Who was Enoch in the Bible?

Son of Jared, and father of Methuselah. Of him it is said he "walked with God: and he was not; for God took him;" and also that by faith he was translated, and that before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. A bright example in those early days of how by grace a man can have communion with God, and so please God, and be made sensible of it, thus enjoying the light of His countenance in walking with Him in a sinful world. Enoch was taken to heaven without dying, as the living saints will be at the coming of the Lord Jesus. Gen. 5:18-24; Luke 3:37; Heb. 11:5; Jude 14. Called HENOCH in 1 Chr. 1:3.

Enoch, the seventh from Adam (Gen. 5:18), walked with God unto all pleasing. It may be of further interest to compare the seventh from Adam through the line of Cain, where we see an entirely contrary course. Enoch commenced his path as a pilgrim shortly after his 65th birthday when his son Methuselah was born. He lived in a world ripening for judgment and walked in separation from the world and in communion with God. This did not isolate him from the realities of the scene in which he walked. Rather it empowered him to walk and serve God without a false step amidst a crooked and perverse generation. God gave him a service man-ward to fulfil: he was a preacher of righteousness who prophesied and warned of coming wrath. Under inspiration, Jude gives us the prophecy originally given to Enoch.

The terse record of Genesis is that at the end of the 300 years "he was not; for God took him." This is amplified in the New Testament, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him" (Heb. 11:5). Here we learn that faith was the energy in which Enoch walked with God, and in which finally, he was transported into God's presence. After three centuries of walking with God it must have seemed a simple and natural thing when one day "God took him," and Enoch exchanged his earthly dwelling for the very abode of God Himself. Every word here is worthy of note. He was translated "that he should not see death." Was he then threatened by death? In the ordinary way it would hardly seem so, since his father lived 962 years and his son 969, and the average life of the nine antediluvian patriarchs excepting himself was well over 900 years. Again, it says, "he was not found," which infers that he was sought. The language, however, is explicit. His translation took place "that he should not see death," which can hardly be the statement of the obvious truism that had it not been he would ultimately have died. No, it carries with it the glorious moral import that the power of God through faith could lift a man clean out of the domain of death. It could sustain him in spiritual life whilst walking through the sphere of death's operations, and ultimately forbid the touch of its blighting hand, and land his feet in the presence of God for ever beyond its power. It carries also, we judge, the inference that but for translation his death was imminent, that in fact he was translated just as the blow was impending. In other words, that Enoch was left by God in his path of faithful witness until the last possible moment, and then just as the lawless antediluvians, angered by his plain and fearless words, were about to silence the witness, and sought him in order to slay him, "he was not found, for God had translated him."

Enoch had a family of sons and daughters, but these earthly relationships and responsibilities did not hinder him walking in wisdom’s ways well-pleasing to God! He was the father of Methuselah, and we are told that Enoch walked with God (after the boy’s birth) until “he was not, for God took him.” This is recorded in the earliest pages of the inspired Volume, and in Hebrews 11:5 the Holy Spirit explains that Enoch did not see death for he was transplanted. He was not found. Elijah at a later date was carried up into heaven by a whirlwind. A cloud received the Lord Jesus from sight when He ascended. Later still, we are told of others, who “shall be caught up” in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air at His return (1 Thess. 4). In the last epistle of the Bible we are informed that during his earthly walk Enoch testified of the coming of the Lord (Jude 14). Twice the Word of God says he walked with God. It is not surprising, therefore, that before he disappeared from the earth he received testimony that He pleased God.

Verses 5, 6. The faith of Enoch rapt him above death. God, whom he trusted, took him by translation to Himself. His witness, while upon the earth, was that he walked with God. He pleased God. But it was in his faith that God took pleasure. Without faith He who is invisible cannot be served on earth. For both His being and His disposition are inscrutable to natural sense. That creative power exists somewhere, is an inference within man's easy reach. That God is, though hidden from our sight, and that He is a sure Rewarder of the soul that seeks Him out, is the fundamental doctrine of that wisdom which descends from above. The clue which guides faith in its patient search is the testimony once delivered among men. There had been such from the beginning. For the love of it, the second son of Eve obtained a good report. But ages had intervened between the death of Abel and the birth of Enoch. He grew up in the midst of a fast-filling world. Men lived long lives amid God's plenteous mercies, but their way was waxing worse and worse. Ungodliness in word and deed prevailed. Hard speeches against God whose testimonies warned the sinner in his ways, were spoken openly by men who took no comfort in His gracious promise. The path of Enoch was a path of voluntary separateness. While others followed their own lusts, he walked with God. By faith he saw invisible realities, and tasted holiness in love. He stuck fast to the words of God and found no pleasure in the creature apart from the Creator, who alone can bless.

