Genesis 5:22

22. And Enoch walked with God ויתהלךְ חנוךְ את האלהים Not before God, as a messenger, or a workman beneath his eye: nor after him, as a servant; but with him, as a friend . A remarkable expression, occurring but twice in Scripture: in the text as applied to Enoch, and in Genesis 6:9, to Noah. In Malachi 2:6, it is, in our translation, applied to the faithful priest, but the Hebrew verb in this passage is in Kal, not reaching the high spiritual idea of the text . The verb as applied to Enoch and Noah is in Hithpael implying a voluntary and delightful walk . The passages which speak of walking before God (Genesis 24:40, etc . ,) and walking after him do not rise to the high conception of this text . The article is here, for the first time, used with Elohim, the one only God . The LXX translates Και ευηρεστησεν ‘ Ενωχ τω Θεω , and Enoch pleased God, which version Paul uses in Hebrews 11:5: “He had this testimony, that he pleased God . ” Intimate and confidential communication, such as exists between the nearest friends, is suggested by this peculiar language . This single example of eminent piety stands forth sublimely solitary in the antediluvian waste . While the patriarchs from Seth to Enoch, and from Enoch to Lamech, are but a series of Hebrew names, we see Enoch’s face as it shines in his godly walk, and hear him, as a prophet, testify against the sin of his age, and proclaim a coming judgment. Jude 1:14-15. The Jews have manifold traditions concerning Enoch, most of which are gathered in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, written, probably, in the last century B . C . There is a heathen tradition of the same wonderful history in the Phrygian legend of Annacus, a pious king, who lived and prophesied three hundred years, predicting the deluge of Deucalion .