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1 When 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. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 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. 5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

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The population of Adam’s offspring was growing exponentially, which was intended to be a blessing (Genesis 1:28). But with that growth came a preponderance of unrighteousness, which was a consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin (Genesis 3:16; Romans 5:12).

God was furious. Allowing His Sprit to remain with man after the Fall was an act of Grace. He gave His Spirit to mankind (Genesis 2:7) to provide life and to enlighten that life with the true wisdom that leads to righteousness (Ephesians 1:17; 1 Corinthians 1:30).

Now God’s patience had reached its limit. He promised to remove His Spirit (and thus life) from man “for he is ALSO flesh” (v.3).

[Note: The word “also” doesn’t appear in the ESV’s translation of v.3. However, it does appear the original Hebrew as well as in the KJV, NASB, and perhaps other more literal English translations.]

Remember that at the Fall, when God covered Adam and Eve with skin (Genesis 3:21), mankind took on a body flesh. That flesh was kept alive by Spirit. Now that Spirit would be removed.

120 years in v.3 doesn’t indicate the shortening of individual life spans to 120 years as some interpreters suggest. That would contradict every recorded lifespan from Noah until Moses (who himself lived exactly 120 years). There’s a helpful summary chart at the following site if you’re interested: creationwiki.org/Human_longevity

Rather, God said that He’d give mankind 120 years before He terminated the lives of those who chose not to repent. 120 years in that day, after all, was only part of a generation. In other words, v.3 refers to the flood. Thankfully Noah heeded God’s extension of mercy. Otherwise we wouldn’t even exist today.

I have much to write regarding the sons of God, the daughters of men, and the Nephilim in vv. 2-4. I have reserved this for the end of these study notes rather than inserting it in the middle where it belongs because some may not want to read it all.

I’ll begin by saying there are two ways to understand this that I consider equally compelling. The second is what I’ve taught for a long time; the first is where my heart and mind are today. I vacillate between the two and consider them both reasonable ways to understand this text.

INTERPRETATION #1 – A SIMPLE READING
A simple understanding of these verses fits the context and the flow of the Genesis story up to this point very well. Just before Chapter 6 we saw the line of Cain contrasted with the line of Seth. The line of Cain became wicked, the line of Seth (which ended with Noah) called on the name of the Lord.

If Seth’s godly male offspring are thought of as “sons of God” and Cain’s godless female offspring are thought of “daughters of men,” then Genesis 6:2-4 can easily be seen as Seth’s offspring becoming unequally yoked with the beautiful women of Cain’s offspring. Throughout the Old Testament and also in the New, God’s people are forbidden from marrying non-believers (1 Kings 11:1-8; 2 Corinthians 6:14; et al).

This diluting of the faithful caused God to regret creating mankind at all, so He announced that He’d give all of humanity 120 years to repent before wiping them out.

Unfortunately, the consequences of these mixed marriages between believers and non-believers were so extensive that all but Noah and his family rejected God.

Finally, in this interpretation, the Nephilim were simply mighty giants – either physically or in some other powerful way.


INTERPRETATION #2 – A WHOLE-BIBLE VIEW
OK. Buckle your seat belt. The first interpretation took very few lines to explain. This one won't be so compact, and the remainder of this post will be dedicated to explaining it.

In my opinion, the time and mental effort required to read through it is worthwhile. If you just want the conclusion, skip to the section called “CONCLUSION” at the very end.

To understand it, we need to understand some deep truths from the whole Bible. In fact, I’m going to begin with passages in the New Testament and work backward to Genesis.

Let’s begin with observations from 1 Peter 3:18-22.

1 Pet 3:"18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; 19 in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, 20 who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water. 21 Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you-not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience -through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him."

Peter gave 5 important facts about what happened during the 3 days between Jesus crucifixion and His resurrection.

1. v.18: Although Jesus was dead in the flesh, HE WAS MADE ALIVE IN THE SPIRIT (i.e., His body was dead but His spirit was alive, just as ours will be after we die).
2. v.19: While He was alive in the spirit, He went somewhere to MAKE A PROCLAMATION TO SPIRITS
3. v. 20: The spirits He proclaimed to WERE ONCE DISOBEDIENT
4. v. 20: The spirits’ disobedience occurred WHEN GOD WAITED PATIENTLY FOR NOAH TO BUILD THE ARK (There’s the connection to Genesis 6)
5. V. 22: Before Jesus was resurrected, ANGELS AND AUTHORITIES AND POWERS WERE SUBJECTED TO HIM

These raise 6 important questions:

1. WHAT MESSAGE DID JESUS PREACH TO THOSE DISOBEDIENT SPIRITS?
2. TO WHOM DID JESUS ANNOUNCE THIS VICTORY?
3. TO WHICH DEMONS DID JESUS PROCLAIM VICTORY?
4. WHEN WERE THESE DEMONS DISOBEDIENT?
5. WHAT SIN DID ANGELS COMMIT THAT CAUSED THEM TO BE KEPT IN ETERNAL BONDS UNTIL JUDGMENT DAY?
6. WHO ARE THESE SONS OF GOD?
   

For these answers we need to examine the whole Bible.

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Q1: WHAT MESSAGE DID JESUS PREACH TO THOSE DISOBEDIENT SPIRITS?

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To be made alive in the spirit, Jesus had to first die in the spirit - spiritual death being separation from God. I believe this happened at the cross, with the guilt of humanity upon Him. Thus when in Matthew 27:46 He cried out  “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” – He went through some kind of separation from God as all of the world’s guilt was put upon Him and God turned away.

