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Enoch Pleased God and Philo Found Immortality Hidden in That Phrase

The Torah says Enoch pleased God and was taken. Philo of Alexandria read the word pleased as proof the soul keeps living after the body is gone.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Phrase That Would Not Let Him Go
  2. The Immortality of the Soul Hidden Inside One Word
  3. What Walking With God Means
  4. Metatron and the Other Story of Enoch
  5. Methuselah Left Behind

The Phrase That Would Not Let Him Go

The Torah gives Enoch five verses. He is one name in a genealogy, sandwiched between fathers and sons who lived longer and did more and left longer accounts behind them. But one phrase in those five verses set interpreters to work across centuries: Enoch walked with God, and then he was no more, because God took him.

Walked with God. Pleased God. Was taken. Philo of Alexandria, writing in the first century CE, found the soul's immortality inside those words before he found anything else.

The Immortality of the Soul Hidden Inside One Word

Philo's entry point is not the taking. It is the pleasing. The Torah says Enoch pleased God. That act of pleasing is not described as completed, as something that happened for a period and then ended. It is a present-tense state. Enoch is the one who pleases. If his soul continues to please God after he has left the body, this implies the soul is still active, still present, still capable of relationship with the One it pleased.

A soul that ceases entirely cannot please. It can have pleased, past tense, and the memory of that pleasing might persist in the divine record. But the ongoing act of pleasing, the continuous relationship that the phrase suggests, requires that someone is still there to perform it. Enoch pleases. Present tense. The soul is not past.

This is Philo's argument for immortality, and it is not the argument most would expect. It does not come from Greek philosophical categories, though those are present in the background. It comes from reading one word in the Torah carefully and following where it leads. The word is not translated. It is inhabited. Inside the verb tense, a man is still alive.

What Walking With God Means

Philo reads the phrase walked with God as a description of a way of living rather than a physical location. To walk with God is to orient every step of one's life toward what God values, to move through the world in alignment with divine purpose rather than in competition with it, to make every day a day in which the soul's direction and God's intention are the same thing.

This is also the meaning encoded in the 365-year lifespan, in Philo's reading. Each day of the solar year represented a day of complete devotion, a day in which Enoch could have turned away from walking with God and did not. The life at 365 years is not cut short. It is complete. Every day accounted for. Every day walked in the right direction. When there is nothing left to complete, the body is taken and the soul continues the relationship it was practicing all along.

The trajectory from this life to whatever comes after is not a break for Enoch. It is a continuation. He was walking with God. Then he was no more in the body. The walking did not stop.

Metatron and the Other Story of Enoch

There is another tradition that grows from the same five verses and goes somewhere entirely different. In this telling, Enoch was not quietly taken. He was transformed. He walked into heaven and became Metatron, the angel of the divine presence, the great scribe, the being whose name encodes the divine proximity in every letter. The Enoch who entered the heavenly halls did not just please God. He became something that stands at the edge of the divine throne and speaks with an authority no other created being holds.

These two readings are not contradictory. They draw from the same compressed text and follow different threads. Philo's Enoch is a philosopher's proof: the soul that truly walks with God persists because the walking itself implies persistence. The Metatron Enoch is a mystic's vision: the soul that truly walks with God is transformed by the walk into something beyond ordinary human categories. Both agree that the five verses in Genesis cannot mean simply that Enoch lived and died. Something else happened to that man. The text will not support the ordinary reading.

Methuselah Left Behind

When Enoch was taken, Methuselah was still alive. He would go on to live 969 more years after his father disappeared. That is a long time to be the son of someone who was taken by God before his natural death, a long time to carry the knowledge that your father's life was considered complete at 365 and yours is going to go on for nearly a millennium.

The tradition treats this not as tragedy but as different kinds of service. Enoch's life was the completed devotion, the full solar orbit of teshuvah. Methuselah's life was the long remaining, the steady presence that held the pre-flood world from collapsing into its violence even a day sooner than it had to. Both were needed. The father showed what a complete soul looks like from inside. The son showed what faithfulness looks like when you are not the one being taken.

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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Targum Jonathan on Genesis 5Targum Jonathan

(Genesis 5:24) is one of the most mysterious verses in the Torah. "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." That is all the Hebrew says. No explanation of where he went or what happened. The Targum Jonathan reveals the answer. Enoch "was withdrawn, and he ascended to the firmament by the Word before the Lord, and his name was called Metatron the Great Saphra."

This is extraordinary. The Targum identifies Enoch, a human being listed in a genealogy, as Metatron, the most powerful angel in Jewish mystical tradition, the one who sits on a throne beside God's own in some Kabbalistic texts, the "Prince of the Countenance" who governs all the other angels. The title "Great Saphra" (Great Scribe) connects to the tradition that Metatron serves as the heavenly scribe, recording the deeds of all humanity. One verse in a dry genealogy becomes the origin story of the highest angel in the heavenly court.

