Genesis 6 explained | Who were the sons of God? Hybrid Nephilim? | Genesis 6 Commentary

Is God Mean | Episode 2

Genesis 6 Commentary: Were the Sons of God angels or men?

Did fallen angels produce offspring with human women called Nephilim? Is that even possible?

D id you know that some people believe the Bible says fallen angels had sex with human women and produced offspring with them. They believe that spirit beings were somehow able to impregnate physical, fleshly bodies. Is this really possible? Does the Bible actually have anything to say about demon sex? And more importantly, what does any of this have to do with God’s harsh actions in the Old Testament? Well, I’m glad you asked because I’m about to answer that right now!

The First Prophecy

Many people reading this have likely never heard of this theory of fallen angels mating with human women. I know that I personally wasn’t familiar with it for many years even though I grew up in the church. So let’s start with some back story at the very beginning all the way back to the very first prophecy in the Bible in Genesis chapter 3. This is when Adam and Eve had just disobeyed God by eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil after being deceived by the serpent, and here God is pronouncing judgment on the serpent for his deception.

The first prophecy in Genesis 3 may help explain Genesis 6 – Genesis 6 commentary

“So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock
and all wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.””

Genesis 3:14-15 (NIV)

So immediately, all the way from Genesis 3, Satan knows from this prophecy that the offspring of the woman is somehow going to crush his head. So do you think he’s going to just sit around waiting for this to happen? No, of course not. We can assume that he comes to the obvious conclusion that if the seed of the woman is going to crush him, that he needs to find a way to stop this plan; to corrupt the seed of the woman. And notice that it says that there will be enmity between the offspring of the woman and the offspring (or seed) of the serpent. What exactly is the seed or offspring of the serpent?

The Serpent’s Offspring and The Sons of God

To answer that question let’s jump ahead a few chapters to Genesis 6:1-4 as many believe that the answer to that question is found here:

1“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 4 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.” KJV

So In verse 2 it says that the Sons of God chose wives among the daughters of men. So the first question we have to ask is who are the Sons of God in this scripture. Are they angels? Or are they humans? Well, it’s not a foreign concept for either angels or humans to be referred to as the sons of God in both the Old and New Testaments. We’re very familiar with the concept of sonship in the New Testament, but even In the Old Testament there are passages where God refers to the nation of Israel as His son and refers to himself as Israel’s father (Exodus 4:22, Jeremiah 31:9,20), and there are even some passages where God refers to the individual King Solomon as His son (Psalms 28:6).

However, the specific Hebrew expression for “Sons of God’ that is used here in Genesis 6 is the phrase bənê hāʼĕlōhîm, which implies something directly created by God. Every time this specific phrase is used in the Bible it appears to be clearly referring to Angels. We see this exact phrase used only 4 times in the Old Testament. We find it twice here in the verses we just read in Genesis, two times in Job. Job 1:6, Job 2:1, and once without the definite article in Job 38:7. Every time it’s used it is clearly referring to angels. We also find very similar expressions in Psalms 29:1, Psalms 82:6, Psalms 89:6, and Daniel 3:25, and in every one of these passages we also find it being a reference to angelic beings. Does this form an airtight argument that the “Sons of God” in Genesis 6 must be angels. No, not necessarily, but it’s definitely enough to make me consider the possibility.

Some people point out that the author of Genesis (traditionally believed to be Moses) had vocabulary in their language that actually meant angels, and if they had wanted the reader to know it was angels that they would have just said as much. Maybe, but if that’s the case, why didn’t the author also use the word “angels” instead of “sons of God” in Job where it was clearly referencing angels? Seeing as how Job is the oldest written book of the Bible, and is believed by many to have been written closest to the time of Moses’ writings, I think’s it fair to assume that Job gives us a peek into how the word would have been used in Moses’ day.

Sons of God Throughout Scripture

Let’s first take a look how the exact phrase found in Genesis 6 is used throughout scripture:

Job 1:6 bənê hāʼĕlōhîm (בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים) the sons of Elohim.

6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. 7 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Job 1:6-7 (KJV)

Job 2:1 bənê hāʼĕlōhîm (בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים) the sons of Elohim.

1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. 2 And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.

