Who Are the Nephilim (Genesis 6:1-4)?

If you’re engaged at all with popular culture, especially with fantasy or sci-fi movies, books, or TV shows, I’m sure you’ve come across a race of people called the “Nephilim.” Maybe you knew, or at least had an idea that they came from the Bible, but how close are the fictional depictions to what the Biblical text tells us about them? In fact, what does the Bible say about these strange creatures, people, or whatever they are?

Text and Commentary

There’s only one biblical passage that tells us anything substantial about the Nephilim, and that’s Genesis 6:1-4:

When mankind began to increase on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were good. So they took for themselves wives from any which they chose. And Yahweh said, “My spirit will not abide on mankind forever since he is flesh. His days will be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the land in those days and also afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind and they bore them children. These were the warriors of old, men of reputation.

The first part of the passage is set-up. Prior to this we’ve had the creation account, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and then a list of their offspring–or at least the prominent offspring of their son Seth–and how long each person lived. From this we get the idea that the earth is being filled with people.

I’ve translated the Hebrew ‘adam as “mankind” not to be politically correct but because I think this is more accurate. There are other words in Hebrew to differentiate “man” from “woman” and “male” from “female.” The term ‘adam here refers to the human race as a whole.

The passage tells us that an important aspect of mankind’s increase was, as you might well imagine, the production of daughters. This seems an obvious point, but it’s mentioned because it’s significant for what follows. These daughters look “good” to the sons of God. “Good” here is a very generic rendering of the Hebrew word tôv. Some translations prefer “attractive” or “pleasing” which are all perfectly acceptable. You get the point. And that point is underscored by the actions of the sons of God: They chose from whomever they wanted of these daughters to be “wives.”

What follows seems like a non sequitur. What has God shortening man’s days got to do with the sons of God taking wives from the daughters of mankind? I think there’s an implicit judgement here. The last time God curtailed the lifespan of mankind was when he ejected Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22-24). This was after they had disobeyed God in eating from the tree he had told them not to eat from. The reason God gave for banishing Adam and Eve from Eden was so they would not eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. The Lord did not want sinful mankind to live perpetually. However, as we can see from the extraordinary longevity of Adam and his progeny, the Lord did sustain people’s lives for many, many years. Perhaps the reason for this was to allow for people to “go forth and multiply” so they may fill the earth. That time was, it seems, coming to an end. And the actions of the sons of God with the daughters of mankind indicate that the rampant effects of sin had gone far enough. Lifespans needed to be curtailed further, and to that end, God withdrew his life-sustaining grace. Genesis 11 illustrates that while the 120-year limit was not immediate, there was a dramatic reduction in the number of years subsequent generations lived. It’s possible that “120 years” is not meant to be taken as a literal year count, but an average maximum. Few people today live that old, and even fewer live older.

The offspring of the union between sons of God and daughters of mankind are these “Nephilim.” The passage describes them as “warriors,” or “mighty men” of old, and “men of reputation.” I almost want to use the English term “legendary” to translate the Hebrew phrase, but that might give the impression these people did not actually exist. Also, when we apply the term “legendary” to people in our day, we often mean it in a positive sense, like Jimi Hendrix’s guitar playing, or Mother Theresa’s philanthropy. The Hebrew is literally, “men of the name,” which is why some translations opt for “men of renown” to try to convey the intent. However, “renown” is still, I think, too positive. “Notoriety” may be better.

But why would we want to label the Nephilim with a negative connotation? After all, they are simply the products of a sinful pairing. To answer that, we need to dig a little bit deeper into the nature of the Nephilim. Before that, I want to turn briefly to what I consider the biggest point of controversy in the passage:

Who Are “The Sons of God”?

All views on the nature of “the sons of God” boil down to two broad categories: They are human, or they are non-human.

