One list for all three books
Hard words, old senses, and names from the Book of Enoch and the Lectern. In those books a dotted word opens a short note. This page is the whole note, and every line below opens the place it came from.
Very common old words, such as thou, thee, and ye, are explained here and left undotted, so they do not mark every line.
Atonement
The covering or putting right of what stands between people and God. In the Torah it is a sacrifice and a day. In the New Testament the same idea is carried by the death of Jesus.
See also Mercy, Azazel, Propitiation
Baptism
A washing that marks a turning. John baptizes in the Jordan. The apostles baptize into the name of Jesus. The word is about burial and beginning, not only about water.
See also Repentance, Holy Ghost
Canon
The list of books a community receives as scripture. Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Ethiopian churches do not keep the same list. This shelf shows those lists instead of hiding the difference.
Covenant
A binding promise, often cut with a sign: a rainbow, circumcision, the law at Sinai, the throne of David, and the new covenant promised to Jeremiah. The New Testament reads that promise in the cup of the supper.
See also Law, Ark of the covenant
Faith
Trust that acts on a word. Abraham’s trust is the sentence Paul, James, and the letter to the Hebrews all pick up. It is not a mood. It is taking God at his word.
See also Righteousness, Grace
Gospel
Good news. In the New Testament it is the announcement that Jesus is Lord, that he died and was raised, and that the kingdom has come near. The four narratives called Gospels are that announcement told as a life.
Grace
Favor that is not wages. The King James keeps the word where later English might say kindness or gift. Paul sets it against earning. It does not mean the law was a mistake. It means the gift has the last word.
Kingdom
God’s reign, not first a place. The prophets wait for it. Jesus says it has come near. The prayer asks for it on earth as in heaven. Revelation pictures it as a city.
Law
Torah: instruction, not only a code. In Jewish reading it is the five books and the way of life they teach. Paul argues about whether the law, good as it is, can make a person righteous. Jesus says he did not come to abolish it.
See also Covenant, Righteousness
Mercy
Steadfast kindness toward someone who cannot compel it. Hosea sets it above sacrifice. The Gospels keep returning to it. It is close to grace, but it leans toward pity for misery.
Messiah
Anointed one. Kings and priests were anointed in Israel. The prophets speak of a coming king of David’s line. Christ is the Greek word for the same office. The New Testament says Jesus is that person. Other readers of the same texts still wait.
See also Kingdom, Son of man
Peace
Shalom: wholeness, not only a ceasefire. The priestly blessing asks for it. The prophets tie it to justice. The letters open with grace and peace as one greeting.
Prophet
One who speaks for God, often to the king and the people, not only about the far future. Moses is the pattern. Elijah is the one Malachi says will come again. The early church reads many prophetic lines as speaking of Jesus.
Repentance
Turning around. The Hebrew leans toward coming back. The Greek leans toward a changed mind. The prophets demand it of the nation. John and Jesus open their preaching with it.
Resurrection
The dead living again. Daniel and the Maccabean martyrs speak of it. The Gospels say it happened to Jesus on the first day of the week. Paul says that event is the start of the general resurrection, not a one-off miracle.
Righteousness
Being in the right, or putting things right. It can mean a person’s integrity, a judge’s verdict, or God’s own faithfulness. Paul says righteousness is given to the one who trusts, not assembled from the law.
Sabbath
The seventh day, kept as rest because God rested and because Israel had been slaves. The Gospels argue about what the day is for. Hebrews treats it as a rest still ahead.
Servant
Isaiah’s servant songs describe a figure who suffers for others. Readers have heard Israel in those lines, and the church has heard Jesus. The Gospels quote them at the passion.
Shepherd
A king’s metaphor in the ancient Near East, and a working job in these hills. Psalm 23 trusts the shepherd. Ezekiel accuses the shepherds of Israel. John has Jesus take the title.
Spirit
Breath, wind, and the presence of God. The spirit hovers over the waters, fills prophets, and in the New Testament is poured out at Pentecost. The same word can mean a person’s own breath. Context decides.
