Did Enoch and Elijah die? Or are they in heaven?
And Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him”.
Let us turn our attention to the phrase in Gen. 5:24, “ he was not“. That phrase is often used of death in the Old Testament. We read, for example in Jer. 31:15, “….A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not“. And the phrase is used in the same way in Job 7:21, “…..for now shall I sleep in the dust; but Thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be“.
Does that mean that Elijah never died, but went directly into heaven? I think we must consider Jn. 3:13 again, “No man hath ascended to heaven but He Who came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven”. Let us consider this passage in II Kings more carefully.
To begin with, the Hebrew word translated “heaven” is “shahmahyim“. The “im” tells us that it is plural, i.e. there is more than one heaven. It is used of the dwelling place of God in Gen. 1:1 where we read, “In the beginning God created the heaven(s) and the earth”. It is also used in Gen.1: 26 where we read, “and God said, ‘Let us make man in Our image…..and let them have dominion over…… the fowls of the air (shahmahyim).…..”. And in Gen. 7:11 we read, “In the sixth hundredth year of Noah’s life, ……were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven(s) were opened”. So the same Hebrew word is used of the heaven where the birds fly, where the clouds gather and where God is on His throne. The question we must answer then is; to which heaven was Elijah taken?