Shortly after that cry of separation, Jesus’ words changed from calling God “God” and asking why He forsook Him to calling God “Father” again and committing His spirit to the Father (Luke 23:46). I believe those two cries represent Jesus dying in the spirit and then being made alive in the spirit.

So now, while Jesus’ body lay dead in the tomb, Peter says Jesus’ spirit “went.”

It went, Peter said, to a place of imprisoned spirits in order to make proclamation to those spirits.

It’s important to note that the Greek word used here for “proclamation” has a very specific meaning. It isn’t the word that means “preach the good news” (euangelizo). He didn’t go to preach good news to these spirits. There was no good news for them. Instead, Peter used the Greek word kerusso. That is a military term. It means to announce a victory. Military generals and kings would send heralds to announce (kerusso) their victories. That was the nature of Jesus’ message to the imprisoned spirits. Victory. Conquest.

So to answer this question, I believe Jesus preached a sermon of triumph over Satan and his angels (i.e., demons). He went to announce His victory over sin, over death, over hell, over demons, over Satan.

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Q2: TO WHOM DID JESUS ANNOUNCE THIS VICTORY?

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Remember, Jesus didn’t go to heaven yet. That will come later in v.22 after angels and authorities and powers are subjected to Him. Right now in Peter's account He is somewhere else. Peter says Jesus announced victory “to the spirits" (v.19). To what kind of spirits? Peter chose a very specific word, pneuma (πνεῦμα), which means “spiritual beings.” The New Testament always uses this term to refer to one type of spirit – angels.

[Note: There is one exception to this, Hebrews 12:23, where it refers to the “spirits of the righteous.” But the writer clarifies that usage in its context.]

I believe it is very clear in context that the imprisoned spirits/angels that Jesus proclaimed victory to were demons.

There is an eternal, conflict in this universe between God and Satan. Ever since Satan, the serpent, the Shiny One, learned in Genesis 3 that someone who was human-born would bruise his head and ultimately defeat him, he has fought against God’s purposes for man in every possible way. Throughout the Old Testament he tried to destroy the people of God in order to destroy the Messianic line. In the New Testament He tried to tempt Jesus into sinning so that God’s plan wouldn’t work. He later tried to destroy Jesus by having mobs kill Him. And after Jesus was dead, he tried to keep Him in the tomb by ensuring that soldiers guarded it.

You see, the demons of hell and Satan himself have always sought to destroy the work of Christ. In the moment of time Peter described here, Jesus was on the cross, bearing all sin. His life had been crushed out of Him and He was physically dead.

You know the rest of the story. But if you didn't, right now it would look like Satan and his demons had won, wouldn't it? So Jesus declared victory over sin and death to demons.

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Q3: TO WHICH DEMONS DID JESUS PROCLAIM VICTORY?

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These demons had overstepped God’s limitations and so were bound, or put in prison.

Some demons are not bound. God has limited them. He only allows them to do so much, but they are not imprisoned like the others Peter referred to. These unbound demons are the ones we wrestle against. Ephesians 6:12 says “we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against ... the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We wrestle against fallen angels. Demons.

Remember Legion, the numerous demons in Luke 8 who possessed a man? There were many, many of them. Jesus was going to cast them out, but they begged Him to not command them to go… where? Notice the answer: “They were imploring Him not to command them to go away into the abyss” (Luke 8:26-33). These demons didn’t want to become prisoners. They didn’t want to become even more limited than they already were. They were afraid Jesus would send them to the abyss, to prison.

And remember Matthew 8:29? Those demons were also afraid of Jesus. They asked Him “Have you come here to torment us BEFORE THE TIME?” They were afraid He would imprison them off of schedule. He cast them into the swine instead.

So in addition to holy angels there are fallen angels, often called demons. Some demons are loose, others are bound in prison.

The demons Peter mentioned in 1 Peter 3:18-22 were disobedient to a point that God had bound them in prison.

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Q4: WHEN WERE THESE DEMONS DISOBEDIENT?

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1 Peter 3:20 says they were disobedient "when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through the water.”

So their disobedience occurred during the 120 years Noah spent building an ark. There is a prison – aka an abyss - filled with demons who have been bound there since Noah’s day. They overstepped the boundaries God had established on their wickedness and were sent to prison because of it.

Things were utterly wicked in Noah’s time. We’re told in Genesis 6:5 that “every intention of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually.” That's why God had to drown the whole earth except for Noah and his family.

But humans weren’t the only ones punished at that time. Demon spirits were having a heyday back then. They ran riot through the earth doing their pleasure, filling the world with wickedness and hatred for God.

Peter says that those demons who overstepped their bounds in Noah’s day were the ones put in prison.

Now take a look at 2 Peter 2:4-5:
“For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly…"

Again, in his second letter, Peter makes it clear that in Noah’s day – which is the time period we’re currently studying on Genesis 6 – God punished “angels” (demons) by imprisoning them in “pits of darkness” (which is the very definition of an abyss) until Judgment Day.

But there’s more. Peter gives another illustration of judgment in the next few verses. 2 Peter 2:6-8: “And if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter; and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds)…”

Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their wickedness, but Lot was rescued because of his righteousness. When these angels sinned and were cast into the pit of darkness to await judgment, it was in the time of Lot, Sodom and Gomorrah and Noah in Genesis.

Now Jude 6-7 gives us a little more insight that brings us much closer to understanding the first few verses of Genesis that we are studying. If you’ve followed along this far, the picture will begin to clarify here: “Angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.”

Notice that these “angels” didn’t stay within their proper boundaries. They abandoned their proper homes.

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Q5: WHAT SIN DID ANGELS COMMIT THAT CAUSED THEM TO BE KEPT IN ETERNAL BONDS UNTIL JUDGMENT DAY?