See also Holy Ghost, Pentecost
Wisdom
Skill for living, and in Proverbs a woman who calls in the street. Job refuses easy answers. The Catholic canon adds the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach. Paul calls Christ the wisdom of God.
Word
What God says, and in John a person. Genesis has God create by speaking. The prophets say the word of the Lord came. John says the word was with God, was God, and became flesh. Logos is the Greek term behind that opening.
Thou, thee, and ye
Old pronouns, left unmarked because they are on almost every line. Thou and thee are singular, said to one person. Ye and you are plural, said to a group. Thy and thine mean your. Unto means to. They are not holier than modern English. They are only older.
Meat
In this older English, meat is food, not only flesh. A meat offering is a grain offering. Corn is grain, usually wheat or barley, not the maize of the Americas. Both words are left mostly unmarked so they do not underline every meal in the text.
Corn
Grain. When Ruth gleans corn, or Egypt stores corn, the crop is wheat or barley. The plant now called corn had not reached these writers.
Firmament
The sky thought of as a solid dome, holding the waters above away from the waters below. Later English Bibles often say expanse. It is the stage of the second day of creation, and the floor the cherubim stand on in Ezekiel.
See also Cherubim, Luminaries
Selah
A note in the Psalms, probably a pause, a lift in the music, or a cue to stop and weigh the line. It is not a word of the prayer itself. No one is sure of the tune it once marked.
See also Psalm headings
Psalm headings
Old music notes at the head of a psalm: Maschil, Michtam, Shiggaion, Gittith, Alamoth, Sheminith. They name a tune, a choir, or a kind of song. The King James often drops them. The American Standard keeps them in the first verse. They are not part of the prayer.
See also Selah
Begat
Became the father of. The genealogies are lists of begats. The word is ordinary family speech in this English, not a ritual.
See also Begotten, Methuselah
Begotten
Born of someone, not made from nothing. John uses only begotten of the Son. It is not the same word as the begat of the family lists, though both come from begetting.
Verily
Truly, or amen. When Jesus says verily, or verily verily, he is staking his word on the next sentence. It is not a decoration.
See also Thou, thee, and ye, Amen
Amen
So be it, or it is firm. Said at the end of a prayer, and by Jesus at the start of a hard sentence, where the King James prints verily. The word is left unmarked because it closes so many lines.
See also Verily
Charity
In the King James, charity is love, the love Paul ranks above gift and knowledge. It is not first a donation. Later Bibles say love in these same verses.
Conversation
Conduct, the way a life is carried, not a talk. When Peter says holy in all manner of conversation, he means the whole of how one lives.
See also Charity
Prevent
In this English, to go ahead of someone, not to stop them. The living shall not prevent them which are asleep means the living will not arrive before the dead.
See also Resurrection, Quick
Quick
Living. The quick and the dead are the living and the dead. To quicken is to make alive. It does not mean fast.
See also Resurrection, Gave up the ghost
Gave up the ghost
Died. The ghost here is the breath leaving. It is the same family of words as spirit. Holy Ghost is a different note: that phrase is a name for the Spirit of God.
See also Holy Ghost, Quick
Holy Ghost
The King James name for the Holy Spirit. Ghost, in 1611, meant spirit or breath, not a haunting. The same verses in later Bibles say Holy Spirit.
See also Spirit, Pentecost, Gave up the ghost
Wist
Knew. They wist not means they did not know. Wot is the same old verb: I wot means I know.
See also Thou, thee, and ye
Leasing
Lying, or a lie. To seek after leasing is to chase falsehood. The word has nothing to do with renting.
See also Selah
Anon
At once. Anon with joy means immediately, with joy. It does not mean nameless.
See also Presently
Presently
In this English, right away, not in a little while. The fig tree withered presently. The angels would come presently.
See also Anon
Listeth
Wishes, or chooses. The wind bloweth where it listeth means the wind blows where it pleases. It is not a list.
See also Spirit
Pottage
A thick stew, usually of lentils. Esau sells his birthright for a bowl of it. The red stew is also why he is called Edom.
See also Birthright
Birthright
The older son’s portion and place, a double share and the lead of the family. Esau sells his. Jacob steals the blessing that goes with a place like it. The two are close and not identical.
