The history and hierarchy of Angels, Demons, Nephiliim, and Rephaim giants in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation

Is God Mean | Episode 5

The history of Angels, Demons, Nephiliim, Rephaim, and giants in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation

Understanding the origin, timeline, and hierarchy of celestial beings 

So in my first video on this topic we defined who the “Sons of God” were in Genesis 6. In the second video we investigated who the Nephilim, Rephaim, and Gibborim were throughout the Old Testament, and then in the third video we took a closer look at some mysterious Biblical characters like Nimrod. Now, in this final video on the topic, it’s time to tie it all together with a synopsis covering the full Biblical history of angels and demons from Genesis to Revelation. We’re going to talk about the fall of satan, all 3 angelic rebellions, the hybrid half-angel-half-human race from Genesis 6, the origin of demons, and the return of the Nephilim after the global flood. If you think you’ve heard all of the theories before and that you already know what I’m about to say, I can almost guarantee that you’re in for a surprise. Let me prove it to you.

The creation of the heavenly host

If we’re going to cover the full history of angels and demons then let’s start at the very beginning in Genesis 1:1 when God created the heavens and the earth. We know from the book of Job that the Sons of God, the angels, were already present when God was creating earth. So before God created earth, He had already created His heavenly host. This heavenly host consisted of many types of celestial beings, including cherubim, seraphim, and angels. The cherubim are described as being flying hybrid beings with multiple faces of different animals and men.

Then there are the Seraphim, which I understand to be a type of the Cherubim. Isaiah described the Seraphim as flying serpents. Many consider the Seraphim to be the highest ranked celestial being in the host of Heaven, after the Trinity of course, as they tend directly to God’s throne. They are recorded as flying above God’s throne continuously singing praises while also tending to the care of God’s throne room. You can think of them as throne room guardians. Since they are described as being flying serpents, it’s no surprise that the term Seraphim literally means “snakes” in Biblical Hebrew. Interestingly, many believe that who we now recognize as Satan, began his existence as one of the Seraphim, but I’ll talk more about that later.

After the Cherubim and Seraphim there are many ranks of angels mentioned in the Bible. Some terms we see in scripture that refer to an hierarchy concerning the angels are elders, rulers, authorities, principalities, and powers. The angel Michael is referred to as an archangel, a captain, and a chief prince, again all denoting a hierarchy to the angelic ranks. Later in scripture, after an angelic rebellion, we see fallen angels referred to as princes over geographical regions.

The divine council and the creation of man

The Seraphim, Cherubim, and angels all formed God’s heavenly host. After God created the heavens, the heavenly host, and the earth, we then come to this verse in Genesis 1:26:

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (KJV)

Notice that it says, “our” image. It uses the plural form. Who is the “our” in this verse that God was speaking to? God wouldn’t need to have this conversation with Himself among the Trinity as they already know what each other is thinking and planning. So who is God speaking with? Was that just put there to let us know what God was thinking. Possibly, but some suggest that God is speaking with the divine council. There are many stories in the Bible where God invites members of the divine council to participate in making a decision. For instance, this group of celestial beings helps decide how to bring down the corrupt king Ahab (1 Kings 22:19-22). Also, in the book of Job there’s a debate among the divine council about how God rewards people for doing good (Job 1:6-12). I believe it’s this group that is referred to in Psalm 82:1:

God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. (ESV)

We could spend a lot of time on the divine council, but for this video, I just want to focus on the fact that if God was speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26, then that points to the idea that both angels and men were created in the image of God. Angels were created to be His imagers in the celestial realm, and we are His imagers here on earth. Thus, an argument could be made that we are of the same kind as angels. That would explain why every time an angel takes physical form in the Bible it appears as a human male. This will be relevant information in a moment when I begin talking about angels reproducing with human women in Genesis 6. But first, let’s talk about Genesis 3.

The origin of the snake in the Garden of Eden

So after God creates the heavens and the earth, the heavenly host, and humankind, He then creates a place known as the Garden of Eden where all of His heavenly family and earthly family can live together in harmony. I think of the Garden of Eden as a place where the celestial and terrestrial overlap. Somehow the two dimensions collided in the Garden of Eden. It was a place for immortal beings. There was no death there. God himself walked with Adam and Eve face to face, and Adam and Eve were originally created to be immortal beings.