Job 2:1-2 (KJV)

Job 38:7 bənê ĕlōhîm (בְּנֵי אֱלֹהִֽים) without the definite article – sons of Elohim

4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Job 38:4-7 (KJV)

Now let’s look at how some similar phrases are used throughout scripture:

Psalms 29:1 bənê ēlîm (בְּנֵי אֵלִים) without the definite article – sons of elim (mighty)

1 Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty, give unto the Lord glory and strength. 2 Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.

Psalms 29:1-2 (KJV)

Psalms 82:6 bənê elîon (בְּנֵי עֶלְיוֹן) without the definite article and using ‘Most high’ instead of ēl.

1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods… 6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

Psalms 82:1,6 (KJV)

Psalms 89:6 bənê ēlîm (בְּנֵי אֵלִים) – sons of elim

6 For who in the heaven can be compared unto the Lord? who among the sons of the mighty can be likened unto the Lord?

Psalms 89:6 (KJV)

A closely related Aramaic expression occurs in Daniel 3:25: bar elahin – בַר אֱלָהִֽין – son of the gods.

24 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. 25 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

Daniel 3:25 (KJV)

Note: Deuteronomy 32:8 both bənê ĕlōhîm (בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים) and bənê ĕl (בני אל) the sons of Elohim or sons of El in two Dead Sea Scrolls (4QDtj and 4QDtq); mostly “angels of God” (αγγελων θεου) in the LXX (sometimes “sons of God” or “sons of Israel”); However, “sons of Israel” in the MT.

We could take the time to break down how we know that all of these are referencing angelic beings, but I feel like in the majority of cases the context speaks for itself. For instance, Job 1:6 shows that it is clearly an angelic gathering happening some place other than earth, as Satan references coming from earth previously before attending the gathering. Likewise, I encourage you to really study all of the passages I’ve listed here in context, and I believe that when you do you’ll see that these passages all reference the “Sons of God” as angelic beings.

The Second Rebellion

Who were the Sons of God in Genesis 6

We also find several New Testament passages that seem to back up this interpretation that the Sons of God were angels. These New Testament passages imply that angelic beings rebelled against God by having sexual relations with human women. First let’s look at 2 Peter 2:4-5

4 When angels sinned, God did not let them go free without punishment. He sent them to hell. He put those angels in caves of darkness, where they are being held until the time when God will judge them. 5 And God punished the evil people who lived long ago. He brought a flood to the world that was full of people who were against God. But he saved Noah and seven other people with him. Noah was a man who told people about living right. (ERV)

We see in this passage that there was a time when angels sinned, and this passage seems to put it in the same context as Noah. Some people argue that this passage would refer to when the angels originally sinned and were first cast out of Heaven. However, my question to that is, then how do we still have demonic spirits in the earth now if the whole one third of angels who initially joined the satan (I say “the satan” because “satan” is not a proper name, but a description)  were immediately thrown into Hell for their sin as this scriptures states? To me, this scripture seems to imply that there was a second rebellion, where a portion of the angels sinned and that specific segment of angels were cast into Hell as a result of that sin. So there would be three groups of angels in this case. Those still loyal to God, the fallen angels from the original rebellion that aligned with the satan who are still loose, and the angels who married women in Noah’s day who are now locked in Tartarus (Hell) as they await their judgment. Either way, this scripture tells us that angels sinned, but it doesn’t really give us any information as to how they sinned. But, there is another scripture in Jude 6-7 that gives a little more context on HOW they sinned. Let’s look at that:

6 And remember the angels who lost their authority to rule. They left their proper home. So the Lord has kept them in darkness, bound with everlasting chains, to be judged on the great day. 7 Also, remember the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and the other towns around them. Like those angels they were full of sexual sin and involved themselves in sexual relations that are wrong. And they suffer the punishment of eternal fire, an example for us to see. (ERV)

So this scripture paints a pretty clear image that the way the angels sinned was by going after strange flesh just like the men in Sodom and Gomorrah did. If you’ll remember in Genesis 19, there are two angels who come to town to protect Lot, and the men of the town try to rape the angels. The men went after strange flesh. Well, in the same way Jude says the angels rebelled by going after strange flesh the same way the men in Sodom and Gomorrah did.