Human

The term “son of God” is used to describe King David (2 Samuel 7:14), Moses (Exodus 4:16; 7:1), and even Israel (Exodus 4:23). Jesus applies the term to the Jewish authorities by way of a quote from Psalm 82 in John 10:34-38. So perhaps this is just a way of talking about ordinary human males. But they can’t be ordinary, because otherwise why draw attention to the fact they have such extraordinary offspring? And why should the actions of men and women fulfilling the creation mandate to “fill the world” result in judgment?

John Calvin believed the “sons of God” to be the descendants of Seth, and the “daughters of mankind” to be the descendants of Cain. In other words, what we have here is the inter-marrying of the “good” lineage with the “bad” lineage, and it’s this cross-breeding that God judged. It’s true that the previous chapter lists Seth’s genealogy, mentioning by name the sons. By inference we might then conclude that the “sons of God” are those very people chapter 5 listed. However, nowhere in chapter 5 are the sons of Seth called “sons of God.” Also, more than once it says that the person in question “had many other sons and daughters.” So in that sense, I don’t believe the two passages are connected.

Another view is that these “sons of God” are corrupt priests taking prostitutes as part of their worship. There are a number of problems with this, not least the fact that we have yet to have any mention of a priesthood or any kind of organized worship at this point in the Genesis account. Also, the “sons of God” take wives from whomever they choose, not just from a certain group of women.

A more plausible view is that these “sons of God” refer to leaders within the society. According to this view, these leaders are corrupt, taking wives for themselves, engaging in adulterous, perhaps even polygamous relationships. As we saw above, various leaders in Scripture have been given this title, so this wouldn’t be unusual. Genesis 4:19 mentions Lamech who had two wives, the first time we see polygamy in the Bible. Lamech also speaks proudly of committing murder (Genesis 4:23-24), so we’re to understand that Lamech is not a good person. Perhaps the sin of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 is an escalation of the sin of Lamech, where all men, or at least the leaders, are taking multiple wives.

Non-Human

The “non-human” view takes the title “sons of God” a little more literally. Not that God had offspring, or that these beings are divine, but they are of a spiritual nature.

The term “sons of God” has a parallel in the ancient Near-East. The Ugaritic term binu ‘ilī, “sons of God” is used to describe the 70 sons sired by the chief god of Ugarit, El. Clearly, the worldview of ancient Ugarit and the worldview of Genesis are polar opposite. Yahweh is not a chief God, but the only God. But different worldviews can borrow language, even if they mean different things by those words. And the recorded account given in Genesis is from an ancient Near-Eastern culture, so even if the theology is different, we might expect it to use language from that culture. Here it’s not referring to multiple gods, but to spiritual, non-divine, created beings. Maybe angels, or maybe something else.

There are, I think, two points that support this view:

• The reason the Lord gives for truncating mankind’s life expectancy is that he is “flesh.” What is the relevance of this fact, and what has it to do with reducing the number of mankind’s days? Maybe it’s the fact that humans are now engaging in relations with spiritual non-humans, and this kind of flesh/non-flesh pairing is taking Lamech’s sin to a whole new level.
• The description of the Nephilim. These weren’t just warriors. The Greek translation of the Old Testament, made a few centuries before Christ, translates “Nephilim” as gigantes, or “Giants.” In Numbers 13:33, the spies returning from the Promised Land describe the inhabitants as “Nephilim.” These were not the same Nephilim that somehow survived the flood, but rather they were the large, fearsome-looking sons of Anak whom the cowardly spies called “Nephilim” to scare the Israelites into giving up the plan of invasion. From this we get an idea of what characterized the Nephilim: their extraordinary size and ferocity. Perhaps this was a supernatural trait they received by virtue of their paternity.

Perhaps the strongest argument against this view is that it seems to introduce a kind of spiritual being that is not mentioned anywhere else in Scripture. The only way to avoid this is to refer to them as angels, which they might be. The word “Nephilim” is from the Hebrew verb nafal, and means “those who are fallen”–perhaps a reference to the fact that they are the offspring of fallen angels. Alternatively, “fallen” could refer to the fact that their exalted fathers fell from exaltation when they had relations with their mothers.