This is why I think that when one of the seraphim (the serpent in Genesis 3) approached Eve and began giving her advice that it was not anything that caught her off guard or alarmed her. She was used to communing with glorified celestial beings. So when this high-ranking celestial being from God’s throne room began to talk to her it was just second nature. It obviously wasn’t just a normal snake, because snakes don’t talk. There was clearly something divine going on here.

Ezekiel, while speaking of satan (who may have been influencing or even possessed the king of Tyre at the time), says in chapter 28 verse 13, “Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God…” and then in the next verse it says, “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth…” Well, we know that the seraphim are just cherubim that fly above God’s throne covering God with praises (Isaiah 6:3). It also says in verse 14, “thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire…” and we know from other places in scripture that the Seraphim tended to the fiery stones (Isaiah 6:6). So I believe that what we witness here in Genesis 3 is the fall of who we now commonly call Satan.

What is Satan’s real name?

Satan isn’t really his name though. The word satan actually isn’t a proper noun at all. In the original hebrew it’s always “the satan” a generic noun that means the accuser or the adversary. His name isn’t lucifer either. When the Bible was translated to Latin from Hebrew the word lucifero was used to describe him, but it’s just a reference to venus, or a morning star. It’s not a proper name. We don’t actually know what the satan’s real name is as the Bible never tells us. Regardless of what his name is, this once attendant to God’s throne fell into pride because of his beauty and sought to elevate himself above God (Ezekiel 28:12–17, Isaiah 14:12–15, Luke 10:18). Thus we find him here in Genesis 3 seducing Eve with the same lies that he himself believed, that she could be like God and that God was just trying to withhold knowledge and thus glory from her. Eve makes the mistake of believing this father of lies and she eats from the forbidden tree and also shares with her husband, who also eats. After this incident God speaks to the serpent who deceived the man and the woman. God tells the serpent, this once great celestial being who flew high above God’s throne, above all creation, that he will now be cast low and forced to crawl on his belly and eat dust all the days of his life. God then says this to him:

And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
Genesis 3:15 (NIV)

So God tells Satan that the offspring of a woman is going to destroy Him. Since Satan now knows where his destruction is going to come from, he wastes no time attempting to corrupt the line of man. I believe this is when Revelations 12:1-4 takes place, which reads:

“A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.” (NIV)

People debate on whether the woman in this passage is a symbol for Eve, Israel, Mary, or just represents womankind in general, but, either way, I think it’s pretty clear that this passage is referring to the birth of Christ. We again have another allusion to a winged serpent, just like the Seraphim from Isaiah, a dragon who attempts to destroy the offspring of the woman. We also see that the dragon sweeps one third of the stars to earth. Stars were often used to refer to angels or celestial beings throughout scripture, so this is where we get the theory that one third of the angels fell with satan. This is what I believe was the first angelic rebellion. The scripture makes it clear that this event happened before the birth of Christ, but it doesn’t specify how long before. I think the answer to the “when” question is found in Genesis 3 when we see the fall of Satan. Clearly he had to have already fallen to have tempted Eve. We then see his attempt to devour the offspring of the woman by corrupting mankind all throughout the entire rest of the Old Testament leading up Jesus’ birth, just like the picture Revelations 12 painted of the dragon awaiting a baby’s birth.

The second angelic rebellion

In fact, just 3 chapters later, we find this strange passage of scripture that we have already investigated thoroughly in this series, but just in case you’re new to the channel, let’s refresh our memory. The scripture I’m referring to is Genesis 6:1-4

“When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.” (NIV)

I’ve already plunged deep into these scriptures in previous videos where I really investigated the original Hebrew and looked at all the theories surrounding this topic. So in this video, I’m not going to take the time to clarify all the statements I’m about to make because I’ve already done so in my earlier videos. For this video, I’m just going to quickly share my personal beliefs surrounding this topic. If you’d like to go deeper, please watch the videos from earlier in this series.

I think Genesis 6 is the story of a second angelic rebellion. To my understanding, the scriptures seem to suggest in verse 2 that angels became seduced by the beauty of human women and  left their proper abode (Jude 6) in the spiritual dimension to live in the physical dimension so they could satisfy their lust by marrying human women. The scriptures do not seem to imply rape by the angels, but actual marriage to women. When Genesis 6:2 says that the sons of God married daughters of Adam It is the same word used commonly throughout the Old Testament to suggest covenant marriage. It is not the word they had for rape. Extra-biblical texts also support this idea. I highlight this point to explain why the humans were held responsible for this sin. The satanic kingdom can do nothing in this world without human consent as authority was given to us. Humanity was guilty and deserving of judgement because they welcomed and perpetuated this evil and abhorrent union.

