When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then Yahweh said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. [Gen 6.1-4]
Following the Fall of Man in Genesis 3, we see the ripple effects of rebellion against God. Adam and Eve were banned from the Garden, cut off from the Tree of Life, destined to toil under the sun and then die under the sun. Cain becomes the first murderer when he kills his brother Abel in Genesis 4. Cain was marked by God for his sin, and Cain settled in the land east of Eden (cue John Steinbeck). Cain and his wife bore a son named Enoch; Adam and Eve bore another son named Seth (who replaced Abel). The last verse of Genesis 4 tells us that it was at this point in time that people began to ‘call upon the name of Yahweh,’ which is often translated as the ‘godly line of Seth’ worshiping Yahweh whereas Cain’s ‘ungodly’ line didn’t (though the text doesn't actually say this). Genesis 5 is a genealogy of Adam’s lineage following the firstborn sons, and it ends with Noah and his sons.
A note should be made on genealogies. Genealogies aren't there simply to tell us who gave birth to who. If they were, they would fail miserably, because many genealogies have gaps. For instance, the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew skips several generations. In Hebrew thought, a great great grandfather can "begat" his great great grandson with no mention of the great grandfather, grandfather, or father between them. It's about where the bloodline goes, not a list of every person in the family. This is also why it's impossible to calculate the ages between one person and another in biblical genealogies, as young earth creationists do to calculate the age of the earth (around 6k years); doing that assumes the genealogies are western rather than eastern in approach, and that there are no gaps in the record. But that's simply not the case with biblical genealogies. In western thought, genealogies - such as what you get off Ancestry.com - are about who gave birth to whom; but this isn't the case with biblical genealogies. Biblical genealogies are eastern rather than western in their approach; their focus is on giving a certain message. So what's the message we find in the genealogies of Genesis 5? Simply this: Eve's 'seed' is continuing strong. This is important, because at the end of chapter 3 we read that one of Eve's offspring would fatally wound the Diviner. The genealogies are, in a sense, 'marching orders' against the Diviner in Genesis 3. On another level, the genealogy of Genesis 5 establishes that Noah's lineage came from Adam. It was untainted by any 'foreign' bloodlines, a fact that becomes important in Genesis 6.
Around the middle of the genealogy, we have mention of a man named Enoch who pleased God, and the text implies that he did not die but was taken to heaven to live with God. Enoch will be important, because during the intertestamental period – the time between Malachi and Matthew, also known as the Second Temple Period – an apocryphal book, 1 Enoch, is attributed to him; it seeks to shed light on some prime biblical material while explaining just what happened to Enoch in Genesis 5. It is when we get to Genesis 6 that we approach the second 'divine rebellion' in Genesis, that of the ‘Sons of God’ sleeping with human women and fathering hybrid giants known as Nephilim. This episode is directly tied to Noah’s Flood.
The story of Genesis 6.1-4 is a strange one. Rebellious celestial beings of Yahweh's divine council abandon their place at Yahweh's side and seek to establish their own imagers and their own domains on earth. This is a story of strange sex, hybrid giants, and sorcerous societies destined for destruction in a catastrophic deluge.
Genesis 6.1-2 reads, 'When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.' There are three interpretations that attempt to make sense of what’s going on here.
- The Sethite Interpretation. This is the most popular interpretation in the western church, and it’s been the dominant position since the late 4th century AD. This approach interprets the ‘sons of God’ (benet elohim) as human beings from the genetic line of Seth. What’s being described is forbidden intermarriage between the godly men of Seth’s lineage (the ‘sons of God’) and the ungodly women of Cain’s lineage (‘the daughters of man’). In this reading, everyone who lived on the earth came from these two lines, both descended from Adam and Eve. In Genesis 4.26 we read that either Seth or humankind (depending on your translation) ‘began to call on the name of Yahweh.’ It’s assumed that Seth was to remain pure and separate from Cain’s evil lineage, and the intermarriages of Genesis 6.1-4 erased this separation and incurred the wrath of God in the Flood. This is a recent interpretation that doesn’t do justice to the text.
