What is the Knowledge of Good and Evil? A Paleo Hebrew Perspective | Ep 18 Enoch Explained: Book of Enoch Bible Study

The Paleo Hebrew words behind the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” offer major clues into where Adam and Eve went wrong and how YASHUA (JESUS CHRIST) is our way back to Eden.

Part 18 of a verse-by-verse study of the Book of Enoch (also known as 1 Enoch). This episode covers Enoch 32:3-6.

Thanks for watching, and hope you enjoy.

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Timestamps:

0:00 Introduction
0:26 Declaring the end from the beginning
1:20 Eden in the Book of Enoch
1:54 Knowledge is not wisdom
6:26 Paleo Hebrew meaning of knowledge (yada, da’at)
7:18 What did Adam and Eve learn?
7:35 Paleo Hebrew meaning of good (tov)
8:05 Paleo Hebrew meaning of evil (ra)
9:05 Paleo Hebrew’s simplest word?
9:57 Dinner with nachash (the serpent in the Garden)
12:07 Stay busy
13:37 No one is good except GOD
15:53 Practice makes perfect
16:13 Song: Impossible

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Transcript: 

Carlos: Welcome to Enoch and the Tree of Good and Evil.

Dawson: The tree of the knowledge …

Carlos: Oh wait, it’s the Tree of …

Dawson: The knowledge.

Carlos: Has to be “the knowledge”

Dawson: Of good and evil.

Carlos: Amen. So, what does the knowledge mean will be one of our discussions.

Dawson: Yes. Also, what’s up with the snake in the garden?

Carlos: Trespassing, a wanderer.

Dawson: Yes.

Carlos: Where they ought not to be. It seems that the end is like the beginning.

Dawson: What do you mean?

Carlos: Oh, well, there’s someone in a place where they ought not be, at the end time appointment.

Dawson: Oh, the antichrist.

Carlos: Uh-huh.

Dawson: That’s true.

Carlos: And very snaky in nature too.

Dawson: Yes. Okay.

Carlos: It just seems to be that way.

Dawson: Yeah. So, you’ve got the snake in the garden at the beginning and a snake in the holy place at the end. Yeah.

Carlos: Yeah. When you see the icon standing where it ought not be.

Dawson: The abomination of desolation.

Carlos: That’s right. So it seems in both cases, they’re acting very Zotiel to me where they ought not be – the wandering one.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: The wandering one.

Dawson: Yeah. So, we’re reading today from Enoch chapter 32 in verse 3. He says, “And I came to the Garden of Righteousness.” Why does he call it that?

Carlos: None shall pass except the righteous.

Dawson: Right.

Carlos: And anyone who is not, they’re going to have to deal with Father.

Dawson: Yeah. So I came to the Garden of Righteousness and saw beyond those trees, many large trees growing there and of goodly fragrance, large, very beautiful and glorious. And the tree of wisdom whereof they eat and no great wisdom. Now that word wisdom is a bad translation.

Carlos: Not good.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: Not good. No. Knowledge.

Dawson: Yes. The word is knowledge and not wisdom. There’s a big difference between the two.

Carlos: Way different. Way different.

Dawson: Yeah. So, in the Genesis story, we know that it’s called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But for some reason in nearly every translation of Enoch that I’ve seen, they do put the word “wisdom” here. So, I looked into why and in the Ethiopian script, there is a single word and they use that word for both wisdom and knowledge. So, they thought, “Oh, just put wisdom here.”

Carlos: We love Ge’ez.

Dawson: We do. We love Ge’ez, the ancient Ethiopian script. And actually this script in this language, they’ve preserved copies of the Old Testament as well. And so, we’re able to, when we study Enoch, we can see how they translated words of the Old Testament to try to figure out, you know, why they translated Enoch certain ways. And that came in very handy for this study because in Proverbs 1:7, it says, “The fear of YHVH is the beginning of knowledge,” which in Hebrew is da’at, but fools despise wisdom, which in Hebrew is chokmah. So, in the Ge’ez, in the Ethiopian script, they have the same word there. They have tabab for both.

Carlos: Tabab and tabab. Well, as you said, we love Ethiopian people that saved the word for us. We love Ge’ez because we could study Enoch in it.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: But we know most of those books. I’m a historian. Most of those books are made in Alexandria in Egypt. Where they really did a lot of work. Now that’s a whole other video.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: But I could see how they misused the words there.

Dawson: Now, even when they translate Enoch from the Greek manuscripts, they use the word wisdom as well. But in Greek, wisdom is sophia. And that’s not the word that’s used in the Greek manuscripts of Enoch. So for some reason, they keep using this word wisdom, but the manuscripts don’t support it. They do support knowledge, which is a match for what Genesis says. So every time we see wisdom here, I’m actually going to cross it out and we’re going to say knowledge because that’s what Enoch was talking about.

