Who are the
“sons of God” in Genesis 6:4?By Jack Kettler
“And it came to pass when men
began
to multiply on the face of the earth, and
daughters were born unto them, that
the sons of God saw the daughters of men
that they were fair; and they took
them wives of all which they chose. And the
Lord said, My spirit shall not
always strive with man, for that he also is
flesh: yet his days shall be a
hundred and twenty years. There were giants
in the earth in those days; and
after that, when the sons of God came in
unto the daughters of men, and they
bare children to them, the same became
mighty men, which were of old, men of
renown. And God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth, and that
every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually.”
(Genesis 6:1-5)
Three main
views of the text:
1.They were fallen angels or
demons.
2.They were powerful and even
tyrannical
human rulers.
3.They were godly descendants of
Seth
intermarrying with wicked descendants of
Cain.
As in previous studies, we will
look
at definitions, scriptures, and commentary
evidence for the purpose to glorify
God in how we live.
The first
view
has a long history of support for the
position.
However, in light of Christ’s
teaching on marriage, and others it is
becoming increasingly problematic.
For example, Jesus says, “For
in the
resurrection they neither marry, nor are
given in marriage, but are as the
angels of God in heaven” (Matthew 22:30).
The text from Matthew seemingly rules
out the first view, because angels are
spiritual beings (Hebrews 1:13-14) and
this is problematic for reproduction with
humans. To support this problem for
the first view, we know that God is a spirit
and does not have a body. See John
4:24 and Luke 24:39. Hence, angels,
spiritual beings do not have bodies of flesh
and bones although at times they have
appeared in human form. See (Gen.
19:1-22).
In the next passage from the
book of
Hebrews sets angels and men apart into two
different groups.
“But ye are come unto mount
Sion,
and unto the city of the living God, the
heavenly Jerusalem, and to an
innumerable company of angels, to the
general assembly and church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and
to God the Judge of all, and to the
spirits of just men made perfect.” (Hebrews
12:22-23)
Therefore, it can be deduced;
women
are human beings, and angels are spirit
beings. Angels and women are two
different kinds of created beings. According
to Genesis, each kind reproduces
after its kind. See (Genesis 1:24). Angels
do not reproduce sexually and cannot
with humans.
The second
view
that “the sons of God” are powerful human
rulers or even tyrants has scriptural
merit.
For example,
the phrase “sons of God” is understood as
referring to actual humans in some
passages:
“You are the ‘sons of the LORD’
your
God. You shall not cut yourselves or make
any baldness on your foreheads for
the dead.” (Deuteronomy 14:1 ESV)
“For in Christ Jesus, you are
all ‘sons
of God,’ through faith.” (Galatians 3:26
ESV)
These two above texts make it
impossible to conclude that “sons of God”
must always be angels.Therefore,
the second view is entirely
possible.
The third
view
that the “sons of God” are the Godly line of
Seth has the advantage of being
consistent with the theme of God’s warning
His people of idolatry throughout
history.
For example:
When the Israelite intermarried
with
pagans, these marriages brought the
temptation of the Israelite people to
follow other gods or idolatry. This ungodly
intermarriage happened in Israel’s
history.
Consider
God’s warnings:
“And thou take of their
daughters
unto thy sons, and their daughters go a
whoring after their gods, and make thy
sons go a whoring after their gods.” (Exodus
34:16)
“Neither shalt thou make
marriages
with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give
unto his son, nor his daughter
shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will
turn away thy son from following me
that they may serve other gods: so will the
anger of the LORD be kindled
against you, and destroy thee suddenly.”
(Deuteronomy 7:3-4)
“Be ye not unequally yoked
together
with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness?
And what communion hath light with
darkness?” (2Corinthians 6:14)
Commentary
entries:
Who exactly
are the “sons of God” we read about in
verse Genesis
6:4?
From Keil
and
Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old
Testament we learn:
“The Nephilim were on the earth
in
those days, and also after that, when the
sons of God came in unto the daughters
of men, and they bare children to them:
these are the heroes (הגּבּרים)
who from the olden time (מעולם,
as in Psalm 25:6; 1Samuel 27:8)
are the men of name” (i.e., noted, renowned
or notorious men). נפילים,
from נפל to fall upon (Job 1:15;
Joshua 11:7), signifies the invaders (ἐπιπίπτοντες
Aq., βιαῖοι Sym.). Luther gives
the correct meaning, “tyrants:”
they were
called Nephilim because they fell upon the
people and oppressed them.