- The Divinized Human Rulers Interpretation. Another view is that the ‘sons of God’ in Genesis 6.1-4 are ‘divinized’ human rulers. They are human rulers who became ‘like gods’ in that they amassed a lot of power and claimed godlike status. Their sin wasn’t marriage but polygamy; however, the text simply doesn’t say this. It’s assumed that polygamy is the reason the marriages are condemned. This approach also assumes that references to the ‘sons of God’ (benet elohim) are references not to celestial beings but to powerful kings and leaders, even though this interpretation goes against the manner in which the Old Testament predominantly uses the phrase ‘Sons of God’ (for example, we know from Job 87 that they were present during the creation of the world, which could not be the case for powerful human rulers). It also goes against how the Jewish translators of the Septuagint rendered this phrase in the Greek Old Testament as 'angels.' The translators of the Septuagint understood that the antagonists in view here were celestial beings, which brings us to our third point.
- The Celestial Beings Interpretation. The third approach is actually the oldest approach. This is the interpretation that the ‘sons of God’ were actual elohim who enfleshed themselves, slept with human women, and that these women bore hybrid celestial-human children called Nephilim. This was the predominant view for thousands of years; this was the view that is referred to in our New Testament books 1 Peter and Jude, and this view wasn’t questioned until the late fourth century AD when it fell out of favor with influential church fathers such as Saint Augustine.
There are at least three texts in the New Testament that reference the episode of Genesis 6, and all take the third view, that Genesis is about spiritual, 'celestial' beings coming to earth to reproduce with human women. We will look at two now and a third in a moment. The first two are 2 Peter 2.1-10 and Jude 5-7.
But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping. For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)—if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority. [2 Peter 2.1-10]
In this passage Peter is railing against false teachers who teach destructive lies, promote immoral living, and who exploit others in their greed. He says these false teachers will come with their false teachings and lead many people astray; he then talks about how they will suffer destruction in judgment, and he illustrates this by comparing them to the "sons of God" in Genesis 6, who taught destructive lies and promoted immoral living. He makes this connection when he writes, For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but held them captive in Tartarus with chains of darkness and handed them over to be kept for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a proclaimer of righteousness, and seven others when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly… [vv. 4-5] then he can certainly rescue His people from trials and preserve the unrighteous - the false teachers - to be punished at the day of judgment, and especially those who go after the flesh in defiling lust and who despise authority [v. 10] Peter assumes his readers know what he’s talking about. He’s talking about the episode in Genesis 6, where ‘the angels’ (in Hebrew, ‘the sons of God’) sinned and were subsequently ‘held captive in Tartarus’ while God punished the resultant evil with the Flood. In Genesis 6 we don’t see the language of captivity; Peter is basing this off the book of 1 Enoch, which we’ll get to in a minute. He identifies the judged angels as those who ‘go after the flesh in defiling lust’ and ‘who despise authority’ (referring to the ‘sons of God’ who sinned in Genesis 6). Note particularly that Peter identifies these ‘sons of God’ not as men from Seth’s line nor as human rulers but as ‘angels’, or celestial beings – in line with the predominant interpretation of Genesis 6 up until the 4th century. His point is that just as the rebellious Elohim were judged and will be destroyed, so too will those who promote false teachings in the church.
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. [Jude 5-7]
Jude refers his readers back to the episode in Genesis 6 when discussing the promise of judgment that will come upon those who rebel against God. In verse 6 he speaks of the angels who did not keep to their own domain but deserted their proper dwelling place, he has kept in eternal bonds under deep gloom for the judgment of the great day. He then refers to God’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for their ‘sexual immorality’ and ‘unnatural desire,’ and he links these in depravity to the sins of the angels in verse 7. The sin that precipitated the Flood was sexual in nature, and it’s placed in the same category as the sin which prompted the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. The sin of Genesis 6.1-4 is interpreted by Peter and Jude as evidence of despising authority and the boundaries of ‘proper dwelling.’ The ‘proper dwelling’ has to do with the fact that the angels – the sons of God – left their proper place in God’s heavenly council and sought to make a domain on earth.
