Genesis 6:1-8
6 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful,and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal[b]; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4 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.
5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
The world has fallen and the problems get worse. To understand the significance and problems of this passage there are three terms that we need to understand: ‘daughters of humans’, ‘sons of God’ and the Nephilim. There are generally three views as to who these could be:
- The sons of Cain and the daughters of Seth
This idea is that there was a union between the descendants of Cain, who were considered to be unholy and rebellious and the righteous descendants of Seth, who were worshipping God. The trouble of this view is that it does not make sense of the distinction between sons and daughters. It also overemphasises the difference in morality of each tribe.
- The princes and the paupers
In the Ancient world, the King of Egypt was called the son of Re. Using this lens, the sons of God could have been the nobles and the rulers of the cities. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for God, Elohim, is also used for men in positions of power. So, it is possible that power hungry men started to create harems and mistreat women in the community. However, in what way these created a new race called the Nephilim does not seem to fit the context.
- Fallen Angels
In the book of Job, the term Sons of God refers to angels.
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan also came among them (Job 1:6).
Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came among them to present himself before the Lord (Job 2:1).
This view was that there were fallen angels who were on the earth and that they began to breed with women and create a new race of people who became the Nephilim.
Verse 9 begins the next section by saying that Noah was a ‘righteous man, blameless in his generation.’
The word blameless literally means sound or complete.
Now, there are a lot of people who would balk at the idea of fallen angels breeding with people and having semi-human children. This is why we have options one and two, as people seek to discover a more natural explanation. However, if option three is correct then we see the relationship with humanity and the devil getting increasingly twisted. There is now the threat that God’s creation will be completely compromised and God’s creation is in peril.
Humanity’s desire to become gods has lead them to corrupt who they were created to be. In the garden they sought to transform their knowledge, now they are transforming their bodies at any cost.
