Several types and classes of spirits/spirit beings are seen within the pages of the Bible.
First, God is (a) spirit, Jn.4:24. Of spirit essence. God is holy. The ascended Jesus is spirit, at Father God’s right hand in heaven (He.1:3). God is the “Father of spirits” (He.12:9); His created heavenly host is composed of spirit beings. God “makes His angels spirits” (Ps.104:4 Septúagint/LXX, He.1:7). One class of spirit beings are the cherubim/cherúbs (Ge.3:24). Another class is the seraphim/seráphs (Is.6:1-7). Also there were 24 elders seen at God’s throne in heaven (Re.4:4). And God has given each of us humans our human spirit (Is.42:5). “There is a spirit in man” (Jb.32:8). See the topic “Spirits – Made by God in Light” for description of those spirits/spirit beings.
The Watchers were another group of sprit beings. Wikipedia: Watcher “Watcher is a term used in connection with Biblical angels.” The Hebrew Old Testament (OT) term rendered “watcher” in our English Bibles is iyr, Strongs h5894. It occurs only 3 times, all in Daniel chapter 4…Da.4:13-17, 23.
The term “watcher” may reflect their job description or ready alertness as a sentinel. Da.4:13 LXX “I saw in the night vision a watcher, a holy one [hágios Strongs g39, Greek], came down from heaven.” JFB Commentary Da.4:13 “Called a ‘watcher’, because ever on the watch to execute God’s will.” Daniel calls this watcher a “holy one”, a saint. Poole Commentary Da.4:13 “A watcher is meant an angel, the instrument of God…to execute His judgments, which they watch constantly to perform.” Gill Exposition “One of the holy angels that never sinned, nor left their first estate [cf. Jude 1:6 KJV].”
Da.4:17 “This sentence is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand is a word of the holy ones.” Watchers were given mandate to execute decrees. JFB Commentary Da.4:17 “A solemn council of the heavenly ones is supposed (cf. Job 1:6, 2:1), over which God presides supreme. His ‘decree’ and ‘word’ are therefore said to be theirs (cf. Da 4:24 ‘decree of the Most High’).” Barnes Notes Da.4:17 “The watchers…as entrusted with the execution of the high and important designs of God.”
Ps.89:6-7 “Who in the heavens compares to the Lord? Who among the sons of God [El h410] is like the Lord? A God [h410] greatly feared in the council of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around Him.” In God’s heavenly council are “sons of God” the “Father of spirits” (He.12:9). Ellicott Commentary Ps.89:6-7 “Sons of God’ – i.e. angels. For a picture of the court of heaven see Job 1:6.” Cambridge Bible Ps.89:6 “The angels form the council of the great King.” JFB Commentary Ps.89:7 “The congregation of saints or holy ones; that is, angels.” Watcher angels were among the holy ones.
But according to scripture (and other ancient sources), some angels or watchers committed trespass.
Jb.15:15 “Behold, He [the Lord] puts no trust in His holy ones; the heavens are not pure in His sight.” Heavenly angels had sinned! Pulpit Commentary Jb.15:15 “As in Job 5:1, speaks not of holy men, but of holy angels.” Poole Commentary Jb.15:15 “His angels, as appears by comparing Job 4:18.”
Jb.4:18 “He [God] charges His angels [h4397 maláwk] with error.” Compare Jb.4:18 in the LXX. “He perceives perverseness in His angels [g32 ággelos].” This verse too shows that angels had committed folly. JFB Commentary Jb.4:18 “Imperfection is to be attributed to the angels, in comparison with Him [God]. The holiness of some of them had given way (2Pet.2:4).” Some angels were no longer “holy ones”. Gill Exposition Jb.4:18 “They must be understood of angels, as the following clause explains it [Jb.4:19].” Cambridge Bible Jb.4:18 “His [God’s] heavenly ministers.” Not all the watchers had continued as “holy ones”. Not all were good and righteous, entirely devoted to God. Benson Commentary Col.1:16 “…Orders of angels, both those that stood and those that fell.”
