This is the conclusion to “Watchers and Gen. 6 ‘Sons of God’ (1)”. Part 1 identified the “Watchers” (Da.4:13-17, 23), and tied the Watcher angels that sinned in the intertestamental book of 1Enoch to 2Pe.2:4 & Jude 1:6, 14-15. Material from Part 1 isn’t repeated here in Part 2; Part 1 should be read first.
Part 2 mostly focuses on the expression “sons of God”, as seen in the Old Testament (OT) scriptures.
Ge.6:2 “The sons of God saw the daughters of men were beautiful, and took wives for themselves.”
Who were those very ancient “sons of God”? Some commentaries interpret them as human men. But earlier sources interpreted them as supernatural beings (also reflected in various Bible translations).
The OT Septúagint/LXX is older than the Masoretic text. Ge.6:2 Alexandrian LXX “The angels of God, having seen the daughters of men were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all they chose.” Ge.6:2 Good News Trans “Some of the heavenly beings saw that these young women were beautiful.” Ge.6:2 ISV “Some divine beings noticed how attractive human women were.” Ge.6:4 CEV “The children [the giants] of the supernatural beings who had married women became famous heroes and warriors.”
Let’s examine the occurrences of “sons of God” in the OT, and then cite early interpretive views.
The expression “sons of God”, bene haElohím (Strongs h1121 h430, Hebrew), is also found in the OT Job 1:6 and 2:1. “There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.” Ellicott Commentary Ps.89:6-7 “Sons of God’ – i.e. angels. For a picture of the court of heaven see Job 1:6.” The Job.1:6 & 2:1 “sons of God” refers to heavenly beings.
The Lord questioned Job in Jb.38:4-7. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth…When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” The Jb.38:7 “sons of God” didn’t mean humans. No humans were created yet when God “laid the foundation of the earth”. Pulpit Commentary Jb.38:7 “Sons of God’ here must necessarily be the angels, since there were no men as yet in existence.” Jb.38:7 LXX “…All My angels praised Me with a loud voice.”
Da.3:25 King Nebuchadnézzar perceived four men (not three!) in the blazing furnace and exclaimed, “Behold! The appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods [h426, Aramaic]!” v.28 God’s angel.
In the OT, there are no human individuals named who were called “sons of God/god”, bene haElohim. Rather, the expression referred to supernatural beings…created, unbegotten.
Ps.89:6 “Who in the skies can compare with the Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord?” Some older translations literally read “sons of the mighty”. 1599 Geneva Bible Ps.89:6 note “Meaning, the angels.” Gill Exposition Ps.89:6 “None of the angels [can compare].” Cambridge Bible Ps.89:6 “Denotes angels….Synonymous with Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7.” Celestial beings, not human beings.
Ps.29:1 “Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings, glory and strength.” Some older translations literally read “you sons of the mighty.” JFB Commentary Ps.29:1 “Sons of the mighty’. Heavenly beings, as angels.” Barnes Notes Ps.29:1 “The allusion is undoubtedly to the angels, as being in an eminent sense the sons of God.” (also see the topic “Heavenly Host Authorities and Powers”.)
Ho.1:10 “Yet the number of the sons of Israel will be like the sands of the sea….It will be said to them, ‘You are the sons of the living God.” However, Hosea’s prophecy refers to Israelites becoming sons of God in the future. Poole Commentary Ho.1:10 “God will bring it about in His time.” Barnes Notes Ho.1:10 “Sons of the living God.’ God adopts us as sons (Rom.8:15).” Gill Exposition Ho.1:10 “The Jews will be converted, and all Israel saved, Rom.11:25.” According to the apostle Paul, humans become adopted sons of God now via the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit. But only Jesus is Son of God conceived by the Holy Spirit (Mt.1:20)! Other celestial spirit beings were created sons of God.
The New Testament Lk.3:38 indicates Adam the first human was a “son of God”. But Adam was a created son of God (Ge.1:27); he wasn’t begotten. And God is the Father of created spirits, He.12:9.
Again, there are no humans named in the OT who are called “sons of God”, bene haElohim (Hebrew).
The Book of Jubilees (also known as Little Genesis) was written in Hebrew ca 150–100 BC. It told of the very ancient “sons of God” who had relations with the “daughters of men” in Ge.6:1-4. Jub.4:15, 22 “Jared [Enoch’s father, Ge.5:18-19]. In his days the angels of the Lord descended on the earth, those who are named the Watchers….He [Enoch] testified to the Watchers who had sinned with the daughters of men.” Jub.7:21-22 “The Watchers, against the law of their ordinances, went whoring after the daughters of men and took themselves wives. They begat sons the Naphidim, and they devoured one another…the Giants.” This ancient Jewish work says that some angels/Watchers sinned and fathered evil giants. See “Watchers and Gen. 6 ‘Sons of God’ (1)” about the Watchers in the book of 1Enoch.
The term incubus relates to a spirit lusting after and having sex with a human woman. (also cf. Tobit 6:14 “A wicked spirit loves her”; Ge.19:1, 4-7 sex with a different kind of being.)
The fragmentary Book of Giants is an apocryphal Jewish work, dated ‘before the 2nd century BCE’. Aramaic copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) at Qumrán. It tells of the birth of the hybrid giants. Wikipedia: The Book of Giants “This book tells of the background and fate of these ante-diluvial giants and their fathers, the Watchers, the ‘sons of God’ or ‘holy ones’ (Dan.4:13, 17) who rebelled against heaven when…they commingled, in lust, with the ‘daughters of men’. Their even more corrupt offspring, the giants, were variously called thereafter nephilim, gibborim, rephaim, being the earthly half-breed races that fought against God and His followers.” Interestingly, one of the giants named in this work is Gílgamesh. That may be a polemic against the Epic of Gilgamesh; it is uncertain.
