FigLeafe

From across this grey land...

(Dead but dreaming)

Notes on the Nephilim: The Giants of Old
Part 2

from The Genesis Record, 1976. Henry Morris

Genesis 6:1, 2

Moral and spiritual conditions in the antediluvian world had deteriorated with the passing years, not only among the Cainites but eventually among the Sethites as well. Materialism and ungodliness abounded, except for the small remnant connected with the line of the promised Seed, along with those few who may have been influenced by the witness of such men as Enoch.

Then, in the days of Noah, a strange and terrible event took place, leading rapidly to such a tidal wave of violence and wickedness over the earth that there was no longer any remedy but utter destruction. The "sons of God" saw the "daughters of men" and took them as their wives, the children of such unions being "giants in the earth," mighty men of renown, monsters not only in size but also in wickedness (Genesis 6:1, 2, 4).

One's first reaction to this passage (and the standard interpretation of the liberals) is to think of the fairy tales of antiquity, the legends of ogres and dragons, and the myths of the gods consorting with men-and then to dismiss the entire story as legend and superstition.

On the other hand, modern Christians have often attempted to make the story more palatable intellectually by explaining the "sons of God" as Sethites and the "daughters of men" as Cainites, with their union representing the breaking down of the wall of separation between believers and unbelievers. Another possible interpretation which avoids supernaturalistic implications is that the phrase "sons of God" referred to kings and nobles, in which case the commingling so described is merely an account of royalty marrying commoners.

Neither of these naturalistic interpretations, however, explain why the progeny of such unions would be "giants" or why they would lead to universal corruption and violence. Although Scripture does teach that believers should not wed unbelievers (II Corinthians 6:14; 1 Corinthians 7:39), there is no intimation that this particular sin is unforgivable or more productive of general moral deterioration than other sins. Regardless of intellectual difficulties, it does seem clear that something beyond the normal and natural is described here in these verses.

The interpretation of the passage obviously turns on the meaning of the phrase "sons of God" (bene elohim). In the New Testament, of course, this term is used with reference to all who have been born again through personal faith in Christ (John 1:12; Romans 8:14; etc.), and the concept of the spiritual relationship of believers to God as analogous to that of children to a father is also found in the Old Testament (Psalm 73:15; Hosea 1: 10; Deuteronomy 32:5; Exodus 4:22; Isaiah 43:6). Not one of these examples, however, uses the same phrase as Genesis 6:2, 4; furthermore, in each case the meaning is not really parallel to the meaning here in Genesis. Neither the descendants of Seth nor true believers of any sort have been previously referred to in Genesis as sons of God in any kind of spiritual sense and, except for Adam himself, they could not have been sons of God in a physical sense. In context, such a meaning would be strained, to say the least, in the absence of any kind of explanation. The only obvious and natural meaning without such clarification is that these beings were sons of God, rather than of men, because they had been created, not born. Such a description, of course, would apply only to Adam (Luke 3:38) and to the angels, whom God had directly created (Psalm 148:2, 5; Psalm 104:4; Colossians 1: 16).

The actual phrase bene elohim is used three other times, all in the very ancient book of Job (1:6; 2:1; 38:7). There is no doubt at all that, in these passages, the meaning applies exclusively to the angels. A very similar form (bar elohim) is used in Daniel 3:25, and also refers either to an angel or to a theophany. The term "sons of the mighty" (bene elohim) is used in Psalm 29:1 and also Psalm 89:6, and again refers to angels. Thus, there seems no reasonable doubt that, in so far as the language itself is concerned, the intent of the writer was to convey the thought of angels-fallen angels, no doubt, since they were acting in opposition to God's will. This also was the meaning placed on the passage by the Greek translators of the Septuagint, by Josephus, by the writer of the ancient apocryphal book of Enoch, and by all the other ancient Jewish interpreters and the earliest Christian writers.

Apparently the first Christian writers to suggest the Sethite interpretation were Chrysostom and Augustine.