New Testament (NT) writers also wrote of angels that had fallen from holiness, having sinned. 2Pe.2:4 “God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them down to the abyss [Tártarus, Greek] in chains of darkness, to be held for judgment.” When did their sin occur? Ellicott Commentary 2Pe.2:4 “What sin is meant? Not that which preceded the history of the human race. More probably, to distinct and frequent statements in the Book of Enoch that certain angels sinned by having intercourse with women.” Cambridge Bible 2Pe.2:4 “The degradation of their nature by sensual lust, as in Gen.6:2…it seems probable.” Compare Ge.6:1-17, the prelude to Noah’s Flood. Meyer NT Commentary 2Pe.2:4 “What sin the apostle refers to is only faintly hinted at…the example of the flood immediately follows [v.5]. It cannot be doubted that the sin meant here is the same as that of which Jude speaks.”
Here’s the parallel passage in Jude. Jde.1:6 “Angels who did not stay within their own principality, but abandoned their proper dwelling, He kept in eternal chains under darkness.” This verse also is thought to relate to the watchers in 1Enoch. (Jde.1:14-15 even quotes 1Eno.1:9!) Expositor’s Greek Testament Jde.1:6 “Cf. Eno.12:4 of the Watchers (angels) who abandoned the high heaven and defiled themselves with women.” Pulpit Commentary Jde.1:6 “The sin suggested by the context is… a sin against nature. That some angels, yielding to the beauty of the daughters of men, forsook their own kingdom, and entered into unnatural relations with them.” Angel spirit beings are a different kind, not human flesh.
Scottish theologian William Barclay (1907-1978) said, “Some angels with the glory of heaven as their own had come to earth and corrupted mortal women with their lust (Gen.6:2). Indeed, if Jude and 2 Peter were not referring to Genesis 6, then, pray tell, to what are they referring?” Barclay’s comment reflects the traditional majority view of Genesis 6 held in the early centuries of the church.
Barnes Notes Da.4:13 “He was one of the class of ‘watchers’ who were ranked as holy, as if there were others to whom the name ‘watcher’ might be applied who were not holy.” A number of angels or watchers had sinned, according to other ancient writings too.
Cambridge Bible Da.4:13 “Watcher’…is of frequent occurrence in the Book of Enoch [1Enoch], where it is applied usually (1:5, 10:9, 15, 12:4, 13:10, 14:1, 3, 15:2, 16:1-2, 91:15) to the fallen angels, but it is also (12:3, and perhaps 12:2) used of the holy angels.” The (somewhat fragmentary) book of 1Enoch is included in the Bible canons of the Ethiopian and Eritréan Orthodox churches (again, cf. Jude 1:14).
The book of 1Enoch contains 108 chapters. Wikipedia: Book of Enoch “The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers [chpts 1–36]) of the text are estimated to date from 300–200 BCE. A short section of 1 Enoch (1:9) is cited in the NT Jude 1:14-15, and is attributed to ‘Enoch the seventh from Adam.” Jude numbered Enoch’s generation directly from 1Eno.60:8 where Noah said, “My grandfather [Enoch] was taken up, the seventh from Adam”. Jude also said Enoch “prophesied” (Jde.1:14).
Let’s look at some of the verses in 1Enoch applicable to this issue. 1Eno.1:4-5 “The eternal God will tread upon the earth….The Watchers shall quake.” 1Eno.6:1-2, 6 “When the children of men had multiplied, in those days were born unto them beautiful daughters. The angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children….And they were in all 200; who descended in the days of Jared [Enoch’s father, Ge.5:18-19] on the summit of Mt. Hermon.” 200 Watchers took human ‘wives’.
1Eno.12:2-4 “His [Enoch’s] activities had to do with the Watchers, and his days with the holy ones. The Lord of majesty said to me: ‘Enoch, you scribe of righteousness, go declare to the Watchers who have left the high heaven, and have defiled themselves with women, and have done as children of earth do, and taken to themselves wives.” Enoch said in 1Eno.14:1-3, “The holy Great One…has given me the power of reprimanding the Watchers, the children of heaven”.
