The Watchers in 1 Enoch (Chapters 6–16) Explained
Genesis 6:1-4 gives the 'sons of God' and the giants four cryptic verses. 1 Enoch 6–16 tells the whole story: two hundred angels, an oath on Mount Hermon, forbidden knowledge, a flood, and a petition for mercy that heaven refuses. Here is what each chapter says and why it mattered to Jews and Christians alike.
Who Were the Watchers?
The Book of the Watchers is the first of the five works collected in 1 Enoch, filling chapters 1–36, and it is one of the oldest Jewish writings outside the Hebrew Bible. Aramaic fragments of it were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, and the oldest of those copies, from around 200 BC, show the text was already in circulation by the third century BC. Its heart is chapters 6–16: the story of the Watchers, angels of heaven who 'saw and lusted after' human women, came down to earth, fathered giants, and taught humanity arts it was never meant to have.
The story fills in the gap left by Genesis 6:1-4, where the 'sons of God' take wives from the 'daughters of men' and 'giants' appear in the earth, all in four verses and immediately before the Flood. Enoch's version names the angels, gives their numbers, locates their descent on Mount Hermon, lists what they taught, and narrates God's response through the archangels Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel. It then turns Enoch himself, the man who 'walked with God' in Genesis 5:24, into the scribe who carries the fallen angels' petition for mercy up to heaven and returns with the answer: no.
This guide walks through the chapters in order, quoting the R. H. Charles translation (1917) as it appears in the Bible Notetaker reader. Charles marks textual problems with brackets and daggers, and those marks are kept as he printed them. Along the way it looks at how the story connects to Genesis, Jude and 2 Peter, how Jewish and Christian readers have handled it, and why the book is Scripture in Ethiopia but absent from most other Bibles.
Key Passages from the Watchers Story
1 Enoch 6:1-2
The Descent Begins (Ch. 6)“And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’”
1 Enoch 6:3-6
The Oath on Mount Hermon (Ch. 6)“And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: ‘I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’ And they all answered him and said: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.’ Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended ⌜in the days⌝ of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.”
1 Enoch 7:1-2
The Giants Are Born (Ch. 7)“And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells:”
1 Enoch 7:3-6
The Giants Devour the Earth (Ch. 7)“Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, The giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones.”
1 Enoch 8:1-2
Azazel's Forbidden Arts (Ch. 8)“And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals ‹of the earth› and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways.”
1 Enoch 8:3
Enchantments and Astrology (Ch. 8)“Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, (taught) astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, ‹Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun›, and Sariêl the course of the moon.”
1 Enoch 9:1
The Archangels Look Down (Ch. 9)“And then Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw much blood being shed upon the earth, and all lawlessness being wrought upon the earth.”
1 Enoch 9:6
The Charge Against Azazel (Ch. 9)“Thou seest what Azâzêl hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn:”
1 Enoch 10:1-3
Noah Is Warned (Ch. 10)“Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spake, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: ‘‹Go to Noah and› tell him in my name “Hide thyself!”, and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world.’”
1 Enoch 10:4-6
Raphael Binds Azazel (Ch. 10)“And again the Lord said to Raphael: ‘Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire.”
1 Enoch 10:11-12
Michael Binds Semjaza (Ch. 10)“And the Lord said unto Michael: ‘Go, bind Semjâzâ and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. And, when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated.”
1 Enoch 13:4-6
The Watchers' Petition (Ch. 13)“And they besought me to draw up a petition for them that they might find forgiveness, and to read their petition in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For from thenceforward they could not speak (with Him) nor lift up their eyes to heaven for shame of their sins for which they had been condemned. Then I wrote out their petition, and the prayer †in regard to their spirits and their deeds individually and in regard to their requests that they should have forgiveness and length ‹of days›†.”
1 Enoch 14:18-21
The Throne Vision (Ch. 14)“And I looked and saw 〚therein〛 a lofty throne: its appearance was as crystal, and the wheels thereof as the shining sun, and there was the vision of cherubim. And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire so that I could not look thereon. And the Great Glory sat thereon, and His raiment shone more brightly than the sun and was whiter than any snow. None of the angels could enter and could behold His face by reason of the magnificence and glory, and no flesh could behold Him.”