Yet Enoch was no eremite. He lived a man among men, but for God. A husband and a father, he resembled, in his circumstances and his natural condition, other men. But truth was to Enoch something paramount to sense. Nine hundred or a thousand years of prosperous earthly life was a thing of no account with one who knew that shameful death must one day turn joy to corruption; while, on the other hand, he looked for immortality from God. His expectations were alone from Him. He knew that God meant mercifully when He spake good words of promise. Thus in heart he clave to God. And, speaking from the fulness of his heart, he spake of God to others. God gave prophetic power to the faithful confessor of His name. Standing aloof from the corruptions of his day, he warned men of a judgment which should surely come. By the force of truth he was a stranger in the world. His way was contrary to that of other men. But he pleased God whom it was alone his care to please. Thus he lived and wrought, cleaving with patience to a better hope than that of far-extending earthly days, until he ceased upon the noontide of his natural life (Gen. 5:23). He was not found. Men sought him. But his hiding-place was far above their knowledge or desire, who walked by sense and not by faith. He was with God, whom they desired not to know.

He was, however, no recluse or dreamy mystic, for the record is that "Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters." He entered into ordinary human life and knew all the usual trials and vexations as well as the joys of bringing up a family, and families in those days of vigorous longevity were usually large. In spite of that he walked with God, not by fits and starts, but with steady persistency for three centuries! A wonderful walk, the longest walk on record was that! Moreover, while walking with God in spirit, he walked amongst men in bodily presence and well knew their ways and their sins, and bore trenchant witness to God and against them. But this brings us to the second feature that marked him.

Third. By his practical godly life. In the charming brief biography of Genesis 5 we get four words, which sum up a life of purpose, steadfastness, and earnestness—“Enoch walked with God.” He was no anchorite or recluse, finding in the contemplation of solitude a path free from temptation. One word tells us that he took his place in the ordinary affairs of life. He married and was the father of sons and daughters. He had the care of them, and the duty of making provision for them.

How encouraging to us! No ups and downs are recorded in Genesis 5. No failures, nor any brilliant successes. Just this brief yet pregnant sentence, “Enoch walked with God.” It reveals a quiet steady purpose, a saintship which walked in separation from a world under judgment. Hebrews 11:5-6 shows us it was a life of faith, of diligently seeking God.

Enoch walked with God. Enoch did not live in an easy day; we have noted that Jude tells us there was universal ungodliness in Enoch's day. Four is the numeral of universality and in verse 15 of Jude's short epistle the word ungodly appears four times, showing to us the universal ungodliness of the day in which Enoch lived. But, beloved brethren, he walked with God — He walked with God! He had the sense in his affections that God desired his company, and God so worked in those affections that Enoch responded to God's own desires as he walked with God. He didn't walk with God casually; he didn't walk with God intermittently; he didn't walk with God for a few moments; he walked with God for hundreds of years. He didn't go into a monastery to do it, for we read in Gen. 5:22 that "Enoch walked with God … and begat sons and daughters."

He was, however, no recluse or dreamy mystic, for the record is that "Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters." He entered into ordinary human life and knew all the usual trials and vexations as well as the joys of bringing up a family, and families in those days of vigorous longevity were usually large. In spite of that he walked with God, not by fits and starts, but with steady persistency for three centuries! A wonderful walk, the longest walk on record was that! Moreover, while walking with God in spirit, he walked amongst men in bodily presence and well knew their ways and their sins, and bore trenchant witness to God and against them. But this brings us to the second feature that marked him.

On the other hand there is Enoch, a man of faith, pleasing God, walking with God and then taken by God out of a scene to which he never belonged. Is this not the full manifestation of the family of faith? And this should, and to a degree is, seen in the Church.