Glean
To pick up what the reapers leave. The law tells owners not to harvest the corners, so the poor and the stranger can glean. Ruth does this in Boaz’s field.
See also Corn
Cubit
A length from elbow to fingertip, about half a metre, though the exact cubit shifts by time and place. Noah’s ark, the tabernacle, and Goliath are all measured in cubits.
Furlong
A Greek stadion, about an eighth of a mile, or two hundred metres. Emmaus is threescore furlongs from Jerusalem, roughly seven miles.
Firkin
A liquid measure, roughly forty litres. The six stone jars at Cana hold two or three firkins each. It is a large jar, not a cup.
See also Cubit
Cruse
A small jar for oil or honey. The widow’s cruse does not run dry while Elijah is fed. It is not a curse.
Shekel
A weight of silver, and so a price. The sanctuary shekel is the official weight used for vows and the tabernacle. Thirty pieces of silver in the passion are shekels in the older story of the prophet.
Talent
A weight you carried, on the order of thirty kilograms of metal, and so a fortune. In these books a talent is never a skill. The parable of the talents is about bags of silver left in trust.
Penny
The King James penny is a denarius, a Roman day’s wage, not a modern cent. A farthing is a smaller coin, and a mite is smaller still, the widow’s two coins.
Farthing
A small copper coin, the Roman quadrans or assarion. Two sparrows for a farthing. The uttermost farthing means the last small coin of a debt.
Mite
The smallest coin in the story, a lepton. The widow’s two mites make one farthing. It is the whole of what she had.
Ephah
A dry measure, about a basket of flour, sometimes guessed near twenty litres. An omer is a tenth of an ephah, the daily portion of manna.
Jubilee
The fiftieth year, when the King James says jubile. Debts loosen, land goes back to its family, and slaves go free. It is announced with a ram’s horn.
Mercy seat
The gold lid of the ark, where the cherubim face each other. The name means a place of covering, or atonement. Blood is sprinkled there on the Day of Atonement. It is not a chair.
See also Ark of the covenant, Cherubim, Atonement
Ark of the covenant
The chest of the testimony, holding the tablets, and later remembered as holding manna and Aaron’s rod. Noah’s ark is a different word and a boat. This ark is a box that goes before the people.
See also Mercy seat, Shittim, Covenant
Holy of holies
The innermost room, behind the veil, where the ark stood. The King James often says the holiest of all. Only the high priest went in, and not on an ordinary day.
See also Ark of the covenant, Mercy seat, Ephod
Ephod
A priest’s vest, linen and gold, worn over the robe. The breastplate with the stones is fastened to it. Gideon later makes an ephod that becomes a snare, so the word is not always praise.
See also Breastplate, Urim and Thummim
Breastplate
The high priest’s square of gold and stones, worn on the chest, holding the Urim and Thummim. In the prophets it can also be a piece of armor. The priest’s is the one with the names of the tribes.
See also Ephod, Urim and Thummim
Urim and Thummim
Objects kept in the breastplate, used to ask God a yes or a no. The names are read as lights and perfections, but no one still has the method. They are not gems with letters in the later legends only. The text simply says they are put in the breastplate.
See also Breastplate, Ephod
Shewbread
The bread of the Presence, twelve loaves set before God in the holy place and replaced each sabbath. Shewbread and showbread are the same loaves. David eats them when he is hungry, which Jesus later cites.
See also Sabbath, Tabernacle
Tabernacle
The tent of meeting, the movable sanctuary of the wilderness, and sometimes the feast of booths. It is not a church building. The glory is said to dwell there between moves.
See also Ark of the covenant, Mercy seat
Shittim
Acacia wood, the desert timber of the ark and the poles. Shittim is also a place-name east of the Jordan. When it is the wood, it means the acacia.
See also Ark of the covenant, Gopher
Gopher
The wood of Noah’s ark. Nobody knows the tree. It is not a animal, and it is not pitched pine by certainty. The pitch is a separate word in the same verse.
Bdellium
A resin, or a pale stone, named with the gold and onyx of Havilah. The manna is later said to look like it. The translators did not agree what the shop would call it.