1 Enoch 15:2-3
Why the Petition Fails (Ch. 15)“And go, say to 〚the Watchers of heaven〛, who have sent thee to intercede 〚for them: “You should intercede〛 for men, and not men for you: Wherefore have ye left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons.”
1 Enoch 15:8-9
The Origin of Evil Spirits (Ch. 15)“And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, 〚and〛 from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; ⌜they shall be evil spirits on earth, and⌝ evil spirits shall they be called. [”
1 Enoch 16:3
'Worthless' Mysteries (Ch. 16)““You have been in heaven, but ⌜all⌝ the mysteries had not yet been revealed to you, and you knew worthless ones, and these in the hardness of your hearts you have made known to the women, and through these mysteries women and men work much evil on earth.””
Genesis 6:4
The Canonical Parallel“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”
Jude 1:6
The Watchers in the New Testament“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”
2 Peter 2:4
The Watchers in the New Testament“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;”
1 Enoch 1:9
The Verse Jude Quotes“And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of ⌜His⌝ holy ones To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy ⌜all⌝ the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works ⌜of their ungodliness⌝ which they have ungodly committed, ⌜And of all the hard things which⌝ ungodly sinners ⌜have spoken⌝ against Him.”
Chapter by Chapter: The Book of the Watchers
1. What the Book of the Watchers Is
1 Enoch is an anthology, not a single book. Its five parts are the Book of the Watchers (chs. 1–36), the Parables or Similitudes (37–71), the Astronomical Book (72–82), the Dream Visions (83–90) and the Epistle of Enoch (91–108). The Book of the Watchers is itself layered: chapters 1–5 are an introduction announcing God's coming judgment, chapters 6–11 tell the story of the angels' descent, chapters 12–16 recast that story around Enoch, and chapters 17–36 follow Enoch on guided tours of the ends of the earth and the places of punishment. Scholars generally date the core to the third century BC, earlier than the Book of Daniel. The complete text survives only in Ge'ez (classical Ethiopic); large parts survive in Greek, including the Akhmim manuscript of chapters 1–32 and excerpts preserved by the Byzantine chronicler George Syncellus; and the original was written in Aramaic, as the Qumran fragments confirm. Readers searching for 'Enoch 6' or 'Enoch 8' are almost always looking for this section, because it is the part of the book that explains the Nephilim.
2. Chapter 6: Semjaza, the Two Hundred, and the Oath on Mount Hermon
Chapter 6 opens by echoing Genesis 6:1 almost word for word ('when the children of men had multiplied'), then says outright what Genesis leaves ambiguous: the 'sons of God' are 'the angels, the children of the heaven.' Their leader Semjaza (Shemihazah in the Aramaic) is the only one with misgivings, and his worry is not about the sin but about being left to pay for it alone. The answer is a collective oath, sworn with 'mutual imprecations' (curses each calls down on himself if he backs out). Two hundred of them descend 'in the days of Jared' onto the summit of Mount Hermon. The text is built on Hebrew-Aramaic wordplay: Jared's name resembles the verb yarad, 'to go down,' and Hermon resembles herem, a solemn ban or curse, so the mountain is named for the oath sworn on it. Hermon, the highest peak in the region and the northern edge of Israel's territory, was associated with older sacred sites, which may be part of why it was chosen. The chapter ends by naming their leaders, nineteen names headed by Semjaza and described as 'chiefs of tens,' among them Asael (later Azazel), Armaros, Baraqijal and Kokabiel. Several of the names combine the Hebrew word for God (-el) with a natural phenomenon, such as kokab, 'star,' and baraq, 'lightning,' which fits the astronomical lore they are later said to teach.
