UNDERSTANDING OF GENESIS 6

 

 

Gen 6:1	When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them,
Gen 6:2	the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose.
Gen 6:3	Then the LORD said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years."
Gen 6:4	The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

 

This passage immediately poses the following questions:

 

1. Who are the sons of God?

2. How is it that the Nephilim were present before and after the flood if God used the flood to wipe out the evil of the sons of God marrying and procreating with the daughters of men?

 

Let us examine these verses very closely:

 

1. Establishing the identity of the sons of God:

 

• One popular belief is the argument that sons of God are actually the godly line of Seth who took for themselves wives from the ungodly line of Cain. But that will not explain how the children became so different from what was considered ‘human’. Moreover you never hear of the sons of Seth any where in Scripture either. Also if this were the case then Scripture will not restrict it to only the intermarriage between the sons of Seth and daughters of Cain but it will include the daughters of Seth with the sons of Cain. This is not the case.

 

• The other view is that the sons of God were fallen angels who gave in to their lusts and went after human women thereby indulging in very unnatural sex between two separate types of creatures! The argument against this view is that angels cannot interbreed with humans – they are sexless.

 

• But I propose to you that this is what happened with the following evidence:

 

The word used for the sons of God here is ben elohim and it is most often used in connection with angels – refer Job 1:6 which leaves no doubt to their identity.

 

Angels are not really sexless – because in Scripture they are often referred in the masculine gender as sons/he. There never appears a female angel in all of scripture – all the ones we know are male (Michael, Lucifer, Gabriel). This doesn’t mean they cannot take on a female appearance if they wanted to – they could but they normally appear male even when they visited with humans (Eg: The angels that visited Abraham, Daniel, the ones that appeared to Samson’s mother, Mary, Joseph, etc… are all male in appearance).

 

Yes, Jesus said the angels in heaven do not marry (Matt 22:30; Mark 12:25). But He is talking about angels who are in heaven and not fallen angels walking the earth. Also just because they do not marry it does not mean that they are sexless! To assume this means that when we get to heaven you cannot distinguish between male and female anymore and that would mean a loss of identity which is very contrary to scripture. Rather, what Jesus means is that angels in heaven have no need to marry as they have no need to procreate and their purpose in heaven is to glorify God and worship Him eternally. This is the correct understanding. Our identity in heaven isn’t based with regard to other humans (so-and-so’s son, daughter, husband, wife) but we will derive our identity in relationship to God Himself (sons of God, daughters of the Most High King). In this manner we too will be like the angels.

 

This now makes perfect sense as to why God abhorred what happened – to put it plainly it is as wicked as beastiality as it is sex between two different kinds of creatures! This will make it an abomination to God!

 

Add to it the sinister plot to corrupt the seed of the woman:

In Genesis 3:15 God promised satan that the seed of the woman will crush his head – this will mean a human (Jesus Christ) will destroy satan.

But what if that seed was corrupted with that of the fallen angels and began to spread on the face of the earth? The seed can no longer be purely human – a chance to corrupt the seed and stall the prophetic promise of victory. Again an abomination to the Lord.

 

Again Scripture clearly talks of angels who were judged for their disobedience and imprisoned in Tartarus (a part in hell) and immediately connects them to the disobedience in Noah’s time (see 2 Peter 2:4-5). What is very relevant here is that no other fallen angels have been committed to hell as yet and they will face it only at the final judgment (recall the plea of the demons in the Gerasene demoniac that pleaded with Jesus not to send them to the pit? And those demons were very worried and asked Jesus why He had come to trouble them for their time was not yet up! See Matt 8:29). But apparently the ones in Noah’s time did something so very abominable that they were judged and held captive in hell before their friends so that they cannot create any more trouble on earth like what they had done and also as a warning to the rest! It was like God was telling them ‘Don’t you dare try that again!’ In this incident both angels and humans received the just punishment from God.

 

Finally there is extra-biblical evidence of this having happened. Almost every culture will tell you stories of how ‘gods’ took human women for themselves and the resulting offspring were ‘demi-gods’ with super human strength and violence. A good example are zeus and the greek gods.

