beloved Son in Whom I am well-pleased.” s) Enoch is spoken of as being the “seventh” from Adam. “Seven” is the number indicating divine completeness. 

Enoch typifies perfected humanity. Irenaeus says, “As angels fall to earth by transgression, so this man was raised to heaven by pleasing God.” Enoch’s holy walk elicited little pleasurefrom those around him. His godliness found no acceptance with his godless contemporaries, as the reference in Jude suggests(16, 18). 

So deep was the depravity of the antediluvians that Enoch’s testimony and warning had no impact upon them, and the flood came and took them allaway, except his grandson Noah and his family.

(3) He believed God.

Enoch knew that without faith it was impossible to please God; thus his faith was the mainspring of the life acceptable to God (Hebrews 11:5, 6). Charles Simeon has a suggestive footnote on “translated by faith.” 

Though faith might have more immediate respect to some promise given him relative to his translation, yet we can scarcely conceive but that it had a further respect to the promised Messiah. And this idea is greatly strengthened by the account Jude gives us of his foretelling the very manner of the future Judgment (14, 15), for if he prophesied of Christ’s second coming, doubtless he was not ignorant of His first advent.

(4) He prophesied for God.

Enoch was a seer, as well as a saint, and a seer because he was a saint. Enoch was one of the guardians of prophecy. The Arabs have a legend that it was Enoch who invented writing. The Jews affirm that

he left many written books. Is not his solemn prophecy of the Lord coming “to execute judgment” one that needs to be declared from the housetops in our godless age? Somehow we are drifting away

from the stern warning in the Bible concerning the coming judgment, and eternal hell of the wicked. The translation of Enoch. 

The Miracle of Enoch’s Translation (Gen. 5)|Scarcely 50 years after the death ofAdam, with whom Enoch must have conversed on the origin of creation, sin and death, Enoch was given an intimation of the life to come. Under the old dispensa-tion, patriarchs looked for a better, even a heavenly, country (Genesis 49:18; Job19:25; Hebrews 11:10, 13, 16), and con-fessed that they were strangers on theearth. Then, for Enoch, the miracle happened. Just as God transferred the prophet suddenly from one place to another (1 Kings 18:12), and caught away Philip(Acts 8:39), so Enoch, alive and well, was caught up to heaven. Elijah, in his translation, caught a glimpse of the same glorious hope. 

The language used to describe Enoch’s miraculous translation is profitable to observe. First of all, we have the arrestive phrases—“He was not” and “He was not found” (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5), suggesting the thought that one day this godly man was missed and could not be found. Possibly, he was sought for by his friends who honoured him (see II Kings2:16), or by his enemies who hated him(see I Kings 18:10). Yet his sudden disappearance was only a nine-day wonder, as the rapture of the saints will be at Christ’sreturn.“God took him—“God had _ translatedhim.” These phrases imply Enoch’s miraculous ascension (Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11: 5). 

He was the first saint to hear the musical voice saying, “Arise up, my love, my fair one, and come away” (Song of Solomon 2:10). Up he went from a persecuting and ungodly world, which probably sought to destroy him because of his pungent warnings (Jude 14, 15). Enoch did not see death, meaning he had no experience of it. He was not raised from the dead, for he had never died. 

He was transplanted to another sphere. “Translated implies a sudden removal from mortality to immortality without death, such as shall pass over the living saints at Christ’s coming (I Corinthians 15:51, 52), of whom Enoch is a type.” And his translation was an appropriate testimony to the truth he announced in the face of a mocking, infidel world—Behold, the Lord cometh! 

“Enoch,” says Fausset, “is a specimen of transfiguration without death in instanta-neous change, an earnest of those saints whoshall be found living, and shall be trans-figured in a moment into the likeness ofThe Miracle of the Flood (Gen. 7) Christ’s glorious body at His appearing.”If we have Enoch’s testimony, there is no doubt about one participation in his translation.