Episode 72: What about the Nephilim?

Genesis 6:1-4

6 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. ³ Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in^[a] man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” ⁴ The Nephilimwere on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Who are the sons of God? בְנֵי־הָאֱלֹהִים; οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ (LXX)

• How does Scripture use this term?
  • Referring to the people of Israel or angels of God:
    •  When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
          when he divided mankind,
      he fixed the bordersof the peoples
          according to the number of the sons of God[1].
      ⁹ But the Lord’s portion is his people,
          Jacob his allotted heritage. Deuteronomy 32:8-9
  • Referring to angels:
    • Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. Job 1:6 (also Job 2:1)
      • (LXX) ἄγγελοι τοῦ θεοῦ angels of God, same as Job 2:1 and 38:7
    • “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
          Tell me, if you have understanding.
      ⁵ Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
          Or who stretched the line upon it?
      ⁶ On what were its bases sunk,
          or who laid its cornerstone,
      ⁷ when the morning stars sang together
          and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Job 38:4-7
  • Referring to Christians:
    • Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
    • Romans 8:14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
    • Galatians 3:26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

Who are the daughters of men? בְּנוֹת הָאָדָם θυγατέρας τῶν ανθρώπων (LXX)

Who are the Nephilim, the men of renown? הַנְּפִלִים; אַנְשֵׁי הַשֵּׁם; οἱ γίγαντες; οἱ ἄνθρωποι οἱ ὀνομαστοι

• Could come from the Hebrew word to fall, which some prefer, because it could be used to refer to the fallen angels. The Septuagint (LXX) translates it giant. The Nephilim are also mentioned in Numbers 13, where it is often translated as giant.
  • ⁸ However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there…. “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. ³³ And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
  • The term Nephilim is only used in Genesis 6 and Numbers 13; however, the sons of Anak continues to be used to refer to tall people. (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. Deuteronomy 2:11

 Clement of Alexandria (150-215): “The mind is led astray by pleasure, and the virgin center of the mind, if not disciplined by the Word, degenerates into licentiousness and reaps disintegration as reward for its transgressions. An example of this for you is the angels who forsook the beauty of God for perishable beauty and fell as far as heaven is from the earth.” From Christ the Educator 3.2.14

Nemesius of Emesa (c. 390): “Of the incorporeal beings, only angels fell away, and not all fo them, but some only, that inclined to thigns below and set their desire on things of earth, withdrawing themselves from their relations with things above, even from God.” On The Nature of Man, 58.

Ephrem the Syrian (306-373): “[Moses] called the sons of Seth ‘sons of God,’ those who, like the sons of Seth, had been called ‘the righteous people of God.’ The beautiful daughters of men whom they saw were the daughters of Cain who adorned themselves and became a snare to eyes of the sons of Seth. Then Moses said ‘they took to wife such of them as they chose,’ because when ‘they took’ them, they acted very haughtily over those whom they chose.” Commentary on Genesis 6.3.1.

Ephrem the Syrian: The house of Cain, because the earth had been cursed so as not to give them its strength, produced small harvests, deprived of its strength, just as it is today that some seeds, fruits and grasses give strength and some do not. Because at that time they were cursed and sons of the cursed and were dwelling in the land of curses, they would gather and eat produce that lacked nutrition, and those who ate these were without strength just like the food that they ate. As for the Sethites, on the other hand, because they were the descendants of the blessed [Seth] and were dwelling in the land along the boundary of the fence of paradise, their produce was abundant and full of strength. So too were the bodies of those who ate that produce strong and powerful.” Commentary on Genesis 6.5.1.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430): “All that we indubitably know from the authentic Scripture in the Hebrew and Chrsitian traditions, is the fact that in the period before the flood there were many giants, all of whom belonged ot the earthly city in human society, and that there were sons of God descended from Seth who abandoned their holiness and sank down into this city of men. There is nothing surprising in the fact that giants could be born from men like that. In any case, they were not all giants, even though there were more giants before the flood than in all subsequent ages. They served a divine purpose in that they reveal to anyone who is wise that a merely bodily magnitude and might have no more value than bodily beauty.” City of God 15.23.

Ambrose of Milan (340-397): ‘“The giants (Nephilim) were on the earth in those days.’ The author of the divine Scripture does not mean that those giants must be considered, according to the tradition of poets, as sons of the earth[2] but asserts that those whom he defines with such a name because of the extraordinary size of their body were generated by angels and women. And let us see whether by any chance the men who only take care of their body and not of their soul are similar to the Nephilim and at the same time to those giants who were born from the earth according to the tales of the poets and despised the authority of the gods by confiding in the hugeness of their body. Must we really consider as different from giants those men who, even though they are composed of body and soul, despise the most precious good of the soul, that is, the activity of the mind, and show themselves to be imitators of this flesh, as if confirming that they were heirs of their own mother’s foolishness. They only struggle in vain when they believe that they will conquer the heaven with their bold desires and their earthly activities. On the contrary, by choosing a lower way of life and despising the higher life, they are condemned with greater severity since they are guilty of voluntary sins.” On Noah 4.8.