Who were the Nephilim?

When we get to verse 4 it tells us that this union between angels and human women led to them having offspring together. I do want to point out, however, that I don’t think that the scriptures imply that the  children were the Nephilim that are mentioned. Nephilim has been theorized to mean “the fallen ones” and I believe that term is referring to the angels who fell with satan in the first angelic rebellion. For something to be “fallen” it has to have first been upright or in right standing at some point. The hybrid half-angel-half-human offspring was never in right standing to have fallen from. Therefore, I think we have 4 groups being represented in this verse. First, the Nephilim, who were the fallen angels from the first angelic rebellion. Second, the human women. Third, the Sons of God, who were righteous angels seduced by their lust and rebelled, and lastly, the fourth group would be the offspring, whom the Bible simply describes as the Gibborim, or mighty men of renown.

The way the original Hebrew reads, if I were to paraphrase it, I would say it like this, “Fallen angels were already on the earth during the days when a second angelic rebellion took place as the Sons of God mated with human women. Their offspring were mighty and became the stuff of legend. The original fallen angels were still there afterwards as well.”

How could a celestial being reproduce with a physical, fleshly being?

Before I can move on to the next section of the story, I feel like I need to clarify some things. I know many people really get hung up at this part of the story trying to wrap their minds around the idea that a celestial being could reproduce with a physical being. I think the confusion comes from the fact that when most people think of a celestial being they think of a spiritual being, and when most people think of a spiritual being they think of a being that doesn’t have a body. That assumption however, is not a Biblical one. We see over and over again that angels have bodies capable of eating, sleeping, touching, hugging, grabbing, pulling, and fighting. In fact, the BIble tells us we entertain angels in our physical realm without even knowing it. When Jesus arose in His resurrected body He too was capable of hugging, eating, touching, walking, and talking, but He also had the ability to appear and disappear at will just as the angels do.

We’re told that we are going to be given resurrection bodies just like the one Jesus has and that we will be just like Him, and we know that His body was capable of engaging with the physical realm in every way. This again points to the idea that it may be reasonable to assume that we are of the same Biblical kind as the angels.

We know that “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:3). So, I don’t think it’s fair to assume that fallen angels have the freedom to produce new realms, species, or creatures apart from the rules, framework, and boundaries that God has already put into place. However, I can see how it would be plausible for these fallen angels to have taken advantage of the rules of biology that God Himself created and put into place, to bring new life into this world just as we humans bring new life into this world.

Again, in past videos I covered a lot of Biblical evidence to support the concepts mentioned here. So If you’d like more information then please check out the full playlist for this series. In those past videos I also touched on the idea that angels do have bodies, but it’s just a different kind of body. I’ve referred to it as an interdimensional body in past videos, but I want to provide a little more clarity now.

Interdimensional Bodies

Although you and I exist within a 3 dimensional world, scientists claim to have proven that there are many other dimensions out there that we can’t perceive with our natural senses. The spiritual dimension likely just exists on another dimensional plane.

Think of it like this. If these two dimensional stick figures were to see my pen passing through their 2 dimensional plane of existence, to them it would just look like a circle that magically appeared out of nowhere and then just as quickly disappeared. I could then cause the pen to appear or disappear anywhere I want within their plane of existence. The pen isn’t really appearing and disappearing, it’s just passing through their dimension, their plane of existence, and making it seem that way to them. Also, even though they can’t perceive me standing in front of or behind them since I’m on a third “depth” dimension, I can still always see them within their two dimensions.

I think that the interdimensional bodies of the angels, and our future resurrected bodies are likely able to interact with this 3 dimensional world we understand in much the same way. Thus, it’s not that angels don’t have bodies, but just that they have more advanced interdimensional bodies. This is the primary reason that many people don’t think that fallen angels and demons are the same things, because they don’t share the same attributes. Namely, angels have bodies and demons don’t. This leads me to the final point I want to make before I continue with the rest of my synopsis on the history of celestial beings.

Where did the demons originate from

Just to quickly recap, there are three theories of where demons originated from. The first theory is that they’re just fallen angels, whom after the flood, God forbid them from taking physical form or entering our dimension. God would have forbidden this in order to prevent them from ever reproducing with women again.The second theory is that demons are the disembodied spirits of the hybrid half-angel race that drowned in the flood, and the third theory was actually introduced to me by one of my viewers. That theory suggests that demons could be disembodied spirits of the angels who were locked away in Tartarus after they mated with women.