(Note: The notion that the
Nephilim
were giants, to which the Sept. rendering
γίγαντες has given rise, was
rejected even by Luther as fabulous. He
bases his view upon Joshua 11:7: “Nephilim
non dictos a magnitudine corporum,
sicut Rabbini putant, sed a tyrannide et
oppressione quod vi grassati sint,
nulla habita ratione legum aut honestatis,
sed simpliciter indulgentes suis
voluptatibus et cupiditatibus.” The
opinion that giants are intended
derives no support from Numbers 13:32-33.
When the spies describe the land of
Canaan as “a land that eateth up the
inhabitants thereof,” and then add
(Numbers 13:33), “and there we saw the
Nephilim, the sons of Anak among (מן
lit., from, out of, in a partitive
sense) the Nephilim,” by the side of whom
they were as grasshoppers; the term
Nephilim cannot signify giants, since the
spies not only mention them
especially along with the inhabitants of the
land, who are described as people
of great stature, but single out only a
portion of the Nephilim as “sons of
Anak” ענק
בּני), i.e., long-necked
people or giants. The explanation “fallen
from heaven” needs no refutation;
inasmuch as the main element, “from heaven,”
is a purely arbitrary addition.)
The meaning of the verse is a
subject of dispute. To an unprejudiced mind,
the words, as they stand,
represent the Nephilim, who were on the
earth in those days, as existing before
the sons of God began to marry the daughters
of men, and clearly distinguish
them from the fruits of these marriages. היוּ
can no more be rendered “they became, or
arose,” in this connection, than היה
in Genesis 1:2. ויּהיוּ would have been the
proper word. The expression “in those
days” refers most naturally to the time when
God pronounced the sentence upon
the degenerate race; but it is so general
and comprehensive a term, that it
must not be confined exclusively to that
time, not merely because the divine
sentence was first pronounced after these
marriages were contracted, and the
marriages, if they did not produce the
corruption, raised it to that fulness of
iniquity which was ripe for the judgment,
but still more because the words “after
that” represent the marriages which drew
down the judgment as an event that
followed the appearance of the Nephilim.
“The same were mighty men:” this might
point back to the Nephilim; but it is a more
natural supposition, that it
refers to the children born to the sons of
God. “These,” i.e., the sons sprung
from those marriages, “are the heroes, those
renowned heroes of old.”
Now if, according to the simple
meaning of the passage, the Nephilim were in
existence at the very time when
the sons of God came in to the daughters of
men, the appearance of the Nephilim
cannot afford the slightest evidence that
the “sons of God” were angels, by
whom a family of monsters were begotten,
whether demigods, daemons, or
angel-men.
(Note: How thoroughly
irreconcilable
the contents of this verse are with the
angel-hypothesis is evident from the
strenuous efforts of its supporters to bring
them into harmony with it. Thus,
in Reuter's Repert., p. 7, Del. observes
that the verse cannot be rendered in
any but the following manner: “The giants
were on the earth in those days, and
also afterwards, when the sons of God went
in to the daughters of men, these
they bare to them, or rather, and these bare
to them;” but, for all that, he
gives this as the meaning of the words, “At
the time of the divine
determination to inflict punishment the
giants arose, and also afterwards, when
this unnatural connection between
super-terrestrial and human beings
continued,
there arose such giants;” not only
substituting “arose” for “were,” but
changing “when they connected themselves
with them” into “when this connection
continued.” Nevertheless he is obliged to
confess that “it is strange that this
unnatural connection, which I also suppose
to be the intermediate cause of the
origin of the giants, should not be
mentioned in the first clause of Genesis
6:4.” This is an admission that the text
says nothing about the origin of the
giants being traceable to the marriages of
the sons of God, but that the
commentators have been obliged to insert it
in the text to save their angel
marriages. Kurtz has tried three different
explanations of this verse but they
are all opposed to the rules of the
language.) (1) In the History of the Old
Covenant
he gives this rendering: “Nephilim were on
earth in these days, and that even
after the sons of God had formed connections
with the daughters of men;” in
which he not only gives to גּם
the
unsupportable meaning, “even, just,” but
takes the imperfect יבאוּ
in the sense of the perfect בּאוּ.