Also part of the DSS is the Damascus Document (4Q271), dated ca 100 BC. “The watchers of heaven fell. And their children whose height was like the loftiness of cedars fell [cf. Amos 2:9]. All flesh that was on dry land perished.” That alluded to Noah’s Flood.
The Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus of Alexandria (c 25 BC – c 50 AD) used the Alexandrian Codex version of the Greek OT text (forerunner of our LXX/Septuagint). Philo quoted Ge.6:2 in his On The Giants (De Gigantibus) 2:6. “When the angels of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of all them who they chose.’ Those beings whom other philosophers call demons.” In Philo’s view, those fallen angels who fathered the giants/Nephilim were demons.
Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 1:3:1 “Many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength. The tradition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants.” Josephus’ translator William Whiston added, “That the fallen angels were, in some sense, the fathers of the old giants, was the constant opinion of antiquity”. Most ancients thought it to be so.
Both Philo and Josephus thought the “sons of God” in Gen.6 were (fallen) angels of God. But it seems that Josephus thought demons were the spirits of deceased wicked humans. Josephus Wars of the Jews 7:6:3 “Demons…are the spirits of the wicked which enter into men which are alive, and kill them.”
Some people think demons are the earthbound spirits of deceased evil humans, malevolent ghosts. Others think demons are fallen angels. Or they’re spirits of the hybrid Nephilim offspring of Watchers (1Eno.15:8). Or demons are aliens created by God who came here from other worlds, trespassers.
Justin Martyr (ca 100–165 AD) was a gentile Samaritan Christian. He wrote in Second Apology, Chpt 5 “Angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons”. This prominent early martyr believed angels were the fathers.
Irenáeus (ca 130–202 AD) was a leading early Greek bishop (in Lyons) who developed Christian theology. He wrote in A Discourse in the Demonstration of Apostolic Preaching, 18 “Illicit unions took place upon the earth, since angels were united with the daughters of the race of mankind. And they bore to them sons who for their exceeding greatness were called giants”. This prominent early theologian too believed that angels fathered those giants.
The Aramaic Targum Neofití and Targum Jonathán also indicate that fallen angelic beings mated with human women. Legend ties the Watchers or their giant offspring to the Titans of Greek mythology.
Natan Lawrence The ‘Sons of Elohim’ and ‘the Giants’ “The idea that fallen angels were the fathers of the giants is the general opinion of antiquity.” Belief that those fathers were human men is more recent.
The pseudepigráphical Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (T12P, the sons of Jacob) is a late 2nd century BC Jewish biographical work, thought to also now contain early ‘Christian additions’. Testament of Reuben 5:6-7 “They [women] allured the Watchers who were before the flood; they lusted after them and conceived the act in their mind. For they changed themselves into the shape of men, and appeared to them when they were with their husbands. And the women lusting in their minds after their forms, gave birth to giants, for the Watchers appeared to them as reaching even to heaven.” Deliriums Realm: Watchers/Nephilim comments, “He says the real fathers were humans, but giants were conceived from mutual passions of angels and women.” Testament of Naphtali 3:5 “The Watchers also changed the order of their nature, whom the Lord cursed at the flood.” Wikipedia: Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs “A copy of the Testament of Naphtalí was discovered at Qumran among the DSS taken from Cave 4 (4Q215).” It is thought the original T12P possibly was an Essene writing.
However, the (supposed) Book of Jasher differed on who were those Ge.6:1-4 very ancient “sons of God”. Jash.4:18 “Their judges and rulers went to the daughters of men and took their wives by force from their husbands according to their choice.” In Jasher, those “sons of God” were human men, not angels. This view differs from that of more ancient sources. Ken Ammi Book of Jasher on the Nephilim “The fact that this text doesn’t offer an Angelic interpretation of the Gen.6 affair is evidence that it isn’t an ancient text, as the earliest Jewish (as well as Christian for that matter) interpretation was that the sons of God weren’t humans in any capacity, but were Angels (see Jude 6-7 and 2Peter 2 specifically).” The Book of Jasher we have today dates from only a few hundred years ago.
Biblical Archaeology Society: The Nephilim and the Sons of God “Though centuries of rabbinical and church tradition would say otherwise, the audience to whom the text [Ge.6:1-4] was intended would have understood the ‘sons of God’ to be members of the divine assembly mentioned throughout the literature of the ancient Near East, including the Bible. In the Biblical texts, the ‘sons of God’ are usually described as lesser heavenly beings in the service of the Most High.”
International Bible Standard Encyclopedia: Sons of God “Most scholars…interpret ‘sons of God’ as referring to supernatural beings. The intent of the original writer [of Ge.6:1-4] was to account for the rise of the giant race of antiquity by the union of demigods with human wives. This interpretation accords with Enoch [1Enoch] chapters 6-7, etc., and with Jude 1:6.” (again, see Part 1.)
ReasonsForHopeJesus: Who Were the Nephilim & Sons of God in Genesis 6? “Fallen Angels. This interpretation is probably the most probable and credible, but it is also the most controversial.”
This is a controversial topic. My focus hasn’t been on what may or may not seem logical to our modern minds, or accord with our church’s belief. In OT verses, “sons of God” always meant supernatural beings, not humans. The bulk of surviving applicable ancient writings reflect that the “sons of God” or Watchers who sinned were celestial beings…falling in their illicit desire for human women.
Bible Topic Exposition 