"And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." (Gen. 5:24)

"And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him." (Gen. 5:24)

Enoch was the great-great-great-great-grandson of Adam, and the father of Methuselah. The Bible records that he was a righteous man, faithfully “walking with God,” and lived a total of 365 years. 

Because of the wording in the verse above (“God took him”), it is believed that he did not die, but was taken to heaven. The Book of Hebrews elaborates a bit more on this by saying, “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: ‘He could not be found, because God had taken him away.’” (Heb. 11:5)

Only two persons in the Bible are said to have been chosen by God to escape death and be taken into heaven: Enoch and Elijah. Why, and for what reason or purpose? Although scripture does not specify, the most common theory is that these are to be the “Two Witnesses” mentioned in Revelation 11:3, who will come back to prophecy the end times and themselves die at the time of the apocalypse.

Fr. John