An ancient religious text left out of the traditional Bible is drawing renewed attention for what some scholars view as a stark warning about the forces associated with the Antichrist.
In Christian theology, the Antichrist is commonly understood as a powerful deceiver who will stand against Jesus Christ and mislead many believers before the end of the world.
The Book of Enoch, a text more than 2,200 years old, describes an enigmatic class of dominant rulers called “the kings and the mighty.” Some interpreters argue the phrase points not to one end-times figure, but to a corrupt system of power that resists God in the final days.
These passages appear in the Book of Parables, the second major section of the Book of Enoch, covering Chapters 46 through 63. There, the “Son of Man” is portrayed as judging the rulers identified as “the kings and the mighty.”
One reading of the text sees the warning unfolding in four stages, with each section revealing more about the rulers’ ascent, their grip on power and their eventual destruction.
The first stage presents the “kings and the mighty” as wealthy and influential leaders who turn away from God and oppress the faithful. The second shifts to the arrival of the “Son of Man,” when those rulers recognize, too late, that they rejected God’s chosen one.
A third image shows mountains of iron, copper, silver and gold melting away, a symbol often understood as the collapse of the riches, authority and institutions on which the rulers depended.
The final stage reaches a dramatic scene of judgment, as the rulers are brought before the “Son of Man” and confront the unavoidable consequences of what they have done.
Interpretations of the Book of Enoch have suggested it includes four movements of the Antichrist, which will appear as a corrupt system, not a lone person
There are 66 books in the modern Bible across the Old and New Testaments, but more than 70 ancient writings circulated among early Jewish and Christian communities that were never accepted into the canon.
One of the most famous is the Book of Enoch, which expands on fallen angels, giants and one of the earliest accounts of the origins of demons, stories that never made it into the biblical canon, followed by most Christians.
Fragments of the Book of Enoch, written in Aramaic, were discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in caves at Qumran in the Judaean Desert, confirming the text was circulating centuries before Christianity.
One interpretation linking these passages to the Antichrist was recently discussed on the YouTube channel The Hermon Codex, which focuses on manuscripts omitted from the traditional Bible.
Some scholars have argued that differences between English translations of the Book of Enoch have softened some of its strongest descriptions of the ‘kings and the mighty.’
Translations by Michael Knibb and Ephraim Isaac render the passages more literally, describing rulers whose ‘power rests upon their riches,’ who ‘deny the name of the Lord of Spirits’ and persecute the faithful.
Biblical scholar George W E Nickelsburg identified the ‘kings and the mighty’ as corrupt political and religious rulers rather than Satan or the fallen Watchers, leading some interpreters to argue the text portrays the Antichrist not as a single individual but as a recurring pattern of unrighteous power.
The first movement begins in Chapter 46, with Enoch witnessing a heavenly vision of the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man before turning to a class of rulers called ‘the kings and the mighty,’ whose faces will be filled with shame.
The ancient text tells of fallen angels, giants and one of the earliest accounts of the origins of demons, stories that never made it into the biblical canon followed by most Christians. Authorship is traditionally attributed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah
According to the text, these leaders derive their power from wealth, worship false gods they have created, reject the Lord of Spirits and persecute the faithful, all while behaving as though the Earth belongs to them.
1 Enoch 46:7 reads: ‘These are they who judge the stars of heaven, and raise their hands against the Most High, and tread upon the earth and dwell upon it.
‘All their deeds manifest unrighteousness, and their power rests upon their riches.
‘Their faith is in the gods which they have made with their hands, and they deny the name of the Lord of Spirits, and they persecute the houses of His congregations, and the faithful who hang upon the name of the Lord of Spirits.’
The second movement unfolds in Chapter 48, describing the ‘Son of Man’ as having been chosen before creation.
The ‘kings of the Earth’ are warned that on the day of judgment they ‘will not save themselves’ because they denied ‘the Lord of Spirits and his Messiah.’
The third movement unfolds in Chapters 52 and 53, where Enoch is shown six mountains made of iron, copper, silver, gold, soft metal and lead.
According to 1 Enoch 52:6, an angel appears to tell him: ‘And all these things which serve those who take lead in this world and cause oppression shall melt like wax before the fire… and become powerless before the feet of the Elect One.’
Many scholars view the imagery as symbolizing the collapse of earthly kingdoms, wealth and human power, while the video’s narrator argues it represents the downfall of modern institutions built on riches and political authority.
The fourth and final movement unfolds in Chapters 62 and 63, where the kings and the mighty are gathered on the day of judgment.
1 Enoch 62:3 reads: ‘And there shall stand up in that day all the kings and the mighty, and the exalted and those who hold the earth, and they shall see and recognize how he sits on the throne of his glory.’
Then, six verses later, the Book of Enoch says the rulers ‘fall down before him on their faces, and worship… and petition him and supplicate for mercy at his hands.’
However, according to the text, their pleas are rejected, leaving them with faces of shame.
God is then said to deliver them to the ‘angels for punishment, to execute vengeance on them because they have oppressed His children and His elect.’
Chapter 63 continues with the rulers acknowledging their guilt, with one of the most striking passages reading: ‘We have not confessed before him… but we have trusted in the sceptre of our dominion and of our glory.’
And then 1 Enoch 63:10–12 says: ‘In the day of our suffering and of our trouble, he will not save us… All our sins are truly without number.’
Many scholars interpret the passage as a warning that human empires built on wealth, pride and oppression may appear invincible but are ultimately temporary, while God’s kingdom alone endures.