The reason for questioning this obvious meaning, in addition to the supernaturalistic overtones, is (for those who do not reject the idea of angels) the opinion that it would be impossible for angels to have sexual relations with human women and to father children by them. However, this objection presupposes more about angelic abilities than we know. Whenever angels have appeared visibly to men, as recorded in the Bible, they have appeared in the physical bodies of men. Those who met with Abraham, for example, actually ate with him (Genesis 18:8) and, later, appeared to the inhabitants of Sodom in such perfectly manlike shape that the Sodomites were attempting to take these "men" for homosexual purposes. The writer of Hebrews suggests that, on various occasions, some "have entertained angels unawares" (Hebrews 13:2).

It is true that the Lord Jesus said that...in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven" (Matthew 22:30). However, this is not equivalent to saying that angels are "sexless," since people who share in the resurrection will surely retain their own personal identity, whether male or female. Furthermore, angels are always described, when they appear, as "men," and the pronoun "he" is always used in reference to them. Somehow they have been given by God the capacity of materializing themselves in masculine human form when occasion warrants, even though their bodies are not under the control of the gravitational and electromagnetic forces which limit our own bodies in this present life.

When Jesus said that the angels of God in heaven do not marry, this does not necessarily mean that those who have been cast out of heaven were incapable of doing so. It clearly was not God's will or intention that angels mix in such a way with human women, but these wicked angels were not concerned with obedience to God's will. In fact, it was probably precisely for the purpose of attempting to thwart God's will that this particular battalion of the "sons of God" engaged in this illegal invasion of the bodies of the daughters of men.

Satan had not forgotten God's prophecy that a promised Seed of the woman would one day destroy him. He had implanted his own spiritual seed in Cain and his descendants, but God had preserved the line of the true Seed through Seth. When Noah was born and Lamech was led to prophesy that "comfort" concerning the Curse would come through him (Genesis 5:29), Satan and his angels must have feared that their opportunities for victory in this cosmic conflict were in imminent danger. Desiring reinforcements for a coming battle against the hosts of heaven, and also desiring, if possible, to completely corrupt mankind before the promised Seed could accomplish Satan's defeat, they seem to have decided to utilize the marvelous power of procreation which God had given the human family and to corrupt it to their own ends. Men now were rapidly multiplying on the earth and by implanting their own "seed" in humanity, they might be able to enlist in only one generation a vast multitude as allies against God. So these "sons of God" saw the daughters of men and "took them wives [or, literally, 'women'] of all which they chose."

Some commentators have said that, since the phrase "took them wives" is the same phrase as normally used throughout the Old Testament for "taking a wife," there can be nothing involved here other than normal human marriage. Therefore, they argue, these "sons of God" must be merely male believers in the Sethite line who married good-looking women of the Cainite (or other) line with no regard to whether or not they were true believers in God. This argument, however, is weak and is hardly sufficient to overthrow the heavy weight of evidence otherwise. The word used for "wife" (Hebrew ishah) is commonly also used for "woman," regardless of whether or not she was a married woman. The word for "take" (Hebrew laqach) is a very common verb, and can have any noun as its object. Shechem, for example, "took" Dinah and lay with her, though he was not married to her (Genesis 34:2).

The fact that these creatures could take whatever women they chose further suggests a general state of profligacy which made indiscriminate sexual unions quite commonplace. This is also suggested by Christ's descriptive phrase "marrying and giving [out] in marriage" (Matthew 24:38) as characteristic of the careless attitudes of the days of Noah.

If, for the sake of argument at least, we assume that the bene elohim were, indeed, angels, and that angels can assume such a total human form that they actually have male reproductive systems, then a grave question would have to be posed relative to the nature of the progeny that would result from their sexual intercourse with human women. The identity of the "giants" is discussed further below, but the seriousness of this problem does have a bearing on how we should interpret these unions. Fallen angels have no possibility of salvation, but fallen men and women do have at least this possibility. What, then, would be the case with "people" who were half-angel, half-men?

This seems to be such a grotesque situation that it does appear extremely doubtful that God would have allowed it at all, even if it really were physiologically a realistic possibility. And yet, as already indicated, it does violence to the actual text of the passage if we make it mean merely that the sons of Seth began to marry the daughters of Cain. (If this were what it meant, why did not the writer simply say so, and thus avoid all this confusion?) And why the giants, and why the universal violence?