(2) In his Ehen der Sצhne Gottes (p. 80)
he gives the choice of this and the
following rendering: “The Nephilim were on
earth in those days, and also after
this had happened, that the sons of God came
to the daughters of men and begat
children,” were the ungrammatical rendering
of the imperfect as the perfect is
artfully concealed by the interpolation of
“after this had happened.” (3) In “die
Sצhne Gottes,” p. 85: “In these days
and also afterwards, when the sons of God
came (continued to come) to the
daughters of men, they bare to them (sc.,
Nephilim),” where יבאוּ,
they came, is arbitrarily altered
into לבוא
יוסיפוּ, they continued to
come. But when he observes in defence of
this quid pro quo, that “the imperfect
denotes here, as Hengstenberg has correctly
affirmed, and as so often is the
case, an action frequently repeated in past
times,” this remark only shows that
he has neither understood the nature of the
usage to which H. refers, nor what
Ewald has said (136) concerning the force
and use of the imperfect.)” (1)
From the Pulpit
Commentary on verse Genesis 6:4 we
read:
“Verse 4. - There were. Not
became,
or arose, as if the giants were the fruit of
the previously mentioned
misalliances; but already existed
contemporaneously with the sons of God (cf.
Keil, Havernick, and Lange). Giants.
Nephilim, from naphal, to fall; hence
supposed to describe the offspring of the
daughters of men and the fallen angels
(Hoffman, Delitzsch). The LXX, translate
by γίγαντες;
whence the “giants” of
the A.V. and Vulgate, which Luther rejects
as fabulous; but Kalisch, on the
strength of Numbers 13:33, accepts as the
certain import of the term. More
probable is the interpretation which
understands them as men of violence,
roving, lawless gallants, “who fall on
others;” robbers, or tyrants (Aquila,
Rosenmüller, Gesenius, Luther, Calvin,
Kurtz, Keil, Murphy, 'Speaker's
Commentary'). That they were “monsters,
prodigies” (Tueh, Knobel), may be
rejected, though it is not unlikely they
were men of large physical stature,
like the Anakim, Rephaim, and others (cf.
Numbers 13:33). In the earth. Not
merely on it, but largely occupying the
populated region. In those days.
Previously referred to, i.e. of the mixed
marriages. And also - i.e. in
addition to these nephilim
- after
that, - i.e. after their up-rising - when
the sons of God came in unto the
daughters of men, and they bare children to
them, the same became mighty men. Ha'gibborim,
literally, the strong,
impetuous, heroes (cf. Genesis 10:8). “They
were probably more refined in
manners and exalted in thought than their
predecessors of pure Cainite descent”
(Murphy). Which were of old. Not “of the
world,” as a note of character, taking
olam as equivalent αἰὼν
to but a note
of time, the narrator reporting from his own
standpoint. Men of renown.
Literally, men of the name; “the
first
nobility of the world, honorable robbers,
who boasted of their wickedness”
(Calvin) or gallants, whose names were often
in men's mouths (Murphy). For
contrary phrase, “men of no name,” see Job
30:8.” (2)
As seen, both Luther and Calvin
were
convinced the second view were powerful
tyrannical rulers.
“Sons of God”
from the Fausset
Bible
Dictionary:
“Son of Lamech, grandson of
Methuselah; tenth from Adam in Seth's line.
In contrast to the Cainite Lamech's
boast of violence with impunity, the Sethite
Lamech, playing on Noah's (“rest”)
name, piously looks for “comfort” (nachum)
through him from Jehovah who had “cursed the
ground.” (See LAMECH.) At 500
years old Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
The phrase, “these are the
generations of Noah” (Genesis 6:9) marks him
as the patriarch of his day. The
cause of the flood is stated Genesis 6:1-3,
etc. “The sons of God (the
Sethites, adopted by grace, alone keeping
themselves separate from the world's
defilements, 'called by the name of Jehovah'
as His sons: Genesis 4:26 margin,
or as KJV; while the Cainites by erecting a
city and developing worldly arts
were laying the foundation for the kingdom
of this world, the Sethites by unitedly
'calling on Jehovah's name' founded the
church made up of God's children,
Galatians 3:26) saw the daughters of men
(Cainites) and they took them wives of
all which they chose” (fancy and lust,
instead of the fear of God, being their
ruling motive).” (3)
The Fausset Bible Dictionary
supports the third view that there was an
intermingling of the Cainites and the
Sethites.
What does the
word giant mean in verse Genesis 6:4?