We see, then, that the oldest interpretation – that rebellious elohim from Yahweh's divine council came down ‘to earth’, slept with human women, and had hybrid children who were known as giants – is the one embraced in the New Testament. The reason this interpretation has been cast aside is because it doesn’t sit well with modern western ears steeped in science and reason. We don’t like the idea of it happening. It seems odd and uncomfortable and leaves a bad taste in our mouths. Nevertheless, the Bible records it as something that happened, it’s linked to the reason God flooded the world, and thus we should pay attention and learn from it. Peter and Jude, after all, seem to have done so! We’ve looked at what Genesis 6.1-4 says on the subject, so it’d be good to see what 1 Enoch has to say about it. This apocryphal book was ‘near and dear’ to the hearts of first century Jews and Christians. While it wasn’t considered divinely inspired, it was treasured and studied and part of their ‘literary worldview.’ This is why Peter and Jude can allude to it without skipping a beat or feeling inclined to explain themselves.
The story of the rebellious sons of God sleeping with human women and giving birth to giants doesn't sit well with modern ears steeped in science and reason. We don't like the idea of it happening. It seems odd and uncomfortable and leaves a bad taste in our mouths - and so we reject it. But the biblical authors assumed it was true and that the 'ripple effects' reach into the present day.
In 1 Enoch, we find the basic template of Genesis 6.1-4, but it’s drawn out in more detail. It begins: And when the sons of men had multiplied, in those days, beautiful and comely daughters were born to them. And the watchers, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget for ourselves children.’ In 1 Enoch, the ‘sons of God’ of Genesis 6 become ‘the watchers, the sons of heaven.’ This terminology is telling. The English word ‘Watcher’ is a translation of the Aramaic ‘ir. We see this word in Daniel 4, which is written in Aramaic rather than in Hebrew. In Daniel 4, God and his council are participating in decision making, and the divine ‘holy ones’ of Yahweh are called ‘watchers’ (Aramaic ‘ir). This reflects the understanding that the ‘sons of God’ in Genesis 6 aren’t humans of any caliber, whether good or bad, but are, in fact, celestial beings who were members of God’s divine council. We’re not told why these elohim wished to mate with human women; some Jewish sources speculate that they wanted to ‘help’ fallen humanity by giving them divine knowledge (but then got side-tracked) or that they wanted to imitate God by creating their own imagers (basically making themselves kings of their own bastardized castles). Jude indicates that their sin was two-fold: not only leaving their domain in God’s heavenly council (presumably to fashion a domain of their own) but also sexual lusts. Whatever the motivation, they slept with human women and spawned giant hybrid children – but that wasn’t all they did. 1 Enoch 8 tells us that some of these ‘watchers’ corrupted mankind by means of forbidden divine knowledge. The idea is that not only did they spawn a hybrid humanity on the face of the earth, they also promoted godless sorcery, witchcraft, and wizardry. They inaugurated a new era of depravity that made Cain’s murder of Abel look like Amateur Hour.
A word should be said on the Hebrew word ‘Nephilim’ in Genesis 6. The offspring of the Watchers in 1 Enoch are called ‘giants’. Some fragments of 1 Enoch among the Dead Sea Scrolls give names for some of the giants; other texts that retell the story do the same. The most startling of these is The Book of Giants, and though it exists now only in fragments, the names of several giants – the offspring of the Watchers – have survived. One of the names is Gilgamesh, the main character of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. In Genesis 6 the giant offspring of the ‘sons of God’ or ‘Watchers’ are called ‘Nephilim.’ Though this word can be translated a variety of ways depending on how you manipulate the Hebrew consonants, the translators of the Greek Old Testament – the Septuagint – translated it as ‘giants.’ Genesis 6.4 says that the Nephilim ‘were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.’
