Commentaries:
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?
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
The opening verses of Genesis 6 have been a stumbling block for many Bible readers through the ages. Instead of scouring the Bible for scriptural clues to their true meaning, many have allowed their imaginations and faulty reasoning to invent sometimes wild and fantastic interpretations of them. They either ignore or do not realize that God's Word contradicts their readings of this passage.
Many people believe that these “sons of God” were fallen angels who married beautiful, earthly women—“daughters of men.” This fanciful idea sounds familiar, a echo of classical mythology, in which the “gods” seduced human women, who afterward bore demigods who grew up to be “mighty men” and “men of renown.” It is a common theme in those Greek and Roman tales.
The basic idea of this interpretation is that, as a result of these unions between angels and women, the children produced were called Nephilim, a Hebrew word that means “giants.” Apparently, through their natural gifts inherited from their angelic fathers, these half-angel/half-human beings became powerful, famous men, doers of great exploits. We have only to recall the stories of Hercules, Perseus, or Achilles to understand this explanation of these verses.
It is surprising how many people across the breadth of religiosity believe this pagan understanding. It almost seems as if they want to believe it, not because it is true, which it is not, but because it is sensational and exciting like the old mythological stories that tickle the fancy rather than speak the truth.
John Reiss
Can Angels Marry Women?
Some maintain that these verses assert that angels married women before the Flood and engendered a race of giants. This idea sounds like the sub-plot of a science fiction story! But can it be the truth?
It is true that verse 2 states that the "sons of God . . . took wives for themselves of all whom they chose." These "sons of God," however, were not angels. The fact is that angels do not marry. Jesus tells us this clearly: "For in the resurrection they [humans] neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven" (Matthew 22:30; see Mark 12:25).
Angels cannot cohabit nor reproduce with women. Angels are spirit beings (Hebrews 1:13-14). Women are human beings. Angels and women, then, are two different kinds of being. Kind reproduces after kind, and different species cannot breed.
In his modern, perverted science—"falsely called knowledge" (I Timothy 6:20)—Satan encourages men to experiment with the crossing and mixing of the most unlikely creatures. For example, goats have been genetically altered by the insertion of a spider gene to produce silk products that God never intended in His original design. Right from the beginning, at the re-creation of the world (Psalm 104:30), God says that this is not to be. He establishes a strict law that each kind must reproduce only after its own kind (Genesis 1:11-12, 21, 24-25).
This rule is also backed up and made clear by the context of our difficult scripture. In Genesis 6:3, God says, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh." He is speaking of fleshly mankind here, not angels. Although it is true that the children of these couples were "mighty," like their parents, they were still only human.
It is true that angels are sometimes called "sons of God" (Job 1:6; 38:7). Remember, though, that angels "neither marry, nor are given in marriage."
Secondly, the phrase "sons of God" sometimes refers to Christians, regenerated by God's Spirit but still human (John 1:12; Romans 8:14, 19; Philippians 2:15; I John 3:1-2).
A third meaning refers to mankind in general, because all men are sons of God by creation: "I said, 'You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men . . .'" (Psalm 82:6-7). Although the King James and New King James versions have "children of the Most High," many other translations have "sons of the Most High." Additional verses use similar terminology to refer to humans (Malachi 2:10; Luke 3:38).
Through Adam, then, every human being is a child of God.
Since these "sons of God"—those who are the subjects of our difficult scripture—were obviously not regenerated Christians, and could not have been angels, it is evident that they were simply human members of mankind in general: Men who had forsaken God and were intermarrying in defiance of His law.
We should note one final point. Genesis 6:4 reads, "There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown."
This verse shows that giants and extraordinarily mighty men existed after the sons of God married the daughters of men and implies that they existed beforehand as well. It does not state that such huge and powerful men were the result only of these marriages. Giants have existed throughout recorded history, before and after the Flood and down to modern times.
Staff
Did Angels Marry Human Women?
“Sons of God” cannot refer to angels in Genesis 6:4 because it warps God's ultimate plan for humanity's salvation. He states His purpose in Genesis 1:26, “Let us create man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” In other words, God is reproducing Himself! Human beings are not fashioned after the angel-kind but after the Godkind!
Notice how God introduces His earlier creations: “Let the earth bring forth grass . . .” (Genesis 1:11); “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures . . . (Genesis 1:20); and “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind . . .” (Genesis 1:24). But when He begins to create man, He reveals that He brought humanity from Himself. While Adam was made of the dust to be physical, his origins in terms of “image” and “likeness” came directly from God. Because of this vast difference, God commands that men—His potential spiritual children—“have dominion” over all living things on the earth (Genesis 1:26, 28).
God is reproducing Himself. The concept of angels reproducing themselves through interspecies marriages with humans denies the very gospel of the Kingdom of God, the good news that God offers human beings the opportunity to join His Family and inherit all things. Angelic/human hybrids insert an alien element into the plan of God, which He would never allow to confuse matters.
In addition, while angels are called “sons of God,” they do not have the potential humans have. They were created, not as potential members of the God Family, but as servants.
It is plain that God never intended that angels, though presently far exceeding humans in intellect, power, and wisdom, be born into God's Family and inherit the Kingdom of God (Hebrews 2:5). The Bible consistently shows them in the form of mighty servants who carry out God's will and help Him fulfill His purpose. As the author of Hebrews says, while currently lower than the angels, human beings will one day rise to be greater than they, crowned with glory and honor and possessing power over the works of God's hands (Hebrews 2:6-8).
