Troublesome Topic: GENESIS 6:1-4 AND THE NEPHILIM

SEEKING AN ADVANTAGE BROUGHT THE FLOOD

After the death of Lamech, it is quite likely that his three most powerful sons, Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal Cain, fought for, and ended up tearing apart, their father’s kingdom. After they died, their three kingdoms also became battle grounds as other giant, ruthless, ambitious men tried to rule as much of the world as they could. This was the situation at the beginning of this passage we call Genesis 6 – there were many powerful people fighting against other powerful people and using the small and weak people as their pawns.

As aggressiveness became more common, size and strength became more important. When even the righteous (primarily the “sons of Elohim”) started playing the game of seeking advantage through size and strength, corruption and godlessness propelled them quickly down the spiral of sin.

The giants among the righteous quickly realized what the giants among the wicked had already learned, that for one giant to produce offspring of similar size, he had to marry an equally large woman. Thus, a competition was created for the women of great height and strength.

However, if there were not as many large women among the descendants of Seth because they had not been marrying with that in mind, or because their population was smaller, the only place some of them could go to find giant women was to the descendants of Cain.

Rather than being threatened by the idea, the wicked rulers saw such intermarriage as a way to infiltrate and influence the Sethites and possibly take them over without a major battle. Once they were intermarried, neither side would want to fight and kill off their own daughters. It appears that, from the time of Cain’s expulsion from Adam’s family, the descendants of Cain had not liked the fact that they were forced to live separately, so a blurring of those lines by mixing the two groups through marriage seemed like a good idea to them. Meanwhile, the Sethites were only trying to catch up in size and thus keep from being subjugated against their will.

But the outcome was that once the line of Seth’s started seeking most of their leaders from the giants among them, and once those giants began to marry wicked women of Cain’s line, they were not able to pass on godly principles to the next generation. This was a reality because the wife is a key part of educating the children, especially when everyone is using some method of homeschooling, as they likely were back then. So the gamble on the part of the descendants of Cain paid off; they won without fighting a major military battle. But they did not win in the end, for God destroyed them all and started over with the one man who had refused to become corrupted, Noah, a Sethite.

The picture I have just painted is why God punished the human race with a world-wide flood. It is the purpose of Genesis 6:1-4 to show us the connection between how each side sought the advantage through their respective giants and the reason the flood was necessary.

WHO WERE THE “SONS OF ELOHIM”?

This is one of the most disputed passages in the Bible, and it revolves around the question, Who were the “sons of Elohim?” The phrase can refer to one of the following:

1 The descendants of Seth in contrast to the descendants of Cain

2 The righteous followers of God 

3 The “mighty ones”

4 Angels

5 A combination of options 2 and 3

            First of all it is important to note that giants were very common before the flood. There were people who were very large and strong without having any physical problem associated with their size.

Let’s look at these in more detail.

I. The phrase “sons of elohim” refers to the sons of Seth. If this interpretation is to be adopted, Gen 6:2 would read like this: “The male descendants of Seth saw that the female descendants of Cain were desirable, and they took as wives for themselves whomever they chose.”

How did such unions bring about the ruthless giants called Nephilim? The only possible answer is that these men who had previously been good, began to seek power and control and they found it by using extreme size to forcibly get what they wanted. In order to maintain that size in their families they had to seek wives who were also very large, hence they looked outside of their “group” to wherever they could find that size. This is the only way that this interpretation can bring about the Nephilim. The lesson in this case is that their corruption brought about the need for a world-wide flood.

II. “followers of God.” The phrase “sons of Elohim” has usage elsewhere in Scripture with the meaning “followers of God.”

 Here the emphasis would be on the heart, not on blood lines.

If this interpretation is to be chosen, Genesis 6:2 would be rendered: “The sons of the righteous saw that the daughters of the rest of humanity, i.e. the wicked, were desirable, and they took as wives for themselves whomever they chose.”