3. Chapters 7–8: The Giants and Azazel's Forbidden Arts
In chapter 7 the angels take wives and teach them 'charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots.' The women bear giants whose height Charles's text gives as 'three thousand ells,' a deliberately monstrous number. The giants consume everything humans produce, then turn on humans, then on animals, then on each other, drinking blood, which is the ultimate violation of the food law later given to Noah (Genesis 9:4). The chapter ends with a striking legal image: 'the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones,' as though creation itself files suit. Chapter 8 shifts to a second strand of the story, centered on Azazel (Asael). He teaches the making of 'swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates,' metalworking, jewelry, antimony for eye makeup, precious stones and dyes. The other chiefs teach enchantments, the 'resolving of enchantments,' astrology, the constellations, and the signs of the clouds, earth, sun and moon. The pairing is pointed: war technology for men, cosmetics and ornament for women, divination for everyone. The result is 'much godlessness,' sexual immorality and violence. Many scholars see two originally separate traditions braided together here: a Semjaza story about forbidden sexual union and an Azazel story about forbidden knowledge. Either way the text locates the source of human corruption not mainly in human choice but in a cosmic crime committed by heavenly beings.
4. Chapters 9–11: The Archangels' Plea, Judgment, and Noah
Chapter 9 moves to heaven. Michael, Uriel, Raphael and Gabriel look down, see 'much blood being shed upon the earth,' and carry the cries of the murdered souls to God in a prayer that is also a complaint: You know all things, You see what Azazel and Semjaza have done, and You 'dost not say to us what we are to do.' Chapter 10 is God's answer, delivered as four commissions. Uriel (in Charles's text) is sent to Noah to warn him of the deluge so that 'his seed may be preserved.' Raphael is to bind Azazel hand and foot and throw him into a pit in the desert at Dudael, cover him with jagged rocks and darkness, and hold him for the fire of the great judgment, and to 'heal the earth which the angels have corrupted.' Gabriel is to set the giants against one another so they destroy each other in battle. Michael is to bind Semjaza and his associates 'for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth' until the final judgment. The sentence 'to him ascribe all sin' (10:8) assigns Azazel a role close to that of the scapegoat in Leviticus 16, which is sent into the wilderness bearing Israel's sins 'for Azazel' (Hebrew la-'aza'zel, rendered 'scapegoat' in the KJV), and most commentators think the Enochic Azazel and the Levitical one are connected. Chapters 10–11 then widen into a vision of a renewed earth after the Flood, with abundant harvests and 'all the children of men' becoming righteous. The Flood in this telling is not only punishment for human sin but a cleansing of a world polluted by angels.
5. Chapters 12–13: Enoch the Scribe and the Watchers' Petition
With chapter 12 the story turns to Enoch, who 'was hidden,' an allusion to Genesis 5:24 ('he was not; for God took him'). His days are spent 'with the holy ones,' and the faithful Watchers in heaven commission him, as 'scribe of righteousness,' to deliver a verdict to the fallen ones: 'ye shall have no peace nor forgiveness of sin.' Enoch delivers it to Azazel first. Then something unexpected happens. The fallen Watchers, too ashamed to 'lift up their eyes to heaven,' ask the human Enoch to write a petition for them and read it before God. He does, sitting by the waters of Dan, southwest of Hermon, and reads it until he falls asleep. The irony is deliberate: beings who were supposed to mediate between heaven and earth now need a man to mediate for them. Enoch wakes to find the Watchers weeping at Abelsjail with their faces covered, and he reports what he saw in his dream.
6. Chapter 14: The Vision of the Throne
Chapter 14 holds one of the earliest heavenly-throne visions in Jewish literature outside the Bible. Enoch is carried up by clouds, winds and lightning, passes a wall of crystal surrounded by fire, enters a house of crystal that is 'hot as fire and cold as ice,' and then sees a second, greater house built of flames. Inside is 'a lofty throne' like crystal, with wheels like the sun and cherubim, streams of fire flowing from beneath it, and 'the Great Glory' seated on it in raiment 'whiter than any snow,' with 'ten thousand times ten thousand' before Him. The imagery draws on Ezekiel 1 and Isaiah 6 and closely resembles Daniel 7:9-10, where the Ancient of Days sits on a fiery throne with wheels of fire and a fiery stream issuing before Him. Because the Book of the Watchers is probably older than Daniel, it is likely an early example of the throne-vision tradition that Daniel and later Jewish mystical writings also draw on. The vision's point in context is authority: Enoch has stood where the Watchers can no longer go, and his message comes directly from the throne.