Celestial beings weren’t to marry or beget children on earth. In Mk.12:25, Jesus implied that angels in heaven aren’t to marry. Compare Mk.12:25 with the Lord’s remark to sinful Watchers in 1Eno.15:6-7. “You were spiritual, living the eternal life…and therefore I have not appointed wives for you.” But any capability of angels to have sexual relations with women isn’t addressed by Jesus. It seems those Watchers engaged in a form of incubus with women. (cf. Tobit 6:14 “A wicked spirit loves her”; Ge.19:1, 4-7 sex with a different kind.)
1Eno.7:1-6 “They [the Watchers’ human wives] became pregnant, and bare great giants. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. They began to sin against birds, beasts, reptiles and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh and drink the blood.” (Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum…the blood?!) The watchers’ human wives bore hybrid children of mixed kind.
1Eno.88 relates to the punishment of those Watcher angels. 1Eno.88:3 “…Bound them all hand & foot and cast them in an abyss of the earth.” Then 1Eno.91:15 “There shall be the great eternal judgment, in which He will execute vengeance among the angels.” 1Eno.20:2 “Uriel, one of the holy angels, is over the world and over Tartarus.” 1Eno.21:9-10 “Uriel answered me [Enoch]…This place is the prison of the angels.” The Watchers who sinned were imprisoned in the Tartarus abyss.
Ref 2Pe.2:4 again. “For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them down to the abyss [Tartarus, Greek] in chains of darkness, to be held for judgment.” This verse ties to the account in 1Enoch. We saw that Jde.1:6, 14-15 also ties to the book and prophecy attributed to Enoch.
But what of the Watchers’ offspring, the giants? The Lord said to Enoch in 1Eno.15:8, “The giants, who are produced from the spirits [Watchers] and flesh [women], shall be called evil spirits upon the earth”. v.11 “The spirits of the giants afflict…and work destruction upon the earth.” The giants fate….
1Eno.10:1-2 “The Most High sent Uriel to the son of Lamech [Noah, Ge.5:28-29]…‘A deluge is about to come upon the earth.” Noah’s Flood will drown the giant offspring of the union between Watchers and women. v.9 “To Gabriel said the Lord, ‘Destroy the children of the Watchers from among men.”
Ge.6:1-4 relates to the giants. v.4 “The Nephílim [LXX giants] were on the earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men.” The Hebrew term “Nephilim” is Strongs h5303. It meant ‘giant, bully, tyrant’. The root term is naphál h5307, meaning ‘to fall’. The term nephilim h5303 only occurs in Ge.6:4 and Nu.13:33.
The Jewish translators of the Hebrew OT into the Old Greek version (now the LXX) used the term “gigántes” Strongs g1095.2…“giant”. It occurs 30 times in the LXX: Ge.6:4, 10:8-9, 14:5; Nu.13:33; De.1:28; Jsh.12:4, 13:12; 2Sa.21:18, 22; 1Ch.1:10, 11:15, 14:9, 13, 20:4-8; Jb.26:5; Ps.19:5, 33:16; Pr.21:16; Is.3:2, 13:3, 14:9; 49:24-25; Ezk.32:12, 21, 27, 39:18-20.
Cambridge Bible Nu.13:33 “If the Nephilim were thought of as superhuman or semi-divine beings, the spies may have used the name to heighten the effect of their description of the ‘sons of Anák’ (v.28).” Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 3:14:2 “They [the spies] told them also that they found at Hebrón the posterity of the giants.” Israelites viewing the land of Canáan were affrighted at the sight of them!
This topic is continued & concluded in “Watchers and Gen. 6 ‘Sons of God’ (2)”. There we’ll examine more the expression “sons of God”, as found in the OT. And we’ll look at surviving documentation from other ancient sources to see their interpretation. Did they understand those “sons of God” to be human men…or angels?
Bible Topic Exposition 