Let’s take stock of what we’ve learned so far:

• The Hebrew phrase used to describe the Sons of God seems to always be used to refer to angels.
• The angels sinned when they left their proper abode
• The angels sin reflected that of the men in Sodom and Gomorrah who went after strange flesh.

The Sethite View

This makes for a pretty compelling case that the Sons of God were angels. However, this is a good place to mention that there are many interpretations and theories surrounding this passage. One of the other popular interpretations is that the “Sons of God” are descendants of Seth. Which, if you’re unfamiliar with the story, Seth was the God-honoring son Adam and Eve had after Cain killed Abel.

This view claims that the “Daughters of men” were the descendants of the ungodly line of Cain, thus the sin is that the Godly line of Seth unrighteously mixed with the reprobate line of Cain. This would be a problem as this mixing led to mass moral failure as the line of Seth was seduced away from worship of Yahweh and fell into moral decay. This theory is based on the idea that Seth descended from Adam, and Adam was directly created by God. Thus, the line of Seth would be “sons of God.” The problem with this though is that Cain was also a descendant of Adam, and the phrase in Hebrew for “daughters of man” is actually Benoth Adam – literally translated as daughters of Adam. Which could be understood as daughters of mankind. Obviously, both Seth’s and Cain’s descendants would belong in this category. There’s nothing in the text that isolates the “daughters of man” as belonging only to a certain family line, or being a part of any kind of subgroup of humanity in any way. It’s just a generic reference to human daughters, and trying to correlate the phrase to a specific group of humanity seems like forcing something onto the text that isn’t inherently there. It appears to me that in the text the “daughters of mankind” are juxtaposed against the “sons of Elohim” almost to highlight that the Sons of God are not a part of mankind. I’m not saying that the Sethite view, or any of the views that interpret the Sons of God as being human are impossible, I’m just saying that, in my humble opinion, it doesn’t seem to be the most natural interpretation of the text.

I think that it is also worth noting that the Sethite view is a relatively new view when compared to the Angel View. The fallen angel view was passed down for centuries through Jewish tradition and rabbinical teachings, and eventually found its way into works like the Book of Enoch (which is believed to have been written around 300-200 BC) and a whole host of other extrabiblical writings. Even the very popular and often cited Jewish historian Josephus wrote about the Nephilim giants. It wasn’t until several hundreds of years later, around the 4th century AD, that the Sethite view began to grow in popularity.

The offspring of the Sons of God

Are the Nephilim the offspring of the Sons of God?

So if we assume that the Sons of God are angels, then that brings up a lot of questions when we get to Genesis 6:4:

4 The Nephilim[e] were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men. (HCSB)

This scripture says that the Sons of God and daughters of man had offspring together. How is that even possible? How can a demon impregnate a human woman? Well, for the people that interpret this passage literally, they point out that Angels are often presented as having physical bodies in the Bible. For instance, In Genesis 18 and 19 there is a story of God visiting Abraham along with 2 angels. All three of them appear as men. Abraham offers to get water so they can wash their feet. You wouldn’t need to wash your feet unless you are physically kicking up dust on the ground. They then eat a meal with Abraham. After they leave Abraham they visit Abraham’s nephew Lot where they eat again, they talk about sleeping, they physically grab Lot and his family by the arm and pull them out of the city. This is also the story where the men of the city try to rape the angels, so they must have just looked like attractive men. My point is, these are all physical things. When angels take on human form they seem to be able to do everything that a human can do. Obviously that’s an assumption, but that’s the conclusion I draw when I see them interacting with the physical world like we see in these two chapters. So when people say, “They’re spirits, they don’t have reproductive organs.” Maybe, but you wouldn’t think they’d have a digestive system either, but they eat. They talk about sleeping. They have flesh to physically grab Lot and his family. If they have flesh to physically grab Lot and his family by the arm, why couldn’t they have flesh to have sexual intercourse. I’m not saying that we have confirming proof that this is possible, I’m just presenting the theory to you.