In verse four, Enoch says, talking about the tree of knowledge, “That tree is in height like the fir and its leaves are like those of the Carob tree and its fruit is like the clusters of the vine. Very beautiful. And the fragrance of the tree penetrates afar. Then I said, ‘How beautiful is the tree and how attractive is its look!’ Then Raphael, the holy angel who was with me, answered me and said, ‘This is the Tree of Knowledge of which thy father old in years and thy aged mother who were before thee have eaten. And they learned knowledge and their eyes were opened and they knew that they were naked and they were driven out of the garden.”

Carlos: Their eyes were open and they knew something they shouldn’t have known.

Dawson: Yes.

Carlos: Amen.

Dawson: So, I wanted to show you guys some paleo Hebrew here, because …

Carlos: It’s amazing.

Dawson: In the Genesis account, the Hebrew of what’s going on in this garden is very, it is very pictographic. It helps illustrate what happened on that day.

Carlos: Ayin, resh.

Dawson: There’s a lot of the letter ayins in this story and we’ll get to that word that Carlos is talking about …

Carlos: Of the knowledge.

Dawson: … in just a second. The Tree of Knowledge, the word “knowledge”…

Carlos: The Tree of “the” Knowledge. You know much better, you, you socked it to me, I’m gonna sock it to you man. The Tree of “the” knowledge…Ha knowledge!

Dawson: It’s the tree ha da’at. Yes.

Carlos: Ha da’at.

Dawson: The knowledge, yes.

Carlos: Etz l’ha da’at.

Dawson: So knowledge in Hebrew is yada. And this is a very, very simple word to understand. If you just realize that most of what all of humanity learns comes through the eyes. That’s scientific. So the word “yada,” the first two letters are the yod and the dalet, which spells the word “yad,” which in Hebrew is the hand in the arm. And it’s used a lot of times in Hebrew words to mean to make. And then you’ve got the picture of the eye, which is the ayin, which is used in a lot of Hebrew words to mean know and knowledge. So, when something is made known, when you make something known, it’s knowledge.

Carlos: Yada.

Dawson: Now, it’s the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. So what was it that they learned that day that they weren’t necessarily supposed to learn? And we can see that if we just understand those two words, good and evil. The word “good” is something we’ve talked about before. And it’s tov and it’s a picture of a storage container. So that’s the letter tet and a house. That’s the letter beyt. And what Father is trying to communicate with this word good, tov, is that which He has determined to keep in the house. So to keep in His creation, this new house that He had just built for all of mankind. So He wanted to keep Adam and Eve in this creation. But they learned the knowledge of tov and evil, which is a picture of man following his own eye.

Carlos: Eye. Ra.

Dawson: Ra. The letter resh is a picture of a man’s head and the letter ayin is the picture of the eye. Now, in the Psalms, Father says that He wants to guide us with His ayin, with His eye. But that day, Adam and Eve learned to follow their own eye. And it wasn’t tov because it was something that prevented them from being kept in the house that Father built. He had to kick him out. So that’s the knowledge that they gained that day.

There’s one more crazy ayin in the story. And that is when Eve looked at this tree, it said she thought it was pleasant to the ayin. It was pleasant to the eyes. It also says here in Enoch and in the Genesis account that once they ate from this tree, they knew they were naked.

Now, this word “naked” in paleo Hebrew is – it’s for me, it’s the most obvious word I’ve ever seen in Father’s alphabet and Father’s language. When it comes to …

Carlos: Can I say it?

Dawson: Sure.

Carlos: Ayin, resh.

Dawson: Yes.

Carlos: I just love saying this word and how it’s so obvious.

Dawson: So it’s ayin. It’s the picture of an eye and resh the picture of a man’s head. So, do you see the man? He’s naked.

Carlos: He’s there.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: That’s as clear as it gets, looking at your own self.

Dawson: Yeah. Okay. So back to the snake in the garden. What happened?

Carlos: Excuse me, I’m going to put my sunglasses on because the lights are bright on this side. Now, let’s talk about what happened in the garden. They were given one simple command. Do not eat of the tree. Just don’t. And we know they were tempted. And when they went to actually partake of that fruit, they had now disobeyed.

They had made up their mind that I’m going to take this creature’s side and listen to him instead of listen to Father.

Dawson: Right.

Carlos: That right there before they even ate the fruit, their heart was gone. And, you know, He checks our heart. So the fruit of the heart is what He checks on. Not what you say you’re going to do. Right there the fruit of their heart went dark. And that caused sin and sin caused death. So we see that it isn’t just the act of eating the fruit. It’s the act of disobedience to Father. And on that day, he disobeyed and went to went to the side and partook of what he should not have done.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: That’s it. So don’t disobey. It’s too easy. Amen?

Carlos: Yeah. Now, today we have a – it says there are 10 commandments and a few other things. But if you follow Yashua, you’re not going to break none of those. You don’t even consider. I don’t even consider stealing.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: I don’t consider lying. When Yashua is in your heart, you just don’t even think of those things.

Dawson: He puts His spirit in you and His spirit convicts you of things and, you know …

Carlos: Yeah, just guide you and lead you.

Dawson: Yeah. Amen.