Interpretations 1 and 2, which are close to being one and the same, fit the purpose and context better than any other. That is a huge element in their favor. They teach the following lesson. If this is the correct meaning, then the problem arose when followers of God began to want power and control just like they saw others had, and thus became corrupted and began seeing the women that practiced ungodly lifestyles as desirable for their size and likely for their lascivious practices. They may have felt that they had no other choice, they “had to” marry giant women in order to keep up with others and not be pummeled into submission by the wicked giants. But in the process they gave up their godly principles. The lesson is to follow God even if it seems to ruin our chances of gaining an advantage among the humans we live with.

III. The word “Elohim” means “mighty ones.” There are a few times in Scripture when Elohim is used of entities other than God. Because it means “mighty one(s),” the term can refer to any entity that is mighty. God fits that description best, but a few others can, and are called mighty. It is sometimes used of angels, as we shall see under point #4, but it is also used of mighty men. Psalm 82:6 uses the term Elohim of wicked, powerful men whom God will judge, showing himself to be the true judge, the true ruler. See also Ex 21:6 and Ex 22:9, where the word Elohim is translated “judges.” In Psalm 29:1 it is translated “mighty ones,” although in this case it is unclear whether the mighty ones are angels or men. I prefer to think of it as men, that is why I have placed this Psalm in this category.

If we take this interpretation, the passage means that powerful, ruthless men, probably among the descendants of Cain, or among the ungodly, liked what they saw among the daughters of Seth, or among the righteous, and they began to take them by force to be their wives. When we read later about their offspring being the Nephilim we realize that it is likely that their power came from their size. There was nothing the righteous men could do to protect their daughters because these men were so powerful. This brought about a mixing of the two groups which previously had remained separate, and the mixing ended up producing a widespread corruption even in those who had been faithful to God.

If this interpretation is chosen, Genesis 6:2 could read like this: “The sons of the mighty ones saw that the daughters of the rest of humanity were good, and they took as wives for themselves whomever they chose.”

Why would the wicked giants want to forcibly take wives from the pious families. Why would the wicked giants want to take wives from others who were not like them, i.e not giants?

If this interpretation is the right one, the spiritual lesson here is that we need to resist evil even if it is a difficult task and even if there is great risk. The mixing by marriage of these two previously separated groups fomented the increase in corruption which necessitated the world-wide flood.

IV. “The sons of elohim” refers to righteous followers of God who were also “mighty ones”, i.e. they were giant-size leaders of the righteous.

Genesis 6:4 ends with the words, “Those were the mighty men of old, the men of renown.” I take this to refer to the members of the “sons of Elohim”, i.e. the large, powerful leaders of the righteous, who were primarily descendants of Seth and his siblings. Their exploits were either recorded in writing or told in oral tradition to future generations. There was no logical reason for them to record or retell the exploits of the leaders and heroes of the wicked, only those of their own heroes.

V. The phrase “sons of Elohim” refers to angels. There are several passages of Scripture where the term “Elohim” is used of angels. For instance,

Job 1:6; and Job 38:7.

If this interpretation is followed, Genesis 6:2 would read like this: “The angels saw that the daughters of men were desirable and they took as wives for themselves whomever they chose.”

This method of interpretation is fraught with several serious problems which I will explain in the a separate lesson after verse 4.

WHAT ROOT DOES THE NAME NEPHILIM COME FROM?

Nephilim sounds like a proper name and is used either as a name or a title. But we don’t read anything about someone with a name like it who founded a group of people who followed after him. Therefore it is possible that Nephilim is a title that the righteous gave the powerful wicked rulers. That title was expanded and became more popular the more individuals from various bloodlines lived up to the reputation that accompanied that word.

Most Hebrew scholars say the plural noun Nephilim comes from the verb NPHL (Naphal) which means “to fall down, to bow down, to force others to fall, to down people in battle,” and related ideas. It came to be used of ruthless giants who used their strength to “down/flatten” people in any type of confrontation. Thus, the term does not really mean “giants” but it came to be used of giants who were known for flattening people. It was common for a word meaning one thing to gain a usage over time which pointed a slightly, or largely different direction. In my opinion, the root meaning should always be considered or kept somehow connected to the usage, even if that usage seems totally other than the root meaning.