Before we examine God’s response to this new state of affairs on earth, we need to note another extra-biblical text, this one from ancient Mesopotamia. Genesis 1-11 has many connections to Mesopotamian literature. The story of creation, the genealogies before the Flood, the Flood itself, and the tower of Babel incident all have secure connections to Mesopotamian material that is much older than the Old Testament. Because of this, some skeptics have argued that Genesis 1-11 is a ‘rehashing’ or even plagiarism of the Mesopotamian texts. Another theory, of course, is that the Mesopotamian texts and the biblical texts have so many connections because they are both speaking of the same things. The events that Genesis 1-11 records take place in the geographical region of ancient Mesopotamia; we know that it was in Mesopotamia that humanity got its start; we know that it was in Mesopotamia that the first civilizations arose. If the Bible is true, then there’s no reason to think that writers other than those who wrote the Bible wouldn’t know about the events of Genesis 1-11. If the events really happened, there would be reports of them outside the biblical literature. One could even argue that the presence of ‘parallel texts’ in other sources isn’t indicative of plagiarism but of authenticity in the events reported. Differences in the reporting indicates varying biases and interpretations of the events, which is precisely a mark of authenticity with eyewitness accounts.
Why are there so many parallels between Mesopotamian mythology and Genesis 1-11? Skeptics argue this proves that the biblical writers 'borrowed' or 'plagiarized' from the Mesopotamians. Another explanation is that the biblical writers and the Mesopotamians were writing about things that really happened. Differences in the retelling reflect varying biases and worldviews in which the events are framed.
Mesopotamia had several versions of the story of a catastrophic Flood, complete with a large boat that saves animals and humans (there are also ‘Flood’ stories from China, Hawaii, and Greece, indicating that the ‘memory’ of the event was passed down human lineages long after the dispersion of Babel). The Flood was such a visceral memory for the Mesopotamians that they divided their history into two parts: Pre-Flood and Post-Flood (in the same way that we divide history into Before Christ [BC] and Anno Domini [which means year of our lord and is abbreviated AD]). Mesopotamian texts include mention of a group of sages (the apkallus) who were possessors of great knowledge in the period directly before the Flood. These apkallus were divine beings, and many of them were considered evil. When the great Mesopotamian gods decided humans were too noisy and irritating to keep on living, the apkallus came up with a plan to preserve humanity from destruction: they would create a race of half-human, half-god hybrids. The offspring of the apkallus were said to be human in descent (i.e. having a human parent) and ‘two-thirds apkallus’; in other words, the apkallus mated with human women and produced quasi-divine offspring. When the Flood came – the Mesopotamian gods’ way of destroying humankind – some of the quasi-divine offspring survived, and they were the ones who rebuilt the destroyed cities after the Flood. These ‘second-generation apkallu’ were described as giants, and one of these ‘hybrid offspring’ was the Mesopotamian hero Gilgamesh (called ‘lord of the apkallu’), whose exploits were recorded in The Epic of Gilgamesh (written in cuneiform, of course), and who was said to have knowledge from before the Flood. He was a giant – or, as a Hebrew would say, a Nephilim. In addition to all this, Mesopotamian archaeologists have discovered figurines of apkallus buried in rows of boxes as parts of the foundation walls for Mesopotamian buildings to ward off evil powers. These boxes were known by Mesopotamians as mats-tsarey, which means ‘watchers’ – connecting yet again the apkallus to the ‘watchers’ of Daniel 4, the ‘sons of God’ of Genesis 6. Thus the Mesopotamians echo the story found in Genesis 6.1-4 almost to a ‘T’: divine beings mated with human women and produced giant offspring who were ‘heroes of old’ and men of great renown, Gilgamesh being the ‘top tier’ of these hybrid heroes. The argument can be made that this event really did happen – and the Bible treats this event not as a metaphor but as a historical reality with repercussions throughout biblical history.