From the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
Bible
Commentary on giants in verse 4:
“4. Giants - The term in Hebrew
implies not so much the idea of great
stature as of reckless ferocity, impious
and daring characters, who spread
devastation and carnage far and wide.” (4)
Giants are incidental in the
texts,
and has no bearing on the identity of “sons
of God.”
Modern
commentary entries:
Who were the
“sons of God” by Trevor J.
Major?
“Instead, the overall context
suggests that the “sons of God” and
“daughters of men” exist as an antithetical
parallelism, and refer to the godly Sethites
(Genesis 4:26) and worldly Cainites
(4:11), respectively. The un-sanctioned and
improperly motivated marriages
between these two groups (6:2) led to the
total moral breakdown of the existing
world order (6:5), the exception among them
being Noah and his family (6:8).” (5)
Who Were The
Nephilim by R. Daly?
“Genesis 6:4 says, “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 gave
birth to children by them. These were
heroes of old, the men of renown.”
Nephilim is the “translation”
or
rather transliteration (bringing over the
letters of one language to another;
in this instance from Hebrew in to English)
that we find in the ASV, RSV, NIV,
TANAKH, NRSV, NET, ESV, and TNIV. The reason
they transliterate is, there is
some uncertainty as to the meaning of the
Hebrew word. Efforts to interpret the
Hebrew word Ne'pilim
go back at least
as far as the Septuagint (LXX). The LXX
translator(s) uses the Greek words
hoi gigantes
twice in the text. According to the
Greek-English Lexicon Of The Septuagint,
Revised Edition, complied by J. Lust, E.
Eynikel, and K. Hauspie, page 120, gigantes
means “giant, mighty one.”
The likely reason that both the
LXX
and the KJV translate Ne'
pelim as “giants”
is the fact that Num. 13:33 indicates the Ne'pelim,
associated with the sons of Anak were men of
imposing stature. The context
makes that clear. The spies said, “...all
the people that we saw in it are men
of great stature. 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.” There is no certainty that
the description of the Ne'pilim
in Num. 13:33 applies to Gen.
6:4.
Actually, there is a growing
scholarly consensus that Ne'pelim
means
“fallen ones.” The
Dictionary Of
Classical Hebrew, edited by David J.A.
Clines, published by Sheffield
Academic Press, volume 5, page 723, “giant”
is given as a meaning, but he adds,
“perhaps fallen ones, i.e. dead.” Some have
assumed they were fallen angels who
cohabited with women and produced sort of a
superhuman race. The evidence for
this view is as strong as the evidence that
there are snowflakes on the sun.
First, the expression “sons of God” probably
refers to the righteous people who
“walked with God” (Gen. 4:26; 5:22, 24; 6:9)
The “daughters of men” seem to
have been worldly, ungodly women driven by
materialism, lust, and greed. (Isa.
3:16-4:1) Based on the context, since Gen.
6:1-4 immediately follows the
genealogical lists ofCainandSeth,itismostlikely that“thesonsofGod”aretherighteous descendants of Seth (Gen.
4:25-5:32),
and “the daughters of men” are
the
descendants of Cain. (Gen. 4:17-24) Second,
we can be sure that Gen. 6 is not
describing sexual relations between fallen
angels and humans because Jesus
taught that angels have no such inclination
or capability. (Matt. 22:30)
Furthermore, the descendants of the union of
the “sons of God” and “the
daughters of men” are called “men of renown”
('anse hassem). They were human
beings, mortals, not part angel and
part human. They were mere men.
It seems therefore, that the
Nephilim were men who had fallen into moral
corruption. They were notorious for
their wickedness. They were oppressors and
as the result of their incorrigibly
wicked state, Yahweh would bring
catastrophic global destruction upon the
human
race, except for righteous Noah and his
family.” (6)
Did Demons
Have Sexual Relations with Women in
Genesis 6:4? By Hank Hanegraaff
“The Nephilim were on the earth
in
those days — and also afterward — when the
sons of God went to the daughters of
men and had children by them. They were the
heroes of old, men of renown.”
Genesis 6:4
Genesis 6:4 is one of the most
controversial passages in the Bible. As with
any difficult section of
Scripture, it has been open to a wide
variety of interpretations. It is my
conviction, however, that those who hold
consistently to a Biblical worldview
must reject the notion that women and demons
can engage in sexual relations. I
reject this interjection of pagan
superstition into the Scriptures for the
following reasons.