Martin Luther:

• “But when Adam had died and the respect for the remaining patriarchs declined, the sons of God (that is, those who had the promise of the blessed Seed and belonged to the blessed Seed) also yearned for marriages and affinity with the ungodly race. Moses simply calls the sons of the patriarchs, to whom the promise of the Seed was given, ‘sons of God’; they were the true church. When they yielded to the seductions of the Caininite church, they also proceeded to gratify the desires of the flesh and to take wives from the Cainite race, likewise concubines, as many as they wanted and whomever they chose” (AE 2:10)
• Luther calls it a “foolish idea” of the Jews that incubi (demons) could have offspring through sexual intercourse with human women (AE 2:10). “So far as incubi and succubi are concerned, I do not deny, but believe, that the devil may happen to be either a succubus or an incubus; for I have heard many relate there very own experiences. … It delights Satan if he can delude us by taking on the appearance either of a young man or of a young woman. But that anything can be born from the union of a devil and a human being is simply untrue.” AE 2:11
• “The true meaning of the passage is that Moses designates as sons of God those people who had the promise of the blessed Seed. It is a term of the New Testament and designates the believers, who call God Father and whom God, in turn, calls sons. The Flood came, not because the Cainite race had become corrupt, but because of the righteous who had believed God, obeyed His Word, and observed true worship had fallen into idolatry, disobedience of parents, sensual pleasures, and the practice of oppression. Similarly, the coming of the Last Day will be hastened, not because the heathen, the Turks, and the Jews are ungodly, but because through the pope and the fanatics the church itself has become filled with error and because even those who occupy the leading positions in the church are licentious, lustful, and tyrannical.” AE 2:12
• “Therefore let no one glory in his gifts, however great they may be; the greatest gift is to be a member of the true church. But beware of becoming haughty on this account; for you may fall, just as Lucifer fell from heaven (Is. 14:12) and as we hear in this text that the sons of God fell into carnal pleasure.” AE 2:12
  • Here, we see that connecting Nephilim with the Hebrew word “to fall” also works if the sons of God are believers, because they have fallen from grace. However, Luther does not explain the etymology that way, but uses fall in the active sense, that the Nephilim fall upon people by oppressing them. See below in note from page 34.
• “There was, in the first place, the fact that the sons of God fell away from the worship and Word of God and became entirely worldly, with the result that they corrupted not onlyt he church but also the state and the home.” AE 2:32
• “Moreover, he explicitly states that from the cohabitation of the sons of God with the daughters of men there were born, not sons of God but giants, that is, arrogant men who usurped both the government and the priesthood.” AE 2:32
• “Therefore this passage—and any like it—induces me to conclude that they were not called נְפִלִים because of the large size of their bodies, as the rabbis believe, but because of their tyranny and oppression. They raged violently, without any consideration for laws and decency, but exclusively in pursuit of their own pleasure and desires. Those who rule rightfully Scripture calls shepherds and princes. But those who rule through injustice and violence are properly called נְפִלִים, because they fall upon and oppress those who are beneath them.” AE 2:34.

Jesus: ²⁹ But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. ³⁰ For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. Matthew 22:29-30

³⁴ And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, ³⁵ but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, ³⁶ for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons^[g] of the resurrection. Luke 20:34-36

Scripture consistently warns believers (sons of God) from marrying unbelievers.

• “When the Lord your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than you, ² and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.^[a] You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. ³ You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, ⁴ for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. ⁵ But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire. Deuteronomy 7:1-5
• Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, ² from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. ³ He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. ⁴ For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 1 Kings 11:1-4
• And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, he took for his wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal and worshiped him. 1 Kings 16:31; (There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited. 1 Kings 21:25
• And [Jehoram] walked in the way of the kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done, for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. And he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord. 2 Kings 8:18
• ¹⁴ Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 2 Corinthians 6:14
• Situation of foreign wives in Ezra 10.

Conclusion:

From what Jesus tells us and from what we know of angels, who are spirits, it is impossible for angels (or demons) to reproduce with humans. Furthermore, the applicable lesson from demons having children with unbelievers is very limited to us today. Yet, the lesson that Christians, who are rightly called sons of God, should not marry and have children with unbelievers, is a consistent lesson throughout Scripture and continues to be applicable today. Furthermore, Noah’s flood is a type of the end of the world, as Jesus makes clear (Matthew 24:37). So, as Luther points out, it will not be the fall of the unbelievers that ushers the return of Christ, but as St. Paul predicts in 2 Thessalonians 2, through the fall of those in the church who follow the man of lawlessness and as Jesus says, the love of many growing cold (Matthew 24:12). The falling away of believers (sons of God) is a sign of the end times. It is a warning to the end times. It makes much more sense that Genesis 6 gives this warning before the flood, which is the persistent warning of God’s judgment upon the earth.

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[1] Hebrew Israel: יִשְׂרָאֵל; Septuagint, angels of God: ἀγγέλων θεοῦ

[2] “Ambrose alludes to the pagan myth of the giants, who were generated by the earth. Confiding in their huge bodies and strength, according to this myth, they tried to climb Olympus in order to dethrone Zeus butg were destroyed by the thunderbolts that the god hurled at them.”