See also Manna
Manna
The bread on the ground in the wilderness. The name is the question they asked: what is it? An omer of it was kept, by the later telling, with the ark.
See also Ephah, Ark of the covenant
Hyssop
A small bitter herb used as a brush. Blood of the passover is struck with it. A leper is sprinkled with it. At the cross, a sponge is lifted on it. It is a plant, not a spice jar.
See also Passover
Mitre
The high priest’s headdress, a linen turban with a gold plate: holiness to the Lord. It is not the later bishop’s hat, though the English word wandered there.
See also Ephod, Breastplate
High places
Shrines on hilltops, in Hebrew bamot. Kings are praised or blamed for leaving them up. They were not simply scenic viewpoints. Sacrifice happened there, to the Lord or to other gods.
Asherah
A goddess, and the wooden pole set up for her. Where the King James says grove or groves beside an altar, it often means this pole, not a stand of trees. Later revisions say Asherah.
See also Baal, High places
Baal
Lord, and the title of a Canaanite storm god. Baalim is the plural, many baals. Elijah’s contest on Carmel is with the prophets of Baal. The name also hides inside place-names.
Molech
A god to whom children were passed through fire. The law forbids it. Moloch is the same name in another spelling. The prophets treat it as one of the worst betrayals of the land.
See also Baal, Abomination
Dagon
A god of the Philistines. Samson dies in Dagon’s temple. The ark, set in Dagon’s house, is said to leave the image fallen. He is not a Hebrew name for God.
See also Baal, Ark of the covenant
Teraphim
Household images, small gods kept at home. Rachel hides her father’s teraphim in the saddle. Micah has them in Judges. They are not toys.
Nehushtan
The bronze serpent Moses lifted in the wilderness, later named Nehushtan and broken up because people burned incense to it. Jesus cites the lifting of the serpent. The object and the later idol are the same bronze.
See also Manna
Azazel
The name behind the scapegoat. On the Day of Atonement one goat is for the Lord and one for Azazel, sent into the wilderness. The King James says scapegoat. The American Standard says Azazel. 1 Enoch tells Azazel as a leader of the Watchers who taught metalwork and war, and who is bound in the desert. The goat and the angel are not the same sentence, but the name is the bridge.
Cherubim
Winged throne-guardians, not children. They keep the way to the tree of life. They are hammered in gold over the mercy seat. Ezekiel sees them as living creatures full of eyes. The King James plural is often cherubims.
See also Seraphim, Mercy seat, Firmament
Seraphim
Burning ones. Isaiah sees them above the throne, six wings each, crying holy. The King James says seraphims. They are not the same figures as the cherubim, though both attend the throne.
See also Cherubim
Pharisee
A Jewish school devoted to the law in daily life, not only in the temple. The Gospels argue with Pharisees often, and also say some believed. Paul calls himself one. They are not a cartoon of hypocrisy in every verse.
Sadducee
A priestly party, often tied to the temple, who did not hold to the resurrection or to angels in the way the Pharisees did. Jesus disputes them. They fade after the temple falls.
See also Pharisee, Resurrection
Publican
A tax collector for the ruling power, often Rome, and so despised as a collaborator. The King James publican is not the owner of a pub. Matthew and Zacchaeus are publicans.
Centurion
A Roman officer over about a hundred soldiers. More than one of them is treated kindly in the Gospels and Acts. Cornelius is a centurion. The man at the cross is a centurion.
Legion
A Roman army unit of several thousand, and the name a spirit gives in the Gospels: we are many. The word is the army first. The story uses it for a crowd of spirits.
See also Centurion
Phylactery
A small box of scripture strapped to the forehead or arm in prayer, still called tefillin. Jesus criticizes making them broad for show. He does not invent the practice. It comes from the command to bind the words as a sign.
Mammon
Wealth as a master. Aramaic for money or property. Jesus says you cannot serve God and mammon. It is not the name of a demon in the verse itself.
Raca
An Aramaic insult, something like empty-head. Jesus sets it beside the judgment, and sets fool beside the fire. It is one word, said once, in the sermon on the mount.