Hebrews 13 tells us that some have extended hospitality to angels unaware. So obviously they must look so human we can’t even tell them apart from real humans when they take on our form. Angels appeared to many in the Bible. Joshua, Mary, Gideon, Jacob, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and abednego, Peter, John, shepherds, and according to Hebrews 13 it’s apparently still happening today. Jacob actually wrestled with the angel of the Lord who appeared as a man, providing us with another example of an Angel having clear abilities to operate as a man in the physical realm. Although, that was the Angel of the Lord, so He is in a class all His own. Still, we see angels clearly altering physical effects on humans and even killing people at times.

Some people try to make the case that the all man/all God person of Jesus coming from the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary confirms that Spirits can produce physical offspring with humans. However, that was God that did that, not an angel, and trying to compare an angels abilities to God’s is just not an equal comparison. I definitely don’t feel comfortable comparing the birth of Christ to the conception of Nephilim in the Old Testament.

Inter Dimensional Bodies

But, one reasonable argument from those that study angelology have presented is that Angels do have bodies, just a different type of body. An inter dimensional body.

There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.
1 Corinthians 15:40 (NIV)

The idea that spirits don’t have bodies is more of a modern idea. That’s not the way someone from the ancient near east would have understood it. They saw it not as spirits don’t have bodies, but just that they have different kind of bodies.Today, there seems to be this misunderstanding that when we die that our disembodied spirits just kind of float around abstractly in Heaven, but that’s not the picture that the Bible paints for us.

He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.
Phillipians 3:21 (NLT)

This scriptures tells us that Christ has a body. A glorious body, and that likewise we will receive a glorious, resurrection body when we enter into eternity.

Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.
1 John 3:2

Could the account in Matthew 17 shed light on events in Genesis 6 – Genesis 6 explained

We will be like Him, and we know He has a glorious body. I think the mount of transfiguration in Matthew 17 is a glimpse of this glorious body. Also. some believe that when Jesus reappeared to the disciples in John 20 that is indicative of a body that can travel between dimensions. They say this because if a spirit had the ability to just materialize a visual representation, kind of like a ghost, that the nail and spear holes in His sides wouldn’t have sufficed as proof that it was Christ. If a spirit can just make any image appear that they wish, they could have just made nail holes appear even if they weren’t real, but the fact that Jesus uses them as proof to Thomas of who He is seems to suggest that Jesus’ body wasn’t just a concocted visualization, but rather his entering into our dimension.

I know this is out there, but science has proven there are far more dimensions than just the 3 dimensional world we see around us. Many believe that spiritual bodies or glorious bodies simply have the ability to pass into and between these other dimensions that we can’t see with our physical bodies.

Personally, I’m not sure that I’m totally sold on the idea that spiritual beings created a hybrid half angel/half human race. I’ll get into what I personally believe in the next chapter, but although I may not personally buy into this hybrid race theory I can’t disprove it either. I do see a Biblically based argument for it, and I’m not going to completely rule out the possibility either.

Can Angels Marry?

One of the only legitimate Biblical arguments against this theory that I’ve found is found in:

Matthew 22:30 (NLT)
For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.

So this clearly tells us that angels don’t marry, and the “Sons of God” in Genesis 6 were marrying. However, this roadblock is easily overcome when you realize that it says that the angels IN HEAVEN don’t marry. The angels in Genesis 6 were not in Heaven. They were rebelling on earth as we remember that Jude told us that these angles had left their proper abode.

So, while there are some other ways to interpret this passage, there’s not anything that I’ve found that conclusively rules out this theory. I have no Biblical ammunition against it. In fact, if we follow this theory out to it’s conclusion it actually plays into the rest of the Biblical narrative quite nicely. In the big picture story of the Bible, this theory not only fits into the overall plot and narrative without any obvious problems, but it could actually help explain some of the very difficult to process passages in the Old Testament.

Who Are The Nephilim?

If the Sons of God were angels who left their proper abode, married human women, and produced offspring with them then we have to decide what to believe about their offspring. Are they the nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:4 as some believe? Or are the Nephilim human… or something else entirely? Are they giants? We’ll be talking about all that and more in our next chapter as I wrap up this section in our series on the Sons of God and the Nephilim. If you want to know exactly who the nephilim are, if they’re coming back, why they matter, and if all this affected God’s seemingly harsh actions in the Old Testament then you’re going to enjoy the next chapter!!