Who Were the Nephilim and the Sons of God and Daughters of Man? (Genesis 6)

This article is part of the Tough Passages series.

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¹When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, ² the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. ³Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” ⁴The 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.
—Genesis 6:1–4

Three Mysterious Groups of People

The timing of this episode is introduced in rather vague terms: “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them” (Gen. 6:1). However, from what follows it appears that these events occur during the lifetime of Noah. At this time “the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive [Hb. “good”]. And they took as their wives any they chose” (Gen. 6:2). The language of seeing and taking something perceived to be good echoes the first temptation in Genesis 3:6, so it is clear that this action represents a significant sin on the part of the “sons of God.” But who are the “sons of God” and the “daughters of man,” and why is their intermarriage sinful?

Three views of the identity of these groups have been argued, with the first two explanations both finding support since the earliest interpreters.¹ The first view suggests that the “sons of God” are the descendants of the line of Seth, with the “daughters of man” being the descendants of Cain.² The second view interprets the “sons of God” as (demonic) spirit beings, who engage in sexual intercourse with human women (“daughters of man”). Justin Martyr (AD 100–160) wrote, “God, when He had made the whole world, and subjected things earthly to man, . . . committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons.”³ Meanwhile, a third view identifies the “sons of God” as kings, who in many ancient Near Eastern societies claimed divine status for themselves as “sons of the gods.” These kings had the power of life and death over their subjects, and on this interpretation the stress in Genesis 6:2 lies on the rulers’ taking on “any [of the daughters of men] they chose.” These kings seize whatever women they wish for their harems—marrying not just one woman, as God intended (Gen. 2:24), but as many as they choose. Whereas Lamech first broke God’s pattern for marriage by having two wives (Gen. 4:19), these kings multiply that sin many times over by multiplying for themselves wives.⁴

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Each of these views has able exponents and is defensible, though each has its own problems. The greatest challenge for the first view is that nowhere else in the OT are human beings described as the “sons of God”; on the contrary, the term consistently designates angelic beings (cf. Job 1:6; 38:7; and probably Deut. 32:8).⁵ In addition, “daughters of man” in Genesis 6:2 seems obviously related to the daughters born to men in Genesis 6:1, which does not seem to limit them to a particular subgroup (i.e., the daughters of the line of Cain).⁶ Moreover, some NT passages seem to reference the involvement of spiritual beings in these events. For example, Jude 6–7 speaks of angels’ leaving their proper home and sinning in a way similar to the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah in pursuing “strange flesh.”⁷ Similarly, 1 Peter 3:19–20 references the proclamation of the gospel to spirits who were disobedient in the time of Noah.

The main challenge for the second view is the question of whether angels are capable of producing offspring through intercourse with humans (cf. Matt. 22:30). John Calvin says the angelic view “is abundantly refuted by its own absurdity; and it is surprising that learned men should formerly have been fascinated by ravings so gross and prodigious,”⁸ though it must be said that ancient audiences did not find the idea as obviously absurd as Calvin did. Moreover, Genesis says remarkably little about the world of angelic beings, good or bad; on the contrary, it is focused much more closely on human sin and its consequences.⁹ Indeed, the transgression in Genesis 6 (whatever it may be) seems to result in a specific judgment that comes upon humanity, not on angelic beings.

The third view offers a potential explanation for the use of the language of “sons of God” to describe humans but does not necessarily provide a much better alternative overall. In general, ancient Near Eastern kings as individuals may have styled themselves as “son of the gods,” but there is little evidence for the use of “sons of the gods” as a collective term for kings or rulers. There seems little interest in the political organization of the ancient city-states in Genesis 4, which references farming, music, and technology as advances belonging to the line of Cain but says nothing at all explicitly about kingship.

It is hard to establish with any certainty which of these interpretations is to be preferred. However, a significant contextual consideration is the fact that the contrast between the lines of Cain and of Seth forms the larger backdrop against which this episode occurs. Indeed, Genesis 6:1–8 is itself incorporated into the larger genealogy of Seth that starts in chapter 5 and concludes in 9:29.¹⁰ On this view the passage provides an explanation of why the two families do not result in large numbers of people in the category of “righteous” and “wicked.” Because so many of the sons of the line of Seth intermarry indiscriminately, the result is an almost complete loss of the righteous line.