7. Chapters 15–16: Why the Petition Fails
God's reply in chapters 15–16 is the theological core of the story. First comes a reversal of roles: 'You should intercede for men, and not men for you.' Then the charge. The Watchers were 'holy, spiritual, living the eternal life,' and immortal beings have no need of marriage or offspring; God gave wives to mortals so that their line might continue. By taking wives the Watchers abandoned their nature and mixed spirit with flesh. The children of that mixture cannot belong to either realm, so when the giants die their spirits remain on earth as 'evil spirits' that 'afflict, oppress, destroy' and 'rise up against the children of men.' This is an origin story for demons, and it helps explain the prominence of unclean spirits in later Jewish and early Christian texts. Finally, God dismisses the knowledge the Watchers taught: they had not been shown the real mysteries, only 'worthless ones,' and even those did great harm. The petition fails because the offense cannot be undone. The Watchers have crossed a boundary built into creation, and their message is reduced to four words: 'You have no peace.'
8. Genesis 6, Jude, and 2 Peter
Genesis 6:1-4 calls the beings 'sons of God' (bene ha'elohim), a phrase that elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible refers to members of God's heavenly court (Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7). Genesis mentions giants (Hebrew nephilim, from a root often linked with 'to fall') but does not explain them and does not explicitly blame the angels for the Flood. The Book of the Watchers is one of the earliest surviving interpretations of that passage, and it reads it as a story about angels. Two New Testament letters assume that reading. Jude 6 speaks of 'angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation,' now held 'in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day,' which closely matches 1 Enoch 10:4-6 and 10:12. Jude 14-15 goes further and quotes Enoch by name, and the quoted words correspond closely to 1 Enoch 1:9, the climax of the Book of the Watchers' introduction. 2 Peter 2:4 says God 'cast down to hell' the angels that sinned; the Greek verb is tartaroo, 'to consign to Tartarus,' and the Greek text of 1 Enoch 20:2 names Uriel as the angel set over Tartarus. 1 Peter 3:19-20, with its 'spirits in prison' who were disobedient 'in the days of Noah,' is often read against the same background. None of this proves Jude or Peter treated 1 Enoch as canonical Scripture, but it shows the Watchers story was familiar enough to cite without explanation.
9. How Jewish and Christian Traditions Have Read It
In Second Temple Judaism the angelic reading was widespread. The Book of Jubilees (chs. 4–5) retells the story, the Dead Sea Scrolls include a related Book of Giants, the Damascus Document mentions the Watchers who fell 'because they did not keep the commandments of God,' and Josephus (Antiquities 1.73) says 'many angels of God' fathered children with women. Later rabbinic Judaism moved away from it. Genesis Rabbah 26:5 reports Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai cursing anyone who called the 'sons of God' angels and reading them as 'sons of judges' or nobles, and the Targum Onqelos translates the phrase as 'sons of the great ones,' although the angelic story survived in later midrash and in mystical literature. Early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athenagoras and Tertullian accepted the angelic interpretation, and Tertullian argued explicitly for the authority of the book of Enoch. From the third and fourth centuries a different reading gained ground: Julius Africanus, and later Augustine (City of God 15.23), took the 'sons of God' to be the godly descendants of Seth marrying the line of Cain. The Sethite view became standard in much of Western Christianity and remains common today, while many modern biblical scholars hold that Genesis 6 originally did mean heavenly beings, whatever one concludes theologically. Readers today still split along these lines: some take the Watchers literally, some read them as a mythic account of how violence and corrupt knowledge spread, and some reject the angelic reading of Genesis altogether.