The word for mighty men is gibbowr meaning ‘strong, mighty and brave men’. Men of old…means owlam meaning ‘long duration, of the ancient world, antiquity, continuous existence’. Men of renown means shem meaning ‘with a name, memorial, designation of god, reputation, fame, glory.’ What we can understand from this is that the children born to these fallen angels and human women were known to be strong, did mighty and even brave deeds and were called gods as their reputation and fame spread and people raised up memorials to them making them legends (because their fame continues to this day though they no longer exist but are of the ancient world). See? Perfect fit! Think men like Hercules and Thor! Again this would be very abominable to God because people began to worship these beings as gods forgetting their Maker!

This explains the whole fiasco that tool place in Noah’s time as people and angels both came under severe judgment from God.

 

Now that we have established the identity of the sons of God and the mighty men they fathered, we have to reconcile it with another issue which is that of the Nephilim. Moses makes it clear that these Nephilim appeared even after the flood. Other verses say the same thing. See Numbers 13:33 (also called sons of Anak); Numbers 13:22, 28; Deut 9:2; Joshua 15:13, 14; Joshua 21:11; Judges 1:20.

 

How can it be that these Nephilim were present after the flood if they were the reason God judged the earth and cleansed it with a flood? Let us examine scripture closely:

 

2. Establishing the identity of the Nephilim:

 

• The meaning of the word Nephilim is ‘giants’. 

• The meaning of Anak is ‘neck’ and he was a human progenitor of a tribe of people that gave rise to giants.

• Scripture (see above verses) is clear that Anak was very much a human being but gigantism was a trait among his descendents.

• We are all very familiar that humans carry genes for dwarfism and gigantism as anomalies. This is a result of the fall of humanity that such anomalies have affected us as a people.

• If you treat gigantism as a genetic anomaly (and that is medically very acceptable), here is what we understand about Nephilim:

  • Anak was human and carried a genetic anomaly for gigantism which was dominant.

  • This gene can express itself in any given generation among the children of Anak and even when they intermarried with those not carrying this anomaly.

  • The giants of Canaan like Goliath were very strong but giants of today (the tallest being a little over 8 feet) have all kinds of medical problems. That can be explained by the fact that over time the genetic anomaly has further deteriorated causing various health related issues in modern day giants in 2013. We know this because in 2 Sam 21:20-21; 1 Chron 20:6-7 one of those born to the giants (from whom Goliath was descended) was known to have 6 digits on either hand and foot. That is abnormal.

  • It is possible for anyone with this anomaly who was taken as a wife by the sons of God to produce gigantic men of strength and power. Again legend has it that there were a few gigantic demi-gods but not all demi-gods were giants. Get it?

  • This has to mean only one thing… someone on board the Ark carried this genetic anomaly which in itself didn't 'corrupt' the human seed with that of another species. As a result after the flood when the earth was being repopulated, this genetic anomaly was expressed again and therefore you find giants before the flood and again after the flood, and God is not frazzled by it, nor was Moses, nor should we!

 

Now that we have established the identity of the Nephilim, we can more clearly understand why the confusion arose. It is because of how we read the verse:

 

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

 

We assume that ‘these’ refers to the Nephilim and then the confusion happens. But if you read it this way (I take liberty here…) where the ‘these’ refers to what it immediately followed - the children born out of union between the fallen angels and their human wives being the legends of ancient times, then it makes sense: The two are different.

 

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, (Moses is saying this because the people were facing these men in Canaan), when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. These children that they bore were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. (Obviously these children were now in Moses’ time only legends from ancient days as they no longer existed unlike the Nephilim. They were destroyed by God).

 

P.S.: Interesting to note that legend has it that the ‘Titans’ who birthed the gods and demi-gods got thrown into tartarus and were held captive there! Is it possible for the fallen angels to try such a thing again in the future? Yes it is entirely possible, if they were good in learning lessons from the past, they wouldn't stay fallen, would they?