And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
And he was not; for God took him. 'To be not,' is a soft archaic expression, several times used in this book in speaking of a person who is no longer visible in his usual place, or met with in the world, without reference to the mode of his disappearance (Genesis 37:30; Genesis 42:13; Genesis 42:36; Job 7:8; Jeremiah 31:15; Matthew 2:18). The versions give different explanations of the phrase. The Samaritan text has: 'He did not appear;' the Syriac text has: 'He ceased to be;' the Arabic text has: 'He died;' the Targum of Onkelos has: 'He was not found, for the Lord did not make him die.' The apostle, following the Septuagint text, translates it, "was not found;" an expression which does not seem to imply that a fruitless search was made for the missing Enoch, since it was insisted upon by some sceptical youths in the case of Elijah (2 Kings 2:16-18), but simply denotes that he had been removed, "for God took him" - i:e., without any previous sickness or decay-away from the earth, to reward him for his eminent piety by exalting him to His own dwelling-place in heaven: `to walk with God, High in salvation and the climes of bliss, Exempt from death.'
Compare John 14:3. This was Paul's view of Enoch's removal, because he considers the expression "for God took him" equivalent to 'for God translated him'-translated to Paradise merely (Luke 23:42), not to that heaven which is to be the glorious abode of the righteous at the general resurrection. It is considered that the language of Christ completely excludes the latter belief. 'Enoch was translated (transported) so that he should not see death, but he cannot have been exempted, any more than those to whom 1 Corinthians 15:50 refers, from those two elements connected with death, according to which it is both the result of sin and the condition of the resurrection. The manner, the character, and the place of the translation of Enoch, must all be fixed within these limits. Our ignorance of the circumstances and relations after death precludes our knowledge of further details' (Kurtz).
Dr. Warburton, whose favourite theory ('Divine Legation of Moses') was, that the Pentateuch contains no revelation of a future state, says that 'Moses knew and believed the immortality of Enoch, but purposely obscured the fact from whence it might have been drawn.' But there is no obscurity in this narrative, because the terms employed announce the translation of Enoch to a celestial abode as clearly as any fact that is related in the Bible. It was a most remarkable event, and designed, in the wisdom as well as mercy of God, to be subservient to the most important ends. It was calculated to give a practical refutation of the gross materialism of the age, which was occupied with things "seen and temporal," to the almost total exclusion of those which were "unseen and eternal."
The wickedness of men had risen to a fearful height of enormity, because Enoch was contemporary with the Cainite Lamech, and was fast hastening to the crisis of iniquity. Regardless of opposition and scorn, Enoch, as a preacher of righteousness, had remained faithful to his trust; and when his ministry was accomplished, he was effectually rescued from the malice his fidelity was sure to excite, in a way which testified most strikingly the divine approval of his conduct; which gave a convincing proof of the invisible world, as well as a future state of retribution; and which might have been felt an awful rebuke to his ungodly contemporaries. To the religious portion of the population, this event was most instructive and cheering at a period of abounding infidelity and corruption.
By applying the elementary rules of arithmetic to the data in this chapter, it will be found that when Enoch was translated, all the patriarchs here mentioned were alive, with the exception of Adam and Noah, the former of whom died 57 years before, and the latter was not born until 69 years after that event. The faith of Adam and Noah respecting a future state received a sensible confirmation by other means; but to all the rest of these patriarchs, who were, or might have been, witnesses of it, the transporting of Enoch was a sensible encouragement to their faith and hope concerning the realities of the invisible world.
Another thing worthy of notice in Enoch's removal was the period of his life at which it occurred. It was in the 'three hundred and sixty-fifth year' of his age, when he had not attained half the years of the other patriarchs. The question naturally occurs, Why was he removed so soon? The first and grand answer, of course, must be, "Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight." But, subordinate to that, it may be allowed to say that he was removed from a world which was not worthy of him; that he had finished the work given him to do, which, as has been quaintly remarked by an old commentator, 'was done the sooner from his minding it so closely;' and that by his removal at an age which might seem premature, and in a manner so striking, he might speak to the worldlings who had disregarded his earnest ministry, in tones more persuasive than his living voice could command. It remains only to observe, that under each of the three dispensations of the true religion that have existed in the world, one eminent person has been translated to heaven.
Enoch was transported under the patriarchal dispensation; Elijah was selected for this honour under the Jewish; and the Great Captain of salvation, after laying the foundation of the Christian Church, ascended to heaven in His whole human nature; and thus was given to all true worshippers of God, under whatever dispensation they lived, a pledge of the resurrection of the just, and their eternal enjoyment of God in body as well as in soul, in the mansions of celestial glory.