10. Why the Book of Enoch Isn't in Most Bibles
1 Enoch is canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Church, where it is known as Henok, and it was also preserved by the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews). Everywhere else it fell out of use. The rabbis who shaped the Hebrew Bible did not include it, and by the time the Christian canon settled in the fourth and fifth centuries, the Greek and Latin churches had largely stopped copying it. The reasons usually given are theological and practical: it claimed to be written by a figure from before the Flood, which raised doubts about its authorship; its account of evil originating with angels sat uneasily with developing doctrines of the Fall and of angelic nature (Augustine thought it too old to be trusted and of uncertain authorship); and once it stopped being copied in Greek, Western readers had no complete text. Europe effectively rediscovered the book after the Scottish traveler James Bruce brought Ethiopic manuscripts back in 1773, and Richard Laurence published the first English translation in 1821. So the honest answer to 'why isn't it in the Bible?' is that it depends which Bible: for one ancient church it is Scripture, for the rest it is an important witness to how Jews and early Christians read Genesis.
Where to Read Next
Canonical Passages Connected to the Watchers
- • Genesis 6:2 — The sons of God take wives
- • Genesis 6:4 — Giants in the earth in those days
- • Genesis 5:24 — Enoch walked with God, and God took him
- • Jude 1:6 — Angels who left their own habitation
- • 2 Peter 2:4 — Angels cast down and reserved for judgment
- • Daniel 7:9 — The Ancient of days on a fiery throne
Chapters of the Book of the Watchers
- • Chapters 1–5: the coming of the Holy Great One (1:9 is quoted in Jude)
- • Chapter 6: the descent on Mount Hermon and the oath
- • Chapters 7–8: the giants and the forbidden arts
- • Chapters 9–11: the archangels' plea, Noah, and the binding of the Watchers
- • Chapters 12–16: Enoch's petition, the throne vision, and God's answer
- • Chapters 17–36: Enoch's journeys to the ends of the earth
Read 1 Enoch Alongside Genesis
The full Charles translation of 1 Enoch is in the Bible Notetaker reader, chapter by chapter, next to the KJV and other versions. Read the Watchers story for yourself and keep your notes on the passages.
- Read 1 Enoch 6–16 in full in the reader
- Compare Genesis 6, Jude and 2 Peter side by side
- Save key passages and add your own notes
- Explore the rest of 1 Enoch, including the Book of Parables
Frequently Asked Questions
Who were the Watchers in the Book of Enoch?
In 1 Enoch the Watchers are angels, 'children of the heaven,' whose role was to watch over creation. In chapters 6–16, two hundred of them, led by Semjaza, swear an oath on Mount Hermon, descend to earth, take human wives, father the giants, and teach forbidden arts such as weapon-making, cosmetics, enchantments and astrology. Azazel is singled out as the teacher of 'all unrighteousness.' God has them bound until the final judgment, and the spirits of their giant offspring become evil spirits on earth.
What happens in 1 Enoch chapter 6?
1 Enoch 6 retells Genesis 6:1-2 and identifies the 'sons of God' as angels. They lust after human women and decide to take wives. Their leader Semjaza fears he alone will pay the penalty, so all two hundred bind themselves with a mutual oath and descend onto the summit of Mount Hermon in the days of Jared. The chapter ends by naming their chiefs of tens.
What did Azazel teach in 1 Enoch 8?
According to 1 Enoch 8:1, Azazel taught people to make swords, knives, shields and breastplates, showed them metals and how to work them, and taught bracelets, ornaments, antimony and eye cosmetics, precious stones and dyes. Other chiefs taught enchantments, root-cutting, astrology, the constellations, and the signs of the clouds, earth, sun and moon. The text presents this knowledge as the cause of widespread godlessness, violence and corruption before the Flood.
Are the Watchers the same as the Nephilim?
No. In 1 Enoch the Watchers are the fathers and the giants are their children. Genesis 6:4 calls those giants nephilim. 1 Enoch describes the giants devouring humans and animals and says that after their death their spirits became evil spirits on earth (1 Enoch 15:8-9), while the Watchers themselves are bound beneath the earth until the final judgment.
Is the Book of Enoch in the Bible?
It is in the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (and the Eritrean Orthodox Church), where 1 Enoch is canonical. It is not in the Jewish, Catholic, Protestant or Eastern Orthodox canons. The New Testament does refer to it: Jude 14-15 quotes 1 Enoch 1:9 by name, and Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 reflect the Watchers tradition of angels bound in darkness until judgment.
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