The sons of Seth were surely not all godly men; so why should they be called sons of God (remember, they all perished in the Flood)? Furthermore, Adam had many sons in addition to Cain and Seth; were they spiritual "sons of God," too? Not very likely, at this period of history. Furthermore, why stress only the union of godly men with ungodly women? What about the "daughters of God"? Were they being married to "sons of men"?

This naturalistic interpretation is so forced and awkward that it seems to do disservice to the doctrine of divine inspiration to suppose that this is really what the writer meant to say. He surely meant to convey to his readers the idea that, in these days of Noah, such an awful irruption of abnormality and wickedness burst forth on the earth that it could only be explained by a demoniacally supernatural cause.

Rationalistic exegetes, of course, do accept the plain meaning of the text here and agree that it speaks of angel cohabiting with human women. Then, being rationalists, they maintain that since this sort of thing is impossible, the writer of Genesis was simply drawing on the myths and legends of demigods in various religious traditions.

On the other hand, is it not possible that the Bible has the true record and these various legends of giants and demigods represent the distortions that had accrued through long centuries of verbal transmission of the tales in cultures removed from the true patriarchal transmission line?

It is significant that the Septuagint renders the phrase "sons of God" as "angels of God." This was the Old Testament version in dominant use in the Apostolic period, and thus this would be the way the phrase would have been read by Christ and His apostles. The apocryphal book of Enoch was extant then, as well, and was apparently known to the New Testament writers (Jude 14); and it intensely elaborated this angelic interpretation. As an apparent result of these facts, this interpretation is strongly implied, and probably required (as noted below) by three New Testament passages: Jude 6; 11 Peter 2:4-6; 1 Peter 3:19, 20.

Admittedly, however, there is a grave difficulty in the idea of angel/human sexual unions, not only the question of whether such a thing is possible, but even more in the theologically paradoxical and grotesque nature of the progeny of such unions. Is there any way to resolve this dilemma?

A solution seems to consist in recognizing that the children were true human children of truly human fathers and mothers, but that all were possessed and controlled by evil spirits. That is, these fallen angelic "sons of God" accomplished their purposes by something equivalent to demon possession, indwelling the bodies of human men, and then also taking (or "possessing") the bodies of the women as well. The men whose bodies they possessed were evidently thereby made so attractive to the careless and rebellious women of the age that they could take over and use any of the women they chose. The seductive beauty of the women, probably enhanced by various artificial cosmetics and allurements developed by that time, was itself sufficient to induce men to constant obsession with sex, assuring a maximum rapidity of multiplication of the population. Thus, the "sons of God" controlled not only the men whose bodies they had acquired for their own exploitation, but also the women they took to themselves in this way, and then all the children they bore.

These particular Satanic angels, therefore, compounded their original sin in following Satan in his rebellion against God by now leaving "their own habitation" and keeping not their "first estate" (literally, "principality"), "going after strange flesh" as later did the Sodomites "in like manner" (Jude 6, 7). Therefore, God no longer allows them to roam about the earth like other demons, but has confined them "in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day," casting them down to a special "hell" (literally, "Tartarus," not the ordinary place of departed spirits) where they are "to be reserved unto judgment" (2 Peter 2:4).

This fearful phenomenon of demonic "taking" and "habitation" of human bodies has often been repeated since, though apparently never yet on the global scale which Satan attempted in the days of Noah. Many such cases of demon possession are noted in the New Testament, and missionaries still testify to its common occurrence in heathen lands today. Even in modern "Christian lands" where the influence of the gospel has until now kept it to a minimum, this form of Satanic activity is evidently rapidly increasing. Spiritism, witchcraft, and other forms of occult belief and practice-even Satanism itself-are captivating the minds and bodies of multitudes today, specially among young people.

A closely related phenomenon is the tremendous recent upsurge of interest in the "host of heaven"--in terms of astrology, the so-called chariots of the gods, the various unidentified flying objects, and their strange occupants. Although scientists quite properly have pointed out the fallacious assumptions and interpretations involved in these, there remains a stubborn residuum of scientifically inexplicable, yet apparently well-verified, phenomena attached to these highly unusual types of data.