Any three of these theories require a certain amount of speculation, but I personally think the first theory requires the least amount of speculation and invention on our part, and thus that is the one I personally believe. The Bible never directly tells us that God took away fallen angels’ ability to walk the earth in their physical form. So, that is where the speculation comes in, but seeing as how it never happens again after Genesis 6, even though faithful angels are at times given the ability, it seems like a fair assumption to make.

Also, throughout the old testament I found references to demons that seemed to be connected to spiritual geographical rulers; Idols and false gods. For people that view fallen angels and demons as separate entities, geographical spiritual rulers are nearly always attributed to fallen angels, not demons. Yet, Moses and King David seem to refer to these idols and false gods as demons, leading me to believe that they are all one and the same, just at different levels in the hierarchy. An example of this is Deuteronomy 32:17

They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God, to gods they had not known before, to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors had never feared. (NLT)

Moving on with the story.

A synopsis of the history of angels, demons, nephilim, and rephaim throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelations.

The Bible tells us that Noah was perfect in his generations (Genesis 6:9). Some believe this scripture refers to his bloodline not being contaminated by hybrid blood, others think it is simply an acknowledgement of his righteousness. Either way, as the hybrid gibborim presumably grew in number, and the hearts of humanity continued to drift further into rebellion, the Bible portrays a picture where all of mankind’s thoughts and imaginations were consistently and totally evil. Extra-biblical texts allude to the idea that these hybrid creatures, along with their fathers (the fallen angels), began to teach humanity how to cross breed animal species and all sorts of other unnatural and abhorrent experiments. Remember the Bible shows us that just demon possession gave mankind superhuman strength and abilities. This society would have consisted of actual hybrid creatures and their fallen angelic fathers who were still in physical form on the earth. With that in mind, I think it is very possible that this advanced but wicked society would have had the knowledge and technology to do exactly what the extra-biblical texts allude to. That is why I think God also mentions destroying the animals in the flood. It seems the entire planet needed cleansing.

The whole earth and all of creation living on it was a twisted and mutilated mess that was evil to its core. Except for Noah and his family, and extra-biblical texts tell us that the evil society was trying to kill him. Considering the rampant evil in Noah’s day I believe that was most likely true. If the evil people in Noah’s day would have succeeded at murdering him there would have been no righteous line of humanity left for the savior to come through. Also, this would have led to the continued spread of the hybrid bloodlines until all of humanity was completely wiped out and replaced by this mixed gibborim. I believe that God-ordained humanity was literally on the brink of extinction.

The third angelic rebellion

So God makes the hard but merciful choice to send the flood and cleanse the thoroughly and completely evil world saving humanity from extinction. In that flood, all of the half angel/half human hybrid race are drowned, and I would presume that this is also the time when the fallen angels who mated with women are locked in Tartarus as Jude and 2 Peter tell us they are. I assume this because God promised to never flood the world again, and I don’t think He would have made that promise if the threat of human extinction at the hands of a hybrid race were still a possibility. So I believe this is when he took measures to ensure that the earth would never be overrun by a hybrid race again.

So now, at this point in history, all of the angels who mated with women are locked in Tartarus and all of the hybrid race offspring has drowned and their souls were sent to Hades. We can also assume that all of the remaining fallen angels are never again allowed to take physical form until possibly during the tribulation when some believe that even the fallen angels held in Tartarus may be released again for a time (Revelations 9).

After the flood, the waters receded and Noah, his family, and all the animals on the ark began repopulating the earth. Eventually, we see mankind start to rebel against God yet again. This leads to the Tower of Babel and the founding of evil societies and cities. Soon following the time of the Tower of Babel we see a third angelic rebellion. This one actually deserves it’s own video, because there is so much to unpack. I hope to come back and do an entire series on angelology and demonology where I dive into this more deeply. For now, let’s suffice it to say that after the tower of Babel God divides the nations up and assigns different Sons of God to rule over those different geographical regions. Ultimately, those celestial overseers fall and become evil principalities and powers that heathen nations create idols of and begin to worship as gods. One popular example where you see these geographical rulers referred to in the scriptures is the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece in Daniel 10. I don’t have time to fully cover that complex topic in this video, but if you want to learn more just search the phrase “cosmic geography” and I’m sure you will find lots of information explaining that concept in detail. 

The post-flood Nephilim

Long after Noah and the Tower of Babel Joshua is leading the Israelites to take the land promised to them by God. That is when we run into this mysterious verse:

“And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” Numbers 13:33 NIV

So this verse raises a lot of questions. How are the Nephilim back if the flood destroyed them all? What I personally believe is that the Nephilim returned as what we now know as demon spirits who possessed the descendants of Anak.