The World of Genesis 1-11

As we consider these options, we need to take a moment to consider what’s going on in this part of the Genesis narrative.

There appears to be a sharp delineation between the world of Genesis 1-11 and the world of Genesis 12 following. Not only does Genesis 1-11 contain the Creation account, we also have the goings on between the sons of God and the daughters of men, the Flood, and the Tower of Babel. People live extremely long lives, and there appears to be a lot more interaction between the spiritual and the physical. Perhaps most significantly, God communicates with his creation much more frequently and indiscriminately.

With Genesis 12, we begin the story of Abraham. From here on, almost exclusively God speaks only to certain people, notably Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron–those he raises up for specific purposes. His interactions with others (e.g., Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:31) are few and infrequent.

As Christians, we believe in the supernatural, so we don’t need to try to explain away such supernatural things. They happened, and we’re cool with that. So if we want to understand the “sons of God” as being some kind of spiritual being, that’s fine within a Christian worldview. The only issue to wrestle with is whether they are some never-before-and-never-since mentioned type of non-divine spiritual being, or they are angels. Alternatively, you might go with the understanding that they are human, in which case you need to wrestle with the nature of the Nephilim, and how being the offspring of regular human parents makes them all such gigantic and ferocious warriors.

So Who Are the Nephilim?

Quite simply, the Nephilim, as presented in Genesis 6, were the offspring of the sons of God (however you want to understand that term) and the daughters of mankind. They were mighty warriors, and noted for their extraordinary size and ferocity. From what we can gather, whatever the nature of their parentage, they were physical beings. And from the text of Scripture that’s as much as we can say.

This leads us to ask perhaps the most important question: What’s the point of this story? For that, we need to look at what’s going on in Genesis 1-11.

The Bigger Picture

The Genesis narrative begins with Creation, where God creates all things, including mankind, and calls it all “good.” In Genesis 3, mankind disobeys God, rebels against their Creator, and sin enters the equation. Sin didn’t stop with Adam and Eve, however. Their son Cain murders his brother Abel and tries to disavow responsibility for the crime. God punishes Cain, but also extends mercy by providing him protection. But sin continues through their offspring as we see with the mention of Lamech, a murderer and polygamist.

This brings us to Genesis 6, where the infection of sin throughout all of creation has its greatest expression: the sons of God taking wives from the daughters of mankind and producing gigantic, fierce warriors who now roam the land. Whatever we think these “sons of God” are, it’s clear that no-one in the created order has any thought of obeying the Lord and pleasing him. This is made plain by Genesis 6:5: Mankind’s wickedness is great in the land, and man’s thoughts and intentions are only for evil. Only one man finds favor in God’s sight: Noah.

With the Flood, God effectively hits the reset button. But he shows his love and long-suffering by sparing one man and his family, along with representatives of each kind of creature. These are commissioned with the task of re-populating the earth. However, the contagion of sin didn’t die in the deluge. Not that this surprises the Lord. He covenants with Noah, and in that covenant he recognizes that man’s heart is still sinful (Genesis 8:21). But God promises that he will not take such drastic action in future. The Flood account is a testimony not only to the Lord’s steadfast love for his people, but also to the deep-rooted problem of sin.

Indeed, sin manifests itself again with the Tower of Babel, and the desire of mankind to make a name for themselves (to become “men of reputation”). The Lord scatters mankind and confuses their languages to restrain them. Just as he didn’t want men to live long lives in their sin, he didn’t want sinful men to gain too much power. A sinful people with the power to do anything their sinful hearts desire would be a curse on the world (as the Lord has allowed us to see from time to time–think of Nero or Hitler).

So from Genesis 1 through to Genesis 11, God has been showing us quite graphically the power and ubiquity of sin. He has been demonstrating our need for redemption, a savior who will break the power of sin and make us right with God. He hinted at this with the promise contained in Genesis 3:15, but now it’s time to begin the fulfillment of that promise with chapter 12 and Abraham.

I hope this has been helpful to those who have struggled with these verses. Feel free to offer respectful, constructive comments or questions below.