The purpose of the Flood in Genesis 6-9 was to ‘cleanse’ the earth of the awful state-of-affairs inaugurated by the rebellious elohim. In 1 Enoch we learn that Yahweh’s solution was a two-pronged affair: on the one hand, he dealt with the corrupt societies that were emerging under the influence of the elohim and their Nephilim offspring by destroying them with water; understanding the purpose of the Flood sheds light on why Peter references it in relation to baptism in 1 Peter 3.18-22.
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. [1 Peter 3.18-22]
Peter says that the Flood is, in some way, a parallel to baptism. We know that when we are baptized, God works a miracle in us: He breaks our bondage to sin and gives us a clean slate with a new heart. Just as the Flood was a "purifying" event against the wicked societies that sprang up after the tinkering of the rebellious sons of God, so baptism is a "purifying" event against the corruption and evil in our own hearts!
Yahweh also dealt directly with the rebellious elohim themselves. These rebellious ‘watchers’ were imprisoned under the earth, to be kept there until Judgment Day. This is what Jude is referring to when he says in verse 6 that the angels which kept not their first estate [in the heavenly council], but left their own habitation [to dwell with man on the face of the earth], God has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. According to 1 Enoch, there were hundreds of rebellious Watchers, but not all of them mated with human women; some of them taught forbidden knowledge and sorcerous practices; but all of them were condemned for ‘jumping ship’ from Yahweh’s council and seeking to establish their own hybrid society on earth. They were imprisoned by loyal ‘Watchers’ who hadn’t abandoned their place on Yahweh’s council. 1 Enoch tells us that the rebellious Watchers were to be imprisoned for 70 generations underneath the rocks of the ground [in hell] until the day of their judgment. This is interesting, because in 1 Peter 3.19-20 we read that Jesus “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared…” The imprisoned spirits whom Peter’s writing about aren’t the lost souls of people who died under the Old Covenant; he’s writing about the rebellious Watchers. The judgment for which they waited wasn’t the Final Judgment – though they will certainly experience that – but their condemnation by Christ. Jesus isn’t proclaiming salvation to the imprisoned spirits; he’s announcing his triumph over them and their ilk! He’s saying, “You, like the Diviner in the Garden, sought to derail God’s plans; but look! Redemption has come!” Jesus isn’t proclaiming salvation but judgment. That these spirits are the Watchers is made evident by the fact that they are the ones who did not obey in the days of Noah prior to the Flood. It was at the time of the Flood that the rebellious Watchers were chained in gloomy darkness.
So God sent the Flood to ‘stamp out’ the wicked state-of-affairs produced by the Watchers, and one of his principle aims was to eradicate the Nephilim. They were not part of His intended creation and needed to be dealt with. We quickly run into a problem, however: there are descendants of the Nephilim after the Flood. As we will see, they come up multiple times after the Flood, and even Genesis 6.4 tells us this is the case: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days [before the Flood], and also afterward [after the Flood], when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” How do we make sense of this? There are three possibilities:
- Perhaps Noah was a Nephilim, and thus the Nephilim line continued with him. This must be outright rejected because the Bible painstakingly makes it clear that his lineage is from Adam’s line; he's on of Eve's "offspring"; his genetic DNA isn’t tainted by elohim tinkering.
- Another explanation is that the Flood was regional rather than universal. While it is second-nature for us to assume that the Flood was a worldwide event, the Hebrew of the biblical text doesn’t demand this. The Hebrew words and phrases usually translated in universal language in Genesis 6-9 are also used elsewhere in the Old Testament to speak of regional events. Genesis 6-9 could be speaking of a Flood of unparalleled catastrophic proportions that ravaged the Mesopotamian world (where most of humanity was alive at the time). In this scenario, the Flood destroys the wicked, sorcerous societies established by the Watchers and kills the vast majority of the Nephilim. A few Nephilim may have survived, if only by the skin of their teeth, but they would never again reach the level of power, numbers, and authority they had before the Flood. They were holdouts that would need to be dealt with.