See also Gehenna
Corban
A gift vowed to God, and so, in the argument Jesus attacks, kept back from one’s parents. The word means offering. The abuse is using the vow to dodge the command to honor father and mother.
See also Law
Hosanna
Save us, please, from a psalm, shouted at the entry into Jerusalem. It became praise, but it began as a cry for help.
See also Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Praise the Lord. Alleluia is the same Hebrew sentence in Greek dress. The King James uses both, especially in the Psalms and in Revelation.
Maranatha
Aramaic: our Lord has come, or our Lord, come. Paul sets it beside anathema at the end of a letter. It is a prayer, not a curse. The curse is the other word.
See also Anathema
Anathema
A thing devoted to destruction, set under the ban. Paul uses it of anyone who preaches another gospel, and of those who do not love the Lord. It is the ban, not a swear-word.
See also Maranatha, Abomination
Propitiation
The act that turns wrath aside, or covers the offense. Paul uses it of Jesus, and points at the mercy seat. Later debates argue whether the stress is on covering or on appeasing. The verse ties it to blood and to faith.
See also Atonement, Mercy seat
Gentile
The nations, anyone not of Israel. The King James gentiles are the goyim of the Hebrew. The word is not an insult in the text. It is a boundary the later letters argue about crossing.
Sackcloth
Coarse cloth worn in grief or repentance, often with ashes. It is a public sign, not underwear. Prophets wear it. Nineveh puts it on, in the story, from the king to the cattle.
See also Repentance
Abomination
Something the law calls loathsome, often an idol or a forbidden rite. The abomination of desolation, in Daniel and the Gospels, is a desecration of the holy place. The word is stronger than dislike.
See also Molech, High places
Passover
The night the destroyer is said to pass over the houses marked with blood, and the meal that remembers it. Unleavened bread is the bread of that week, made in haste, without yeast.
See also Unleavened, Hyssop
Unleavened
Bread without yeast, eaten at the Passover because the leaving was too fast for dough to rise. The feast of unleavened bread is the week that follows the meal.
See also Passover
Pentecost
The fiftieth day, the feast of weeks, a harvest festival. In Acts the Spirit is poured out on that day. The Christian feast keeps the Jewish date.
See also Holy Ghost, Passover
Purim
The feast of lots, from Esther. Pur is the lot that was cast. The day remembers a deliverance of the Jews in the Persian court. It is not one of the feasts named in the Torah.
See also Passover
Sheol
The underworld of the Hebrew Bible, the grave of all the dead, not yet a map of reward and punishment. The King James usually says hell for it. The American Standard and the World English Bible say Sheol. It is not the same word as Gehenna.
Gehenna
The valley of Hinnom, a ravine by Jerusalem associated with forbidden fire, and in Jesus’ speech the place of judgment. Later Bibles sometimes say Gehenna. The King James says hell, or hell fire. It is not the same word as Sheol.
Hades
The Greek name for the realm of the dead, used in the New Testament where the Hebrew would say Sheol. The King James often prints hell. Revelation’s hades is thrown into the lake of fire, which is a different image again.
Tartarus
The deep prison under the world in Greek telling. 1 Enoch sets Uriel over Tartarus. Second Peter says the angels who sinned were cast down to hell and chained in darkness. The King James does not use the Greek name. The story it points at is the Watchers.
Bottomless pit
The abyss, a shaft under the world. Revelation’s angel opens it, and its king is named Abaddon in Hebrew and Apollyon in Greek. It is the same deep the demons beg not to be sent into, in Luke.
Abaddon
Destruction, and in Job a name for the place of the dead beside Sheol. In Revelation it is the Hebrew name of the angel of the pit. Apollyon is the Greek of that same angel.
See also Apollyon, Bottomless pit, Sheol
Apollyon
Destroyer, the Greek name Revelation gives the angel of the pit. The Hebrew beside it is Abaddon. It is one figure with two tongues, not two kings.
See also Abaddon, Bottomless pit
Armageddon
The place where Revelation gathers the kings for battle, from the Hebrew for the hill of Megiddo. Megiddo is a real plain in the north of Israel where older battles were fought. The verse is a name, not a timetable.
