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What the Bible says about Anak
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Genesis 6:1-4

An often overlooked fact that precludes angels from being the fathers of these men of renown is that angels cannot reproduce. Jesus tells us in Mark 12:25 that in the resurrection, human beings will be like the angels in heaven, who “neither marry nor are given in marriage.” His statement very clearly contradicts the angelic interpretation of Genesis 6:2, which states that the “sons of God” (benē hā'ĕlōhīm) married the “daughters of men” (benôt hā'ādām).

In Genesis, a principle that surfaces early is that a created kind only reproduces after its own kind. This physical law means that one class of creature can mate and reproduce among its own class: Cats can only mate with other cats and produce kittens; dogs can only mate with other dogs and produce puppies—but cats and dogs cannot produce a strange hybrid of their very different species. This principle is established scientific fact.

That humans are fleshly, physical beings is evident in Genesis 2. In Genesis 2:7, Moses writes, “The LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground.” Later, when God formed Eve out of Adam's rib (verse 21), Adam exclaimed about her, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” The carnality or fleshiness of humanity is made countless times throughout Scripture.

Yet, Psalm 104:4 confirms that God “makes His angels spirits, His ministers a flame of fire,” and Hebrews 1:14 confirms this fact: “Are [angels] not all ministering spirits . . .?” (emphasis ours throughout). Since human beings are composed of flesh and angels of spirit, they cannot be of the same kind. Angels cannot impregnate mortal women and produce anything. It is not possible for two distinct kinds to mate and reproduce.

Further, were angels and human females able to reproduce, their children would not be human but some weird hybrid, half-angel/half-human. God, however, tells us that the progeny of the “sons of God” and “daughters of men” were human. Where is this? In the very context!

Notice verse 1: “Now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth . . .” and also verse 3: “And the LORD said, 'My Spirit shall not strive with man forever.” And Moses writes plainly in verse 4 of the children who were born to them, these “giants”: “Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” The children of these unions were not angels, not hybrids, but men.

Genesis 6:4 points out that these giants were the result “when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men.” A phrase like this is a common term in the Old Testament for sexual intercourse (Genesis 16:4; 29:23, 30; 30:4; 38:2, 9; 38:18; etc.). Such a description of the process of human insemination eliminates any so-called spiritual—or even “magical”—conception that would supersede the normal human method of impregnation.

“Giants” is the translation of the Hebrew word nephilim. The Greek translation is gigantes, from which we derive the English word, “giants.” However, the Hebrew word seems to have its roots in naphal, which means “to fall,” and some translations render it “fallen ones.” The sense may be that such “men of renown” fell in battle or fell upon their enemies. Another sense is that they were a “fallen” form of humanity, that is, they had declined far from what God wanted men to be.

Verse 4 is not the only place where the word nephilim appears in the Bible. The same author, Moses, recording the words of the spies he had sent out, writes in Numbers 13:33: “And there we saw the giants [nephilim], the sons of Anak, which come of the giants [nephilim], and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

These Nephilim were the sons of Anak, son of Arba (see Joshua 15:13-14; 21:11). Easton's Bible Dictionary identifies the Anakim as “probably a remnant of the original inhabitants of Palestine before the Canaanites, a Cushite tribe from Babel, and of the same race as the Phoenicians and the Egyptian shepherd kings.” If this is so, the giants in Moses' day were descended from Cush, not fallen angels. The Nephilim were human.

John Reiss
Can Angels Marry Women?

Genesis 6:4

The Scriptures indicate that these giants died out. Not long after this, God sent a worldwide Flood to destroy "all flesh" upon the earth (Genesis 7:21). Since these giants were simply a natural, genetic variation of human beings, they died along with the rest of the earth's population. The only humans to escape that catastrophe were Noah and his family.

Since Noah was of a stock of smaller people, most of his descendants were of his stature. However, some of the genes to produce giants survived through the wife of Ham, one of Noah's sons. Therefore, a number of the sons of Canaan (one of Ham's sons) were giants (Numbers 13:1-2, 32-33). In Deuteronomy 2:19-21, Moses records that God destroyed the giants who dwelt in Ammon so that the children of Lot could possess the land. Those giants - who apparently descended from Canaan through a man named Anak - eventually became extinct. King Og of Bashan was the last of them to inhabit Palestine east of Jordan (Deuteronomy 3:11).

Another well-known biblical giant is Goliath of Gath (or "the Gittite"), whom the teenage David killed with a sling stone (I Samuel 17). Goliath's brother and sons were also men of great stature, and the Bible explicitly mentions that David and his men killed them all (II Samuel 21:15-22; I Chronicles 20:4-8).

Both before and after the Flood, God was directly involved in the destruction of those giant men. The reason for their destruction is not stated directly, but like Goliath, those men seemed always to be in opposition to God and to His people Israel.

Staff



Find more Bible verses about Anak:
Anak {Nave's}
 




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