What is more, it is also true that, even though the OT does not elsewhere use “sons of God” to describe God’s people, the idea is not entirely foreign to the passage. In Genesis 5:1–3 image and sonship are intimately connected: Adam is made in God’s image, and he passes that image on to his children through Seth. If Adam is thus, by virtue of bearing his image, God’s son (Luke 3:38), and Seth is explicitly made in the image of Adam (Gen. 5:3), could not Seth and his line rightly be called “sons of God”?¹¹

Finally, elsewhere in the Bible Satan’s three primary modes of attack on God’s people take the form of deception, persecution, and seduction,¹² and it could be argued that the same modus operandi is evident already in the opening chapters of Genesis: deceiving Eve (Genesis 3), martyring Abel (ch. 4), and now seducing the line of promise (6:1–4). These considerations, taken together, persuade me that the interpretation that understands the sin as being the wrongful mixing of the lines of Seth and the line of Cain is correct, though the alternative views each has its strengths.

Whichever interpretation is adopted, what is abundantly clear is that as man multiplies and fills the earth—evidence itself of God’s blessing (Gen. 1:28)—sin multiplies also. The sin of these verses forms an evil parody of the creation mandate: these beings, who aspire to be in the image of God, seek to fill the earth with their offspring as God has commanded, but they go about it in the wrong way, abusing the marriage relationship to serve their corrupt desires and seeking to make a name for themselves, following the pattern of Cain (6:4; cf. 4:17).

In this pursuit they are unsuccessful, as is the case for every act of human rebellion in Genesis. God judges the “sons of God,” and their sin results in curse and destruction rather than the blessing and prosperity that was sought. Just as indiscriminate eating in Genesis 3 resulted in death, so too indiscriminate marriage that transgresses the boundaries set by God results in death. In contrast to the lengthy lives of the antediluvian patriarchs in Genesis 5, human life will be limited to a mere 120 years.¹³ The reason given (“For he is flesh”; 6:3) could describe human mortality or corruption. In fact, both are likely in view: human mortality is the result of human corruption, and the expansion in corruption in these verses will be matched by a decrease in human lifespan. The divine breath/ spirit gives life to humanity, and, when it is withdrawn, the result is death (cf. Gen. 2:7; Pss. 104:29; 146:4; Ezek. 37:10).

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The judgment of Genesis 6:3 logically separates verses 1–2 from verses 4–5, though they are linked by the renewed mention of the sons of God and the daughters of man in verse 4. The result is a chiastic structure that focuses our attention on the judgment curse that falls on humanity:

(A) Humanity multiplies on the face of the earth (Gen. 6:1)
(B) Sin increases: the sons of God and daughters of men transgress (Gen. 6:2)
(C) Judgment declared upon humanity (Gen. 6:3)
(B') Sin increases: the Nephilim and mighty men transgress (Gen. 6:4)
(A') Human wickedness grows great in the earth (Gen. 6:5)

The significance of this observation is to note that the sin in verse 4, while contemporaneous with that of verse 2 (“When the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them”),¹⁴ is not necessarily identical to it. In other words, the Nephilim and the mighty men are not necessarily the offspring of the sons of God and daughters of men, as is often assumed by the interpretation that sees the sons of God as angelic beings.¹⁵Genesis 6:4 simply asserts that the Nephilim (“fallen ones,” cf. CSB mg.) were also present during these corrupt days, as well as later on. It does not tell us anything about the Nephilim, assuming that readers are already familiar with these people.

The only other explicit reference in the Bible to the Nephilim is at Numbers 13:33, where the scouts claim that the fearsomely large Anakim that they encountered were “of” (min) the Nephilim. This Hebrew construction could mean that the Anakim were “descended from” the Nephilim, though that raises questions about how the Nephilim could have survived the flood.¹⁶ More likely the point of the comparison is that the Anakites shared the characteristics of the Nephilim of old, not that they were actually related to them. In that case, Numbers 13 gives us a window into what the original audience of Genesis thought the Nephilim were like: tall and strong, fearsome and invincible in battle.