First and foremost, the notion
that
demons can “produce” real bodies and have
real sex with real women would
invalidate Jesus' argument for the
authenticity of His resurrection. Jesus
assured His disciples that “a spirit does
not have flesh and bones, as you see
I have” (Luke 24:39, NKJV). If indeed a
demon could produce flesh and bones,
Jesus' argument would not only be flawed, it
would be misleading. In fact, it
might be logically argued that the disciples
did not see the post-resurrection
appearances of Christ but rather a demon
masquerading as the resurrected
Christ.
Furthermore, demons are
nonsexual,
nonphysical beings and, as such, are
incapable of having sexual relations and
producing physical offspring. To say that
demons can create bodies with DNA and
fertile sperm is to say that demons have
creative power — which is an
exclusively divine prerogative. If demons
could have sex with women in ancient
times, we would have no assurance they could
not do so in modern times. Nor
would we have any guarantee that the people
we encounter every day are fully
human. While a Biblical worldview does allow
for fallen angels to possess
unsaved human beings, it does not support
the notion that a demon-possessed
person can produce offspring that are
part-demon, part-human. Genesis 1 makes
it clear that all of God's living creations
are designed to reproduce
"according to their own kinds."
Finally, the mutant theory
creates
serious questions pertaining to the
spiritual accountability of hypothetical
demon-humans and their relation to
humanity's redemption. Angels rebelled
individually,
are judged individually, and are offered no
plan of redemption in Scripture. On
the other hand, humans fell corporately in
Adam, are judged corporately in
Adam, and are redeemed corporately through
Jesus Christ. We have no Biblical
way of determining what category the
demon-humans would fit into — whether they
would be judged as angels or as men, or more
significantly, whether they might
even be among those for whom Christ died. I
believe the better interpretation
is that “sons of God” simply refers to the
godly descendants of Seth, and “daughters
of men” to the ungodly descendants of Cain.
Their cohabitation caused humanity
to fall into such utter depravity that God
said, “ 'I will wipe mankind, whom I
have created, from the face of the earth —
men and animals, and creatures that
move along the ground, and birds of the air
— for I am grieved that I have made
them.' But Noah found favor in the eyes of
the Lord.” (Genesis 6:7-8).” (8)
The three modern commentators
provide compelling reasons to accept the
third view. However, it should be
noted that the second view and third views
are not necessarily in conflict. If
Luther and Calvin are correct, these “tyrant”
rulers were not godly and would be
fundamentally no different from the
Cainites.
In closing:
“Neither be ye idolaters, as
were
some of them; as it is written, the people
sat down to eat and drink, and rose
up to play.” (1Corinthians 10:7)
“Wherefore, my dearly beloved,
flee
from idolatry.” (1Corinthians 10:14)
Mr.
Kettler has previously published articles in
the Chalcedon Report and Contra
Mundum. He and his wife Marea attend the
Westminster, CO, RPCNA Church. Mr.
Kettler is the author of the book defending
the Reformed Faith against attacks,
titled: The Religion That Started in a Hat.
Available at: http://www.TheReligionThatStartedInAHat.com
Notes:
1.Keil-Delitzsch,
Commentary
on the Old Testament Genesis,
(Grand Rapids, Michigan, William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, Reprinted
1985), p. 137-138.
2.H.
D. M. Spence and Joseph S. Exell, The
Pulpit Commentary, Genesis, Vol.1,
(Grand Rapids, Michigan, Eerdmans
Publishing Company reprint 1978), p. 103.
3.Andrew
Robert M.A., D.D., Fausset's
Bible
Dictionary, 1878.
4.Jamieson,
Fausset and Brown, Commentary
on the
Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Zondervan, 1977) p. 22.
5.Trevor
J. Major, M.Sc., M.A., THE
MEANING OF
“SONS OF GOD” IN GENESIS 6:1-4 by
Apologetics Press, Montgomery, Alabama),
p. 9.
6.R.
Daly, Who
Were The Nephilim? Exegetical
Essays, (Indianapolis, Indiana,
http://exegeticalessays.blogspot.com/)
7.Adapted
from Hank Hanegraaff, The
Bible Answer
Book, (Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas
Nelson, 2008), pp. 480-482.
“To God,
only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ
forever. Amen.” (Romans 16:27) and “heirs
according to the promise.” (Galatians
3:28, 29)