As I’ve already stated I believe the Nephilim, and thus demons, are just fallen angels. These are the same Nephilim that were on the earth in Genesis 6, but now they’ve lost the ability to take on their fleshly form, and are instead possessing the Anakites as demon spirits. That’s how the Bible is able to truthfully say that the Nephilm are still around after the flood.

People often mistakenly say that the descendants of Anak “descended” from the Nephilim, but that is not what this verse says. We are talking about the descendants of Anak in this verse, not the descendants of the Nephilim. Our English translations do say that the Sons of Anak “come from” the Nephilim, but It is my understanding that the preposition that the King James translators chose to translate as “come from” can also be translated, and I believe more accurately so, as “with” or “on the side of” the Nephilim. It often denotes being “a part of” something. So a more accurate interpretation may be, “We saw the fallen angels there (the descendants of Anak with the fallen angels).” I believe that these men possessed by the Nephilim, or demons, became known as the Rephaim, which the Bible makes clear were the clans of giants that Moses, Joshua, and ultimately David destroyed.

In our last video we looked a lot at Biblical examples of how demon possession brought individuals superhuman abilities. I think that through the superhuman strength, knowledge, and abilities that demon possession brought these men they were able to cause terror in everyone around them like we see with Goliath and the Israelite army (1 Samuel 17). I also think it explains how they were able to create some of the ancient wonders of the world that modern day scientists have no answers for.

As to where these demon possessed men got their giant size, I wish I had a more informed explanation for that. I think it’s possible that in the same way they manipulated and cross bred species in the ancient world that they knew how to genetically modify their host bodies. Maybe they found a way to affect the pituitary gland that causes gigantism, or maybe it was one of the other theories from our previous video. I’m not really sure. Other than Goliath, we’re never really told how tall these Rephaim were, so it’s hard to know how truly giant these men became. In the case of Goliath, depending on the type of cubit used, he would have been somewhere between the height of 8′ to 10′ tall. Today, we still have men that reach these heights. This is a picture of me next to a life-size model of one of the world’s tallest men who was recorded at 8′ 11″ tall. This proves that it is possible for normal human men, which I believe the rephaim were, to reach the heights mentioned in the Bible. And to the Israelites, who back then had an average height of 5’ 2”, even just an 8’ tall man would seem like a giant. I’m taller than the average height back then, and this nearly 9 foot tall man still looks like a giant next to me. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Please share your opinion in the comments!

Demons in the New Testament

From that point on we are all very familiar with the history of angels and demons as the New Testament has a lot to say about demonic possession and spiritual warfare. Some believe that Revelations 9 hints at the idea that the Nephilim could once again be allowed to return in physical form for a brief time in the end days, and that there will be another war in Heaven before the satan is ultimately thrown down for good, but whatever you believe concerning all that one thing is certain: we win! The Bible makes it abundantly clear that Jehovah’s everlasting reign will know no end and that you and I get to spend eternity enjoying and working together with Him.

Study for yourself

I’d like to make it clear that, concerning my interpretation of Genesis 6:4 and the Nephilim, all of this is just my opinion, and my opinion could very likely change as I continue to study this topic. These opinions are in no way meant to become a doctrine. I’m not dogmatic about this topic at all, and I readily accept that I could be completely wrong. Please, If you come across something in your Bible that contradicts what I”m saying, then throw out my opinions and stick with the Bible! This is just my best educated guess, and honestly, in all my studying on this topic I’ve never found another scholar that believes it quite like I do. So take my thoughts only as a launching pad for you to do your own study and not as a final word on the topic. I think the best possible outcome that could come from this video is that you are motivated to study the Bible for yourself to come to your own conclusions.

This topic has been a very fun one to study, and I think that regardless of whether you agree with everything that I’ve said here that having an understanding of the broader narrative happening in the Old Testament will help put things in the proper perspective regarding God’s seemingly harsh actions in the Old Testament. When you understand that the satan was consistently trying to wipe out Israel and corrupt mankind in order to prevent the coming of the Messiah it will help some of God’s decisions make a lot more sense. In the next video, we’re going to focus on the great flood. We’ve touched on it a little already, but in the next video we’re really going to explore how and why a loving God could drown the whole world including women and children. Please, be sure to subscribe because you don’t want to miss it. I’ll see you in the next video!