- A third explanation is that the Flood was universal, in that it covered the earth and wiped out everything but the humans, birds, and land animals kept safe on the Ark. According to this theory, sometime after the waters receded and humankind began again, rogue elohim (for some reason or another) decided to copy what their forerunners did and made their own race of quasi-divine giant Nephilim.
How do we know there were Nephilim after the Flood? Simply because the Bible blatantly states it! We run into the Nephilim's giant descendants after the Exodus. During the Conquest of Canaan, Yahweh gives some bloodcurdling instructions: the Israelites are to kill entire populations in some cities, the men, women, children, and even livestock! Why not let the inhabitants surrender? Wouldn’t it be better to exile them or enslave them than to slaughter them? The reasoning for such a brutal ‘total war’ approach to the Conquest is two-fold. First, as we will see next week, after the Tower of Babel incident when the nations rebelled against God, God decided that he no longer wanted a direct relationship with the people of those nations. Instead he assigned loyal members of his divine council, the benet elohim, to govern them (Deut 4.19-20; 32.8-9). Afterward, he chose Abraham and his descendants as His ‘choice nation,’ His ‘portion’ among the nations. Though the other nations were ruled by the elohim, Yahweh would directly rule over Israel. We learn from Psalm 82 that the elohim put over the other nations became corrupt and sought to be worshiped on par with Yahweh. Thus, those nations became enemies of Yahweh and His nation, Israel. Since some of those nations were in the land of Canaan, which God was giving to Israel after the Exodus, the people who occupied those lands were Israel’s mortal enemies, and their gods – the prideful, rebellious elohim – would do all they could to destroy Israel. Only total war could avert such a catastrophe.
The second reason takes us back to the subject at hand: the Nephilim. In Numbers 13.32-33, as the Israelites are preparing to invade Canaan, spies are sent to survey the land they’re to capture – and they return with grievous news. They report that ‘the land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them…” Here we again encounter the giant Nephilim, and they’re settled in the land of Canaan! The Anakim giants the Israelite spies saw in Canaan were the Nephilim’s descendants, and there were more of them scattered throughout the land of Canaan, among the nations and cities the Israelites would have to defeat to take the land (Num. 13:28-29). The task of conquering the land and its gods had seemed difficult before; now it looked downright impossible. Now to take the land they would have to face warriors of abnormal physical size! It should be noted that the "giants" weren't necessarily of the Jack and the Beanstalk breed; given that the average height for a tall man back then was 5'4", anyone between 6-7' tall would be considered giant. The Israelites lost heart facing the giants, and God cursed them to wandering in the desert for forty years until a new generation rose up to be courageous where their fathers had been cowards.
As the years spent wandering in the desert were coming to an end, the Israelites eventually made their way into a region known as Bashan. The place had a terrifying reputation. In ancient literature outside the Bible, Bashan was known as 'the place of the serpent.' Two of its major cities, Ashtaroth and Edrei, both mentioned in connection with the Israelite journey (Deut. 1:4; Josh. 13:12), were considered gateways to the underworld realm of the dead. In the context of Israel's supernatural worldview, God had led the Israelites to the gates of hell! He had brought the Israelites there to encounter two kings, Sihon and Og. These two kings were Amorites (Deut. 3:2-3; 31:4) and rulers of what the Bible calls the Rephaim. As Deuteronomy 2:11 ominously notes, the Anakim were 'also counted as Rephaim.' God, through Moses, had led the people to another area occupied by the same sort of giants that had frightened the Israelite spies into disbelief years earlier (Num. 13:32-33), the event that had caused the forty years of wandering. Why had God brought them there? He brought them here because this confrontation would be a foretaste of what would have to be done when the forty years had ended. Israel would eventually have to cross the Jordan to occupy the land God had given to them. God was testing his people. Would they believe and fight this time? If so, a victory would give them confidence and faith for what lay ahead.... The prophet Amos, recounting the confrontation in his own biblical book many years later, described the outcome this way: '[the Lord] destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars and who was as strong as the oaks' (Amos 2:9). It was a rough way to start their second chance. God demanded that they face their fears - the terrors that had cost them forty years of aimless wandering.