See also Bottomless pit
Lucifer
A Latin word for light-bearer. The King James uses it once, in a taunt of the king of Babylon: how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning. The Hebrew is morning star, not a second personal name. Later readers used the verse of the devil. The poem itself is about a fallen king.
See also Beelzebub
Beelzebub
The prince of demons in the Gospels, from a Philistine god’s name, lord of flies or lord of the dwelling. Jesus is accused of casting out demons by him, and answers that a house divided cannot stand. He is not given a body in the text.
Behemoth
The land beast of Job, vast, eating grass, bones like bars of iron. The poem does not name the species. 1 Enoch pairs a male monster Behemoth with the sea monster Leviathan, parted on a day of judgment.
See also Leviathan
Leviathan
The sea monster. Job is dared to draw him out with a hook. The Psalms say God broke the heads of leviathan. Isaiah has the Lord punishing the twisting serpent. 1 Enoch makes Leviathan the female of the pair, set in the abyss.
Rahab
Two uses. Rahab of Jericho hides the spies and is spared. Rahab in the poems is a sea monster, a name for the chaos God breaks, beside Leviathan. The woman and the monster share an English spelling. The verses do not.
See also Leviathan
Oracle
In the temple chapters, the inner room, the speaking-place, another name for the holiest room. It is not a Greek fortune-teller. When a prophet gives an oracle, that is the other sense: a spoken word from God.
See also Holy of holies, Ark of the covenant
Sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer
Instruments in the court band of Daniel. A sackbut is a strings or wind instrument in that list, not the later trombone for certain. Psaltery and dulcimer are plucked or struck strings. The point of the scene is the signal to bow, not the catalogue.
See also Nebuchadnezzar
Watchers
Heavenly sentinels. Daniel uses the word of a holy one who comes down. 1 Enoch builds the story of the watchers who left their post, swore on Hermon, and fathered the giants. Jude and 2 Peter know that fall even where they do not name the book. The same English word can also mean a human lookout. The heavenly sense is the one Daniel and Enoch mean.
Nephilim
The mighty ones born, in Genesis 6, when the sons of God come to the daughters of men. The King James says giants. Later translations say Nephilim. 1 Enoch tells them as the children of the Watchers, and says they become evil spirits when they die. Other giants later in the land, the Anakim and the like, are a further use of the same English word.
Semjaza
Leader of the Watchers who swear the oath on Mount Hermon. Charles spells him Semjâzâ, and in the list of chiefs Samîazâz. He fears he will be left to pay for the sin alone. 1 Enoch, not Genesis, gives him the name.
Michael
One of the chief angels. Daniel calls him a chief prince who stands for the people. Jude has him dispute about the body of Moses. Revelation has him war in heaven. 1 Enoch names him among the holy angels who watch, and among those who look down and see the bloodshed.
Gabriel
The angel who explains Daniel’s visions, and in Luke announces John and Jesus. 1 Enoch sets him over paradise and the cherubim, and among the four who look down from heaven.
Raphael
Named in Tobit as the guide who travels with Tobias, and in 1 Enoch as the angel told to bind Azazel and cast him into the dark. He is not named in the Protestant canon. Catholic Bibles keep Tobit, and the Ethiopian church keeps Enoch.
Uriel
A holy angel in 1 Enoch, sent to the son of Lamech with the warning of the flood, and set over the world and over Tartarus. He is not named in the King James Bible. He stands in the Ethiopian book beside Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel.
Phanuel
The fourth angel beside Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael in the later visions of 1 Enoch. He is not the Phanuel of the Bible’s place-lists. Charles gives him a share in the judgment of the kings.
Raguel
One of the holy angels who watch, in 1 Enoch’s list, set over the world of the luminaries. Tobit also has a man named Raguel, the father of Sarah. The angel and the man are not the same person.
See also Uriel, Luminaries
Luminaries
The lights of the sky, sun and moon and stars, treated in 1 Enoch as a book of their gates and calendars. Genesis calls them lights set in the firmament. Enoch’s section of the luminaries begins at chapter 72.
