The Nephilim

 

Who are the Nephilim?  This Hebrew word that was translated giant by the King James Version translators has been a source of speculation for years.  How disappointing for many will it be when we discover that giant is the best translation for this word?  More than likely the Nephilim merely refers to a tribe of people from which many were of large stature.  This word is only used three times in the entire Bible.  It is found once in Genesis 6:4 and twice in Numbers 13:33.

“There were giants in 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, the same [became] mighty men which [were] of old, men of renown.” (Ge 6:4 AV)

Without prior input I don’t believe that most people would gather from this text that these Nephilim were half man, half angel, for it is only through a series of speculations that some people have arrived at this conclusion.  Key to their conclusion is the interpretation of the phrase, “sons of God”.  Again we are confronted with a term that is rarely used in the Old Testament.  It is used only here in this passage in Genesis and again used in the Book of Job.  The term “sons of God” is used much more frequently in the New Testament, where it obviously is referring to Christians, or God’s chosen people.  Adam is referred to as a “son of God”, as is the second Adam, Jesus Christ.

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.” (Job 1:6 AV)

It is from this verse in Job that men have speculated that the sons of God refer to angels, after all who are these sons of God, and why is Satan among them?  Personally I would rather admit that I don’t know than to make a foolish assumption and use it as a building block for further speculation.  Literally they are the offspring or children of God.

Heavenly beings that are sent from God are referred to as angels (or messengers) of God.  The Bible refers to those angels that followed Satan as angels (or messengers) of Satan.  If the sons of God referred to in Job are angels then it is the only place where they are thus referred to as sons of God.  Judging from the text and the setting I suppose that it is possible that the sons of God in Job are angels.  But Satan is not called a son of God in the text.  It merely mentions that he came also among them.

To confuse matters even worse some insist that this term Nephilim comes from the Hebrew verb “naphal”, which means to fall.  Therefore they say that the Nephilim are fallen ones.   Assuming that Nephilim means fallen ones and assuming that these are angel, then the conclusion is that they are fallen angels.

Before we read the text too closely let me guide you down their logic trail.  To know who the sons of God are they look at how the term is used in Job.  In Job the sons of God present themselves before God, therefore they must be angels.  If the sons of God are angels in Job then they must be angels in Genesis 6:4.  The angels of Genesis took wives of the daughters of men and had children who became mighty men, heroes of their day.  Genesis 6:4 starts out that there were giants in the earth in that day.  Who then were more likely to be giants than those who were children of angels (fallen angels of course)?

If you want to believe this logic then you need to be careful not to read the text too closely or look at and consider other facts we know about angels from the Scripture.  Defining Nephilim as the offspring of angels who breed with humans is a concept that has to be forced into the text, it is not the clear reading of the Scripture.

“There were giants in 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, the same [became] mighty men which [were] of old, men of renown.” (Ge 6:4 AV)

If this paragraph was turned around and it said that the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old men of renown that were the giants in the earth in those days.  And then if we could definitively state that the sons of God were in fact fallen angels …

But that is not how the text is written.  There were giants in the earth in those days.  In addition to those giants and afterwards there were these children who became mighty men.

The information that Jesus gives us about the angels also is in conflict with this theory, for these sons of God took wives. Jesus stated that in the resurrection we would neither marry or be given in marriage, but we would be like the angels in heaven.  It would certainly seem strange to me if God had created the angels with the capability to pro-create if they did not mate with angels.  It would be even stranger if God had given them the capability to mate with humans when He has created definite boundaries between other species of His creation.  God’s creation is a purposeful one.  We are not given a lot of information about angels.  When they appear to humans they appear as men.  They are never referred to as either male or female and never do they appear as women or feminine.

The very term sons of God is in conflict with supposed identity of these angels who are supposed to be those Peter referred to when he talked of those who had sinned.  Remember when the Pharisees claimed that they were children of Abraham and children of God?  Jesus corrected them and said that they were children of their father, Satan.  It is only by faith, through grace that we as fallen creatures can be referred to as children, or sons of God.  God’s messengers could possibly be referred to as sons of God, but fallen angels would be referred to as sons of the devil or something like that.

I believe that the most convincing argument refuting this theory comes from the text itself.  For if we continue to read of God’s heart rendering decision to destroy the earth with all of its life we find that it was because of the wickedness of mankind.  It is man, his wickedness, his violence, and his imaginations and thoughts were evil continually.  Only Noah was found righteous in his generation.  God destroys the world because of man’s great wickedness, not because of the wickedness of fallen angels.  The clarity of Scripture can’t be logically refuted.

So you may ask, “Who are these sons of God that are referred to in Genesis 6:4.”  To be consistent with Scripture we would have to say that they were righteous men who knew God.  In that the Scriptures tell us that they married the daughters of men because of their beauty and of their own will it seems to insinuate that they may have chosen wives of those who had strayed from the truth.  It certainly seems possible that as time went on those coming from the righteous Seth line indiscriminately married some of those from the unrighteous Cain line.  The resulting offspring were mighty men, but succeeding generation became exceedingly wicked.

I know that I am also reading a little more into it than the text gives us.  But the important thing is that we don’t violate the fundamental principles of what Scripture teaches us.  Proper terminology will be consistent throughout scripture.  Sons of God are the good guys.  Angels can’t breed with humans.  God destroyed the world because of mans wickedness, not because of angels.  We need to identify the facts without reading anything into the text.

God’s judgments are righteous and true.

“5 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. 6 ¶ And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.” (Ge 6:5-7 AV)

“12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. 13 ¶ And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” (Ge 6:12-13 AV)

These verses and those that follow show only the judgment of man that also includes animals.  Yet not one word is said about angels or fallen angels being judged with man and beast.  It was the corruption of the sons of Adam, the sins of mankind that brought on the judgment of God and the destruction of all flesh on earth.  It was man that was given the earth as his dominion and it was mankind that perverted and corrupted the earth and all that was in it.

“32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, [is] a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it [are] men of a great stature. 33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, [which come] of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.” (Nu 13:32-33 AV)

Here we have the only other reference to giants (the nephilim).  It appears like they are just a tribe of big people.  We are now on the other side of the flood.  All flesh was destroyed except Noah, his wife, and his three boys and their wives.  Everyone alive is a descendent of Noah.  Nowhere in all of Scripture does it define people who are descendents of angels.  Yet before and after the flood we have giants (the nephilim), simply big human beings.

In mythology that comes from many different cultures we do have stories of descendents of gods and humans.  Sometimes in their mythological stories we read distortions of Biblical history.  It leads us to believe that behind the myth there was some truth.  We must be careful to remember though that the myth needs to be interpreted by the Bible, not the Bible interpreted by the myth.  God’s Word is truth.  Myths are perversions and half truths, which amount to lies.  Trust God and the clear reading of the Scripture.

“But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.” (Tit 3:9 AV)

God’s Word is designed to present truth.  It also clearly refutes the myths and false teachings that abounded then and now.

 

Bob Gunderson