The story of the Conquest is, in a real sense, a story of the people of Israel whittling away at the descendants of the few Nephilim who survived the Flood. Yahweh’s purpose in the Conquest wasn’t merely to give the Israelites a tract of land; it was also about stamping out the after-shocks of Genesis 6.1-4. Through the Israelites, God was aiming to extinguish the last corrupt genetic lines of the Nephilim. The entire populations of the cities that were home to the giant Rephaim were 'devoted to destruction' (Deut. 3:6). The goal was not revenge. The goal was to ensure the elimination of the Nephilim bloodlines. To the Israelites, the giant clan bloodlines were demonic, having been produced by rebellious, fallen divine beings. They could not coexist with a demonic heritage. Joshua led many military campaigns in the Israelites' conquest of the Promised Land, and those campaigns were guided by two factors: to drive out the hostile enemy nations and, in the process, to eliminate the giant clan bloodlines... In a very real way, then, the conquest of the Promised Land was a holy war - a battle against the forces of darkness and enemies under the dominion of hostile gods the Bible says are very real spiritual entities. This logic of the conquest is summarized in Joshua 11:21-22, which reads, 'And Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim [the giant descendants of the Nephilim] from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah, and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain.'
So we see that Joshua’s campaigns were mostly successful – but not complete. A few giants escaped - and while that may not have seemed very important, it foreshadowed events to come. Some wound up in Gath. Gath was a Philistine city (Josh. 13:3) and was the hometown of Goliath at the time of King David (1 Sam. 17:4). Goliath wasn't the only giant in Gath, either (1 Chron. 20:5-8). Not all of those who had been 'devoted to destruction' during the conquest of the Promised Land were in fact destroyed, and the fact that the conquest didn't accomplish all of its prime directives had steep consequences for the Israelites. Holdout giants filled key roles in the Philistine ranks, and this is one of the reasons the Philistines were able to subjugate Israel time and again. It wasn’t until the reign of King David that the last giants were slain: David slew Goliath himself, and David’s ‘men-at-arms’ killed Goliath’s giant brothers. With the destruction of the giant bloodlines in Philistia, Israel was able to turn the tables on her old enemy and force the Philistines into submission. The saga of the hybrid offspring of the rebellious Watchers and human women had come to an end.
Or had it? Because this is where things get really weird. According to Jewish theology, which we see in the intertestamental period, when the giants died, their spirits didn’t go ‘to hell’ or ‘to heaven.’ Because they were hybrids, their ‘spirits’ were of a different nature than those of human beings; because of this, their spirits were left to wander on the earth. 1 Enoch 15.8-9 captures this: But now the giants who are born from the union of the spirits and the flesh shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, because their dwelling shall be upon the earth and inside the earth. Evil spirits have come out of their bodies… They will become evil upon the earth and shall be called evil spirits. (1 Enoch 15.8-9) When we come across instances of demonic possession in the New Testament, what we’re seeing isn’t the Devil of Genesis 3 or ‘fallen angels’ possessing human beings but the disembodied spirits of dead Nephilim seeking to be en-fleshed once again. In the New Testament, the Greek word ‘demon’ can refer to fallen elohim OR to the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim, but in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for demon – shedim – was used for these disembodied Nephilim spirits alone (Hebrew is much more nuanced than Greek when it comes to the spiritual world). The shedim are only mentioned twice in the Old Testament – in Psalm 106.37 and Deuteronomy 32.17 – and both times they are associated with children sacrifice or animal sacrifice. However, these demons are referenced in another way. In the Old Testament, the Rephaim – whom we saw during the Conquest – are described as giant warlords but also as frightening, sinister disembodied spirits (the ‘shades’ of the underworld). In the Dead Sea Scrolls [compiled during the intertestamental period], a non-biblical psalm calls demons “the offspring of man and the seed of the holy ones,” a clear reference to the disembodied spirits of the divine-human offspring from Genesis 6.1-4.