But Michael Heiser disagrees about the word Nephilim coming from the Hebrew verb which means “to fall or something related to falling”. He says the significance of the fact that the second place we see the word Nephilim (Numbers 13:33) uses the spelling Nephiylim is that it must be the plural of another noun. He says it comes from the Aramaic noun naphiyla. The equivalent noun in Hebrew would be naphiyl, but it is never used in the Old Testament as a singular noun. It only appears in the plural form Nephiylim (pages 106 & 107).

However, in the group of languages called semitic languages, the group which includes both Hebrew and Aramaic and a few others, the nouns are usually derived from the verbs because the verbs are the most basic form of the word. So I looked on the internet to see what the root verb behind the Aramaic noun naphiyla was. It took me only about 5 seconds to find the answer. Because Hebrew and Aramaic are cousin languages, I was not surprised at all to see that the root verb is NPHL, probably pronounced Nephal in Aramaic, which is similar to Naphal in Hebrew. Like Hebrew, Nephal means “to fall,” and other words related to falling or forcing others to fall.

I feel like Michael Heiser is being dishonest here. He knows that the nouns come from the verbs in both Hebrew and Aramaic, and surely he knows the meaning of the Aramaic verb Nephal is the same as the meaning of the Hebrew verb Naphal. Yet he chooses to point to another noun as its origin, one which had already come to be used of giants.

WERE THE NEPHILIM THE OFFSPRING OF ANGELS THAT MARRIED HUMAN WOMEN?

I find that interpretation to be spiritually dangerous and physically impossible. Here are my reasons:

ONE: It violates the principle of reproduction in nature which always occurs “according to their kind.”

The Bible, especially Genesis, is clear that living beings can only reproduce “according to their kind.” The way God established the laws of nature, reproduction cannot happen outside of a created kind.

Others believe that lesser deities had enough power to manipulate nature to the degree necessary to make possible such reproduction across the barrier of kinds. I argue that this violates another principle in Scripture which is never stated clearly but is exemplified in several ways. That principle is that if God gives something (such as life) only He can take it away; if He established something, only He can dismantle it or replace it (such as replacing the Old Covenant with the New Covenant). In other words, if they could change the rules of nature or do their own “creating”, it raises them to the same level or close to the same level of power which the Creator God possesses.

TWO: If the Nephilim were the children of demons and humans, How did they exist both before and after the flood without being on the ark? Genesis 6:4 says that “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after that),” meaning after the flood. Since they were not on the ark, does that mean that angels came down to marry human women again after the flood? It is easy for some to say that it happened again, but I am convinced the answer is an emphatic No! The Bible does not even hint in that direction. Therefore, such a shallow answer is based on two flimsy foundation points, first they need it to be true, and secondly, they think it did happen once. That is not a good interpretive method to use when studying the Bible.

The best answer is that they were humans that were great big bullies. The DNA of Noah and his family members was rich enough to produce a small percentage of giants in the generations after the flood. Once again, the term Nephilim was a proper noun which could be used to indicate a specific bloodline, or as a title pointing to a group of people who were similar in ways that did not include their bloodline. I am convinced it is the latter.

THREE “sons of Elohim” does not mean demons. If spirit-beings came to earth to do something contrary to God’s will, they were no longer angels, but demons, and using the phrase “sons of Elohim” to refer to demons is questionable. Some people on the internet say “Elohim” can refer to any spirit being, including demons, but I don’t see that in any lexica I trust. In the Bible I have never seen “Elohim,” or “sons of Elohim,” used in a way that clearly refers to demons.

FOUR: Whenever a theological position rests solely on one verse of the Bible, there is a huge problem. If the interpretation of that one verse directly or indirectly contradicts the rest of Scripture, there is a huge problem. That is the case with seeing “sons of Elohim” in this passage as a reference to angels and saying that angels married women and had children by them. To the best of our understanding of Scripture, that’s just not the way things work. Therefore, we are obliged to ask ourselves, “Is there a different interpretation that is viable?” There is. In fact, the idea of angels marrying human women is the weakest and most problematic of the interpretations possible for this passage. To base a theological position on such a dubious interpretation is irresponsible!