Head of Days
Enoch’s title for the ancient figure on the throne, head white like wool. Daniel’s matching picture is the Ancient of Days, and one like a son of man comes to him. Enoch asks who the Son of Man is who stands with the Head of Days.
See also Son of man, Michael
Son of man
A human being, and also a title. Ezekiel is addressed as son of man, meaning mortal. Daniel sees one like a son of man coming with the clouds. 1 Enoch asks about that Son of Man who has righteousness. The Gospels have Jesus take the phrase for himself. The address and the title are not the same use.
See also Head of Days, Messiah
Imprecation
A curse, or a binding oath that calls down a penalty. The Watchers bind themselves by mutual imprecations on Hermon so none can back out. It is not a prayer for a blessing.
Hermon
The high mountain at the north of Israel. 1 Enoch says the Watchers came down on it in the days of Jared and named it for their oath. The Psalms speak of Hermon’s dew. It is a real ridge, and in Enoch the place of the descent.
Enoch
Genesis has two. Cain’s son Enoch has a city named for him. The other is the seventh from Adam, who walked with God and was not, for God took him. Jude quotes that Enoch. 1 Enoch is the long book kept in the Ethiopian canon under his name. The dotted name on a page may be either man. The one who is taken is the scribe of the later book.
See also Methuselah, Lamech, Watchers
Methuselah
The long-lived man of the genealogy, father of Lamech and grandfather of Noah. The King James New Testament spells him Mathusala. 1 Enoch makes him the one who receives his father’s books.
Lamech
Two men share the name. One is Cain’s descendant who boasts of killing. The other is Methuselah’s son and Noah’s father. 1 Enoch sends Uriel to the son of Lamech, and means Noah’s father.
See also Noah, Methuselah, Uriel
Jared
Father of the Enoch who walked with God. 1 Enoch dates the descent of the Watchers to his days, on Mount Hermon. He is a name in the list, and in Enoch a date.
Noah
The man of the flood, son of Lamech, builder of the gopher-wood ark. Genesis has God establish a covenant with him. 1 Enoch has Uriel warn his house before the deluge. The Gospels and the letters use his days as a pattern of sudden judgment.
Nimrod
A mighty hunter before the Lord, in the table of nations, and the start of a kingdom that includes Babel. Later legend made him a rebel. The verses themselves call him a hunter and a king.
See also Baal
Melchizedek
King of Salem and priest of God Most High, who brings bread and wine to Abraham and blesses him. The King James New Testament spells him Melchisedec. Hebrews builds him into a priesthood older than Aaron. He has no genealogy in Genesis, which is the point Hebrews presses.
See also Covenant
Elijah
The prophet of the drought and the contest on Carmel, fed by ravens and by the widow’s cruse, taken up in a whirlwind. Malachi says Elijah will come before the great day. The Gospels wonder if John or Jesus is that coming.
Elisha
Elijah’s successor, who asks a double portion of his spirit and receives the mantle. His stories are the wonders and the politics of the northern kingdom after Elijah is taken.
See also Elijah
Nebuchadnezzar
King of Babylon who takes Jerusalem and the temple vessels. Daniel serves in his court. He is the king of the furnace, the madness, and the dream of the tree. Later spellings shorten him to Nebuchadrezzar. It is one king.
See also Sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, Daniel
Daniel
A Judean exile who becomes a reader of dreams in Babylon, and the book under his name. Ezekiel mentions a Daniel famous for wisdom. The Watcher, the Son of Man, and Michael all appear in his visions. Jesus cites the abomination of desolation as spoken of by Daniel.
See also Nebuchadnezzar, Watchers, Son of man
Herod
A family of kings, not one man. Herod the Great is king when Jesus is born. His son Antipas kills John and is at the trial. A later Herod, Agrippa, is struck in Acts. The name on the page needs the chapter to say which.
Pilate
Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who tries Jesus and hands him over. He is not a king. The Gospels press his question, and his washing of his hands, and the title he writes on the cross.
Caesar
The Roman emperor, and the title itself. Augustus decrees the census. A later Caesar is on the penny Jesus is shown. Render to Caesar is about that coin and that rule, not a proverb floating free.