The rest of Genesis 5 is a list of lifespans, and most translations render it as-is. But the Targum makes one critical editorial intervention about Cain. When describing the birth of Seth, it says Seth "had the likeness of his image and of his similitude," meaning he looked like Adam. Then the Targum explains why this matters. "Before had Hava born Kain, who was not like to him," meaning Cain did not resemble Adam at all. "And Kain was cast out; neither is his seed genealogized in the book of the genealogy of Adam." Cain's entire bloodline is deliberately erased from the record of humanity. Seth replaces him not just as a son but as the only legitimate continuation of Adam's image.

The chapter also notes that in the generation of Enosh, Adam's grandson, humanity "began to err, and to make themselves idols, and surnamed their idols by the name of the Word of the Lord." Idolatry did not begin with foreign nations. It began in Adam's own family, three generations in, with people attaching God's sacred Name to false images. The Targum turns a genealogy into a story of lineage, erasure, angelic transformation, and the first corruption of worship.

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The Midrash of Philo 23:4The Midrash of Philo

Our focus today is on a seemingly simple verse from (Genesis 5:24): “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.” But what does it really mean that Enoch "pleased God"? Why does the Torah emphasize this detail at the end of his life?

Philo, in his unique way, finds profound meaning in this short phrase. He argues that when the Torah tells us Enoch "pleased God," it implies something truly remarkable: the immortality of the soul. If Enoch's soul continues to please God even after he has left his physical body, doesn't that suggest that the soul lives on? It's a beautiful idea, isn't it? The idea that our connection with the Divine doesn't end with our earthly existence.

There's more to it than just immortality. Philo sees another layer of significance in Enoch's pleasing God: the power of unwavering repentance and sustained moral growth. He suggests that the Torah is honoring Enoch for his steadfast commitment to change. He didn't just dabble in goodness or make a fleeting attempt at improvement. No, Enoch persevered. He stayed the course until he reached, as Philo puts it, "complete perfection of life."

How often do we start strong, fueled by good intentions, only to falter and fall back into old habits? Philo acknowledges this very human tendency. He points out that some people are easily satisfied with just a taste of excellence. They might experience a moment of clarity, a glimmer of hope for transformation, but then they relapse into their former ways.

Enoch, however, was different. His commitment wasn't a fleeting fancy. It was a deep, abiding dedication to living a life that reflected God's will. This is the essence of what it means to "walk with God," to constantly strive for improvement, even when the path is difficult.

So, what can we take away from Philo's interpretation of Enoch? Perhaps it's a reminder that pleasing God isn't a one-time act, but a lifelong journey. It's about the consistent effort to refine our character, to resist the pull of negativity, and to remain steadfast in our pursuit of goodness. And maybe, just maybe, it's also a comforting thought that our souls, like Enoch's, can continue to please God long after we're gone. What do you think?

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The Midrash of Philo 23:1The Midrash of Philo

A reader can just chalk it up to ancient myths, but what if there's more to it? What if those numbers are telling us something deeper?

That’s exactly what I was pondering when I stumbled across a fascinating little passage in The Midrash of Philo. It asks a simple, yet profound question: Why is it said that a person who lives a life of repentance lives three hundred and sixty-five years, mirroring the lifespan of Enoch (Genesis 5:23)?

It’s a head-scratcher. Why that number? Three hundred and sixty-five… Why not 360, like the degrees in a circle? Or a nice round 400?

The key, I think, lies in understanding what repentance – or teshuvah (repentance) – really means in the Jewish tradition. It's not just about saying "I'm sorry." It’s about a complete transformation, a turning away from old habits and a turning towards something new, towards God. It’s a daily, ongoing process.

And that's where the 365 comes in.: there are 365 days in a solar year. Every single day presents us with an opportunity to choose, to grow, to repent. It's a constant cycle of reflection and renewal.

So, according to The Midrash of Philo, someone who dedicates their life to teshuvah isn’t just living a long life in years, but a full life in moments. Each day becomes an opportunity for growth, for a new beginning. They are living 365 lives within one.

It makes you think, doesn’t it? Maybe those biblical lifespans aren't just about chronology. Maybe they're metaphors for the potential for transformation that exists within each of us, every single day. The potential to live a life of meaning, a life of purpose, a life of constant return.

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Genesis 5:21-24Torah (Masoretic Text)

And Enoch lived sixty-five years, and he begot Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God after he begot Methuselah three hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God, and he was no more, for God took him.

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