Watchers and Gen. 6 ‘Sons of God’ (2)

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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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.

Watchers and Gen. 6 ‘Sons of God’ (1)

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?