The 'unclean' demonic spirits of many New Testament passages are the disembodied spirits of the dead Nephilim and their descendants. Cursed to wander the earth, they crave to be reembodied in a human host. This is the essence of 'demonic possession.'
All this to say that, in the Old Testament, ‘demons’ are the disembodied spirits of the giant Nephilim and their descendants. Though they had no say in their creation, they have staked themselves against God and are opposed to God’s people. The logic is simple: when the Day of Judgment comes, they will be destroyed. They don’t want to be destroyed, so they seek to delay the Day of Judgment. They know that the Day of Judgment won’t come until Christ’s kingdom has spread throughout the world and subjugated every kingdom to itself; thus they oppose the advance of the kingdom and try to slow it as much as possible by attacking God’s people. They know they have no chance at redemption, and they’re striving to delay their decimation.
Jesus had many interactions with the disembodied spirits of the dead Nephilim, and a few of them are particularly interesting.
In Mark 1.21-28, while teaching in a synagogue in Capernaum, Jesus was interrupted by a man possessed by a demon. The man cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are - the Holy One of God!” Jesus ordered the spirit to be quiet and to leave the man, which the spirit did. The spirit acknowledged that Jesus’ mission included the destruction of the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim.
In Mark 5.1-20, Jesus and his disciples come across a man (Matthew reports two men) who had been living among the tombs because of demonic possession. The possessed man approached Jesus and fell before him, calling out, “Jesus, Son of the Most High God, what have you to do with us? Please, don’t torture us!” Jesus asked his name, and they replied, “Legion is my name. There are many of us. If you’re going to drive us out, drive us into the herd of swine!” They knew Jesus could destroy them; though they craved a human body – since they came from hybrid human bodies – they would be content with being sent into unclean pigs. Jesus grants their request; the demons – called elsewhere ‘unclean spirits’ – are sent into the ‘unclean’ pigs, which promptly careen off a seaside cliff. Why did the demons send the pigs to their deaths? This question has vexed Bible readers, but one theory is kind of funny and would’ve been apparent to ancient readers: demons, disembodied spirits craving a human host, weren’t used to ‘animal’ machinery, and after being ‘enfleshed’ in pigs, they lost control of their host in the same way that a new driver may careen a sports car into a brick wall.
In Matthew 12.22-32, Jesus gives a warning about demons (or ‘unclean spirits’): “When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, ‘I shall return to my home from which I came.’ But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that person is worse than the first.” Jesus acknowledges that demons don't live in hell or in the air; he echoes 1 Enoch which states that the disembodied spirits are destined to wander the ground of the earth. He also acknowledges that these demons crave a bodily host, and he also calls them ‘unclean spirits,’ which is telling. In Jewish thought, something was ‘unclean’ if it was a forbidden mixture. Demonic spirits are ‘unclean’ because they are a forbidden mixture of human DNA and elohim trickery.
When we read about demons in the New Testament, we must acknowledge that not ALL demons will be ‘disembodied spirits of the dead Nephilim’ variety. Remember that Hebrew was more nuanced than the Greek. In Greek, there is one word strictly used for ‘lower-class evil beings’, and that is the word translated demon (Greek refers to the Diviner of Genesis 3 in other ways). All disembodied Nephilim spirits were demons, but not all demons were disembodied Nephilim spirits.
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