Waters as Punishment and Healing
The text here
portrays the Flood itself as God removing His restraint from the waters. More specifically,
the waters represent chaos and destruction, and spirits of chaos and destruction
are associated with them. But the Lord of Spirits has assigned angels over
these powers of the waters to present them from destroying the earth (66:1-3).
When He removes the restraint, the waters come and destroy everything. God uses
the waters, however, to do good. The release of their destructive forces punishes
the powers of the waters on the earth; at the same time God heals the body of
the earth (67:8) by removing the agents of evil and their evil works, thus
purifying and healing the world.
The Flood’s purification of the earth
from the rebellious spirits’ evil in the days of Noah, then, is a testimony to
a future, greater fulfillment. The day will come when the waters themselves
will be purified and healed through the destruction of the powers over them
(67:11-12). This cleansing of the waters from evil powers is fulfilled at the Baptism
of Christ: the waters of chaos and death become the waters of purification, refreshment,
and rebirth in baptism (see 1 Peter 3:18-22). We see this understanding in the
hymnography at the Great Blessing of the Waters: “Today the substance of water
is made holy, / for the Master is washed in the Jordan. / When the River sees
Him, it stops its flow and bursts forth” (Greek Orthodox translation).
At the time of the Flood, the
unrepentant wickedness of the fallen Watchers is so abhorrent that even Ss.
Michal and Raphael will not intercede for them, for to do so would be to take
their side in rebellion against the Lord of Spirits (1 Enoch 68:1-5; see also 1
John 5:16-17). Next follow another list of the leaders of the rebellious
Watchers, numbered at twenty—with Azazel separately as the twenty-first (1
Enoch 69:1-3). The text details the secrets of knowledge that these angelic
beings taught to humans in order to further their self-destruction. Notable inclusions
are weapons and armor for war, the preservation of secrets in writing, abortion,
and magical oaths. The book describes the covenant with Noah following the Flood
as an oath, a pact between the Lord of Spirits and the spirits superintending
the various elements of the creation. He allows them to function as normal while
restraining the forces of chaos and destruction until the end of days (vv.
16-25).
God’s preservation of the world is,
then, the restraint of supernatural and human evil within the cosmos, and the
relaxing of that restraint is a form of judgment; God gives over humanity to
its own evil devices and to those powers whom it has worshipped and obeyed. The
covenant with Noah sealed by the rainbow, then, is not only a promise not to
allow another flood of water but a promise to restrain the forces of wickedness
until the last days, so that the situation in Noah’s time will not recur until
then (Gen. 8:20-22). The Book of Parables then concludes with Enoch ascending
back to heaven to stand before the divine throne, as well as with a parting
benediction retained from the earlier, independent text. (Stephen De Young, Apocrypha: An
Introduction to Extra-Biblical Literature [Chesterton, Ind.: Ancient Faith
Publishing, 2023], 74-76)