Given this, it makes sense to identify the Nephilim as the antecedent of the pronoun in the last part of Genesis 6:4: “they” would then refer to the Nephilim rather than to the children of the illicit unions described immediately before, so that the Nephilim would be the “mighty men” (“warriors”; gibborim) and the “men of renown” (or “men of name”). In that capacity the Nephilim represent a different manifestation of the growth of sin, namely, self-promoting violence rather than sexuality. Their sin lies in seeking to make a name for themselves through their military conquests rather than humbly calling on the name of the Lord, as the line of Seth had done (cf. 4:26). Not coincidentally, Lamech celebrated his deviancy in both his sexuality and his fame-seeking violence in 4:19–24; likewise the universal spread of sin in Genesis 6 demonstrated in both these areas. Yet, as the concentric structure emphasizes, what counts ultimately is not human striving but God’s action, here in judgment (and later in making a name for his chosen one, Abraham; cf. 12:2).

Notes:

On the early interpretation of this passage cf. Robert C. Newman, “The Ancient Exegesis of Genesis 6:2, 4,” Grace Theological Journal 5 (1984): 13–36.
This view is held by, among others, Augustine, City of God, 15.22–23; John Calvin, Genesis (1554; repr., Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1992), 1.238; Robert S. Candlish, Studies in Genesis (repr., Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1979), 123–124; Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, 324–331.
Justin Martyr, Apology 2.5 (cited in Newman, “Ancient Exegesis of Genesis 6:2, 4,” 21–22).
For this view cf. Meredith G. Kline, “Divine Kingship and Genesis 6:1–4,” WTJ 24 (1962): 187–204; so also Waltke, Genesis, 116–117.
Deuteronomy 32:8 has text-critical difficulties, but the reading “sons of God” rather than “sons of Israel” seems probable. Cf. Michael S. Heiser, “Deuteronomy 32:8 and the Sons of God,” BSac 158 (2001): 52–74.
It is possible to adapt the first view to take “daughters of men” globally as covering all women, not just the daughters of the line of Cain. On this understanding the sons of Seth were not deliberately marrying outside the line of promise but were carelessly marrying whichever women they chose, without reference to their origins. Cf. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, 330.
It is worth noting that Jude also cites elsewhere from 1 Enoch, which clearly adopts the supernatural being view; cf. Newman, “Ancient Exegesis of Genesis 6:2, 4,” 16, 28–29.
Calvin, Genesis, 1.238.
Cf. Vos, Biblical Theology, 48.
Cf. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, 329.
It is striking that in Genesis 5 it is explicitly Seth who bears Adam’s image, not Cain. Moreover, all the other uses of bene-ʾelohim occur outside the Pentateuch (with the possible exception of Deuteronomy 32:8).
Deception (2 Cor. 11:14; Rev. 12:9); persecution (1 Pet. 5:8; Rev. 2:10); seduction (2 Cor. 11:2–3; Rev. 19:2).
On the translation issues of Genesis 6:3 cf. Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26, 332–335. This is obviously not an absolute limitation of age, since Abraham lives to be 175 (Gen. 25:7), but after this point very few people exceed that number.
We may note the similarity to the temporal clause in Genesis 6:1 (“When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them”) as supporting the interpretation of this phrase in Genesis 6:4 as temporal rather than causal.
A connection that is likely behind the LXX translation, gigantes (“giants”), which was then followed by the KJV.
The Talmud suggests the unlikely possibility that one of them clung to the outside of the ark!

This article is by Iain M. Duguid and is adapted from ESV Expository Commentary: Genesis–Numbers (Volume 1) edited by Iain M. Duguid, James M. Hamilton Jr., Jay Sklar.

Iain M. Duguid (PhD, University of Cambridge) is professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary. He has planted churches in England, California, and Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous commentaries and articles.

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