Enoch & Elijah are not in Heaven! Where does the Bible say they are? | Part A

The King James Version (KJV) is mostly used in these lessons. Click here to access the KJV online.

Have you ever believed something to be true only to discover later that you had been wrong all along . . . and all because your belief was based on an incorrect assumption? I have! And it always surprises me to learn the truth because, usually, the facts were there all along, I had just overlooked them because they did not agree with my assumption.

That is what has happened with the stories of Enoch and Elijah. We have assumed that when Yah “took” them, He took them to Heaven. But that simply is not the case and I can prove it from the Bible!

Enoch

Most of what we know of Enoch is found in four short verses in Genesis five:

Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with Yahuwah three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with Yah; and he was not, for Yah took him. (Genesis 5:21-24, NKJV)

It is interesting to note that Moses did not say that Enoch is still walking with Yah. He certainly could have done so; he had the words to express that! But he didn’t. Rather, he phrased it as something that Enoch had (past tense) done. Further, Moses flatly states: “All the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.” If Enoch had been carried to Heaven as we’ve assumed, the number of his days would be continuing to increase. But that is not what Moses said.

The reason is simple: Enoch died. It is very possible in those violent, antediluvian times that this preacher of righteousness was actually murdered. The sacred record is silent as to the particulars. However, one fact we can know unequivocally is that Enoch died. Millennia later, John the beloved, under inspiration, would write: “No one has ascended to heaven but he who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” (John 3:13, NKJV) This is what is called an “all-ness” statement. It is inclusive of everyone: “No one has ascended to heaven.”

The confusion has entered over the word “translated.” Hebrews 11:5 states: “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because Yahuwah had translated him.” Notice it does not say that Enoch was taken to Heaven when he was translated. It states that he was not found.

The word “translated” comes from the Greek word, metatithemi. The primary definition of this word is to “convey to another place . . . [to] transfer.”¹ This is exactly the same Greek word that, in Acts 7:16, is translated “carried over” when explaining that after Jacob’s death, his body was translated/carried over/metatithemi to Shechem where he was buried with his fathers in the cave of Machpelah. In other words, Yahuwah did for Enoch what He would later do for Moses: “So Moses the servant of Yahuwah died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of Yahuwah. And He [Yahuwah] buried him [Moses] in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day.” (Deuteronomy 34:5-6, KJV)

As for the phrase that Enoch was translated so that “he should not see death,” remember that Scripture teaches there are two deaths: there is the death of the body that is the result of sin, and there is the death (ultimate destruction) of the soul. This fate awaits all who refuse to turn to Yah in repentance. It is this second death to which the author of Hebrews 11 was referring because later, in that same chapter, he unequivocally states, “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise.” (Hebrews 11:39) Everyone listed in Hebrews 11—and that includes Enoch—has died the physical death, but through faith, they shall not “see” the second death of annhilation.