Carlos: So stay away from bad fruit. Do not have dinner with nachash.

Dawson: Yes. Nachash is snake.

Carlos: The snake. Don’t have dinner with a snake at all.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: Once they got the knowledge, they seem to have gone into it full time.

Dawson: What do you mean?

Carlos: In other words, whatever it is they learned, they were doing it all day long. Amen. So Father was looking for Adam. Where were you at? You know, because you haven’t been around here. Amen. So once they got the knowledge, that’s all they did, whatever it is they were doing. So He goes, okay, I’m going to make a way to bring you back and start salvation. But you can’t just have 24 hours a day with this knowledge going wild. You know, it’s like Adam. But now his mind’s on crack, on meth. It’s like on drugs. So no, you can’t just have 24 hours a day to relax and do these things. From now on, you’re going to work to keep yourself busy. So, you’re going to have to scrounge for food. It’s going to get rough sometimes.

Dawson: The curse on the ground.

Carlos: Yep. The curse on everything. And it’s going to make it harder on you so that you don’t – like it says, time is the devil’s little friend, no?

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: So if you have too much time with knowledge equals bad.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: So stay busy.

Dawson: Stay busy.

Carlos: Amen. Stay busy. Amen. Yeah.

Dawson: Amen. Yeah.

Carlos: Amen. It’s good advice. Stay busy.

Dawson: Yeah. Back to the good and evil point for a second. So, He could have cut down the Tree of Life at that time. He could have just nuked the whole creation if He wanted to, but He didn’t. He made a way, right? He kicked them out, but He made a way back to the Tree of Life. It’s like a huge symbol right from the beginning of Yashua, who is the Tree of Life and He is the way, right?

Carlos: The way, the truth.

Dawson: Yeah. And if the whole point of being good is that whatever is good is what Father is determined to keep, to store in the house, in His creation, no one is good. Yashua told us no one is good but God. But through Yashua, Father dwells in us and makes us good so that He could keep us in the creation and not nuke us, which is pretty cool.

Carlos: Right. His spirit works righteousness in us and that’s what He counts as righteousness, whatever His Holy Spirit works through us.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: Amen, so that He has always wanted that, which was how He had Adam. Father and Adam were communicating.

Dawson: Yeah, yeah.

Carlos: That’s righteousness.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: Sin cuts the righteousness.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: So, stay close to Father.

Dawson: Yeah. And for us, we have a piece of Eden with us now because the point of Eden is to have this place where you can live forever, dwell with Father, He talks to you, you walk with Him. And we have that in Yashua now.

Carlos: Amen. And wherever it’s at, He’s with us.

Dawson: Yeah.

Carlos: Amen, so we’re back in the garden if we walk in righteousness. If you are walking in righteousness, you’re in the garden of righteousness.

Dawson: Yeah, amen.

Carlos: Amen. And any knowledge He wants to give us, it’s fine. But whatever He doesn’t, it’s also fine. We just want to be with Father.

Dawson: Yeah.

[Music]

My Father remembers you
And HE’s faithful to what HE says
HE forms a shield around His own
In whom I trust there is no end
Who will take me from His love, His love?
Impossible.
Who will take me from His love, His love?
Impossible.
Impossible.
He always remembers you.

My Father remembers you
And HE’s faithful to what HE says
HE forms a shield around His own
In whom I trust there is no end
Who will take me from His love, His love?
Impossible.
Who will take me from His love, His love?
Impossible.
Impossible.
He always remembers you.

[End of transcript]

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Links & Resources:

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Audio-only edition of the Book of Enoch Bible Study series – free to stream or download

Questions about Enoch?

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In this video: Enoch explained, Book of Enoch, 1 Enoch, What is the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden, Paleo Hebrew, Original Hebrew, Hebrew word study, Ancient Hebrew meanings, Knowledge in Hebrew, Good in Hebrew, Evil in Hebrew, Genesis explained, Why Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden, Righteousness in JESUS CHRIST

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About the series:

Our Book of Enoch Bible Study series offers a down-to-earth look at this often sensationalized text. Instead of focusing mainly on fallen angels, our goal is to learn the heart of our Father and gain understanding of the Old and New Testament Scriptures that parallel Enoch’s words. Throughout this series, we’ll read together and discuss:

  • Life before the Flood
  • How sin and transgression caused GOD to destroy His creation,
  • Enoch’s epic prophecies covering the history of humanity and Israel,
  • The many passages in Enoch that point to YASHUA HA MASHIACH (JESUS CHRIST),
  • The ancient calendar of Israel,
  • End-times prophecies and how Father will protect us through the days to come, and
  • What life will be like in Millennium.

Enoch is a remarkably full book that sheds light on everything from Genesis to Revelation, so, in our view, to understand Enoch is to better understand the entire Bible.

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Attribution:

Content: written and created by Original Hebrew.

Video: All film footage and film clips are from films believed to be in the public domain. All other footage is original.

Music: All music is original.

Sound Effects: original works, royalty free clips from purchased software, or public domain sounds from freesound.org.

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