Genesis 5:24

24. The testimony to the exalted piety of Enoch is emphatically repeated; and where we might expect to read again the solemn phrase, “and he died,” we find instead the mysterious words and he was not; for God took him. The expression, and he was not, has frequent parallels in the Hebrew Scriptures, denoting any sudden and mysterious departure . Thus, Jacob says of his lost sons, (Genesis 42:13; Genesis 42:36,) “Joseph is not, and Simeon is not . ” The LXX translates, “And he was not found,” quoted in Hebrews 11:5. He was suddenly withdrawn from sight, for God took him. If the expression, “and he was not,” does not teach annihilation, much less, as Murphy remarks, does the phrase, “and he died.” Enoch’s life, by its brevity, strongly contrasts with that of the other patriarchs. His earthly existence was a year of years, symbolic thus of an ideal human life in its perfect cycle. Thus, perhaps, would man have lived and been “taken” had he never fallen. The apocryphal Book of Wisdom says happily of him, (chap. 4:13, 14,) “He being made perfect in a short time fulfilled a long time.” The Targums show that the story of Enoch was regarded by the Jews as a revelation of human immortality. It was also proof of the great doctrine afterwards intimated by the translation of Elijah, and fully revealed by the transfiguration and resurrection of Christ, that the human body will share in the bliss and glory of immortality.