John Reiss
Can Angels Marry Women?
"Giants" is the Hebrew word nephilim, which has little or nothing to do with being tall and muscular but refers to cultural leadership. God is describing the culture immediately before the Flood. Nephilim has to be seen in that context. These Nephilim - giants not in size but in influence - were establishing evil, deceitful, violent, and enslaving leadership. They were "men of renown," which literally means they were men of name. In other words, they had a reputation, but that term is used in a derogatory sense. These were not good characters.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Where Is the Beast? (Part Two)
Who were—and were not—these sons of God?
The exact phrase, “sons of God,” appears eleven times in the Bible. Of the other nine appearances of the phrase outside of the two in Genesis 6, angels are called “sons of God” three times in the book of Job (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7), and Psalm 29:1; 89:6 are additional examples of this usage. In places like Deuteronomy 14:1 and 32:8 (“sons of the LORD your God”), the phrase refers to the children of Israel. In the Greek New Testament, converted Christians are also called “sons of God” (see Matthew 5:9; Luke 20:36; Romans 8:14, 19; Galatians 3:26).
Unconverted men are called “sons of God” as well, although, in some places, the exact phrasing is not used. For example, the idea of “sons of God” appears in Malachi 2:10, speaking of the unfaithful Jews of the prophet's time: “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” We can find a similar meaning in Psalm 82:6-7: “I said, 'You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men . . ..'” In the New Testament, the evangelist Luke calls Adam “the son of God” in Luke 3:38.
Yet there is another option, which is to read “sons of God” to refer to a particular physical line of descent. After Cain slew his brother, he “went out from the presence of the LORD” (Genesis 4:16). Although God punished Cain for his sin, this verse demonstrates that he left God's presence willingly. He traveled to “the land of Nod on the east of Eden.” There he married a woman, had a son (and additional children), and founded a society in opposition to God. In any case, his actions show that he distanced himself from God as far as he could.
The rest of the passage, Genesis 4:16-24, tells of an ungodly world that sprang from him and his turning his back on Eden. It is based on physical accomplishments, as exemplified by Cain's descendants. Moses relates the first example of polygamy when Lamech took two wives, and later, the same unrepentant descendant of Cain also commits murder, apparently in revenge. The verse (Genesis 4:23) could suggest that he may have committed at least two murders.
Lamech's sons were quite accomplished: Jabal originated nomadic herding of livestock. Jubal invented harp and flute music. Tubal-Cain instructed craftsmen in working with bronze and iron. In other words, they were their time's talented and famous men, but they rose to prominence in a godless and amoral society.
To close the chapter, in Genesis 4:25-26, Moses contrasts Cain's line and its deeds with another line of descent. He writes that Eve bore another son after the murder of Abel, whom she named Seth, saying, “God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.” Seth means “appointed.” He, then, essentially took the place of the self-exiled firstborn, Cain, and the dead second-born, Abel. He was the son who would become chief over Adam's family.
In the days of Enosh, Seth's son, “men began to call on the name of the LORD” (Genesis 4:26). Many commentators say that Enosh means “weak or frail man; mortal, sickly man,” but a related word in Arabic, anas, means “to be sociable and familiar . . . not only in civil but in religious things” (Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible). Gill extrapolates that in Enosh's time, “the families of good men being larger, and more numerous, they joined together in social and public worship” in contrast to the descendants of Cain. Their aims seem to have been for personal enrichment and empowerment. Gill proposes that, at this time, Seth's progeny began to identify themselves by or with the name of the Lord.
Considering it this way, these “sons of God,” the descendants of Seth, were distinct from the sons of men, the descendants of Cain. Through Seth's line, our Savior was born, as Noah and his family were among his descendants. It appears from what the Bible tells us that none of Cain's descendants, the sons of men, survived the Flood. It was their sinful lifestyle that God had to destroy to preserve the human race (Genesis 6:5-7).
John Reiss
Can Angels Marry Women?
This vignette deals with the prevalence of ungodly marriage practices leading to disastrous results. The gist of this section is that, after a few generations of multiplying, men as a whole began to leave God out of their lives. They chose wives—probably several of them, like Lamech—based solely on their physical beauty, not on their depth of character. Their children, though they became mighty, famous leaders, grew into wicked adults whose every impulse, thought, and plan was corrupt. Violence became a way of life. Once conditions reached this point, God decided to destroy them before they became so totally depraved that they could never repent, even in the resurrection.
The Bible pictures a society of unrestrained sin of every kind. The New Testament frequently mentions it in the same context as Sodom and Gomorrah and Israel's sins caused by Balaam and Korah. The underlying factor in all these situations is rebellion against and rejection of God. Cain, Lamech, and mankind in general never took God into account when they committed their iniquities. As Psalm 10:4 says, "The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts."
Has our present society reached this nadir of behavior?
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
'As It Was In the Days of Noah'
What Happened to the Biblical Giants (Genesis 6:4)?
The Scriptures indicate that the giants of Genesis 6:4 died out. Genesis 7 tells of a worldwide Flood that God sent to destroy "all flesh" upon the earth (verse 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.
Additional Reading:
Did Angels Marry Human Women?
Conspiracy Theory (Part Eighteen)
Conspiracy Theory (Part Nineteen)
The Great Flood (Part Eight)
The Great Flood (Part Five)
The Great Flood (Part Four)
Other Forerunner Commentary entries containing Genesis 6:4:
Genesis 6:1-4
Genesis 6:1-4
Genesis 6:1-4
Genesis 10:8-10
Genesis 10:8-12