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Cuap. 27, 1, 2. As this valley is an important element in the Messianic times the author describes it more minutely, especially as the Old Testament statements on the subject are very indefinite. This valley is, according to the first part of Enoch, the place where the sinners are punished, 90:26, 27, cf. 4 Ezra vi. 1-3. In the Parables it is indeed mentioned that the kings and the mighty will be punished in a valley, 54:1, 2; 56:4, and in the sight of the just, 48:9, 10; 62:12, but there is no evidence whatever that this writer thought to specify any particular valley. Then the punishment in Gehenna, according to 90:23-27, is restricted to the unfaithful in Israel, and the scope of the verse before us is evidently no broader, while in 54 and 56 altogether different persons are punished “in the valley,” cf. 38, 1. The author’s statements here are at least partially drawn from Old Testament premises. That this valley is the place of punishment rests on the statements Jer. vii. 31; xix. 6; xxxii. 35, and on the accounts in 2 Kings xxiii. 10, and on Jeremiah’s curse, Jer. vii. 32, 33; xix. 6 sqq., and partially, perhaps, on the nature of the valley, for according to Talmud Erabin, fol. 19, a smoke ascended there, thus indicating a subterranean fire. That a fire destroys the sinners in this valley finds its explanation in Gen. xix. 25; Ps. xi. 6; Isa. xvi. 15, 16, 24.—4. Lot, or a portion, cf. Ascensio Isaiae I. 3.—5. Cf. note on 22:14. Cuap. 28, 1. From the centre of the earth, the New Jerusalem, the seer goes towards the east, and from among the mountains of the desert he sees a plain.—2. This plain was, however, filled with trees of this [which?] seed. What places are here meant is a mystery. Dillmann conjectures the Arabah, or plain of the Jordan, and the mountains as the hilly tract between that river and Jerusalem. Cuap. 29, 1. He continues on his eastward trip, and there reaches the sweet-smelling trees, the Arabia and India of the ancients, to the HTR of Gen. x. 30, in which the ancients recognized the place of frankincense and spices.—2. Trees of judgment, i.e. trees that will be given to the just after the judgment to be planted by them, cf. 10:19. Also cf. Isa. Ix. 6; Ps. Lxxii. 10. Cuap. 30. According to the testimony of the ancients cinnamon was an eastern product. CuaP. 31. Sarira, a word not found elsewhere. An Amharic vocabulary says the word means a black flower, cf. Dillmann, Lex., col. 343. But the form is probably corrupt. Galbanum, cf. Winer, Realwérterb., CuapP. 32, 1, 2. Zutel, a name otherwise not known (at least Buxtorf does not mention him), must be the angel guarding the entrance of Paradise—3. The destination of the seer is the garden of justice, i.e. the Paradise, called by the same name 77:3; garden of the just 60:23; garden of life 61:12. The tree of wisdom is entirely distinct from the tree of life, 25:4. As wisdom is to characterize the just in the Messianic times the tree of wisdom is very properly here mentioned.—4. Carob tree, cf. Dillmann, Lex., col. 76.—6. Here we learn that it is the earthly Paradise that Enoch visits. It is not strange that the author fails to give any hint as to the object and future destiny of this garden. He could not make it the abode of the departed just, for they have their place in one (or two) of the apartments of Sheol, cf. 22:6 sqq.; nor could it be the seat of the Messianic kingdom, for this was to be at Jerusalem, cf. chap. 25 and 26, and therefore the writer must leave it out in the cold. And why the tree of wisdom should not be transplanted to the New Jerusalem like the tree of life, 25:5, is not mentioned. Cuap. 33, 1. Now he gets to the ends of the earth, to the place of the extraordinary specimens of the animal kingdom. This chapter was probably suggested by the preceding, in which he visits lands favored with mineral wealth, or by the notices in Gen. ii. 19, 20 of the animals in close connection with Paradise —2. Portals, or exits for the luminaries. Uriel, as is required by his office, cf. 19:1, instructs the seer in these matters. As Enoch had claimed a higher source for his knowledge of the judgment, 1:2, he here claims the same for his special book on the luminaries, chap. 72-82. Cuap. 34. Evidently he had been at the ends of the earth in the preceding chapter, and now goes to the extreme north. As there could be no portals for the luminaries in the north, he finds some there for the winds, joined with phenomena of nature such as could be expected in that region. As the north winds are usually injurious, but not always, he says there is one portal from which it blows for good, but two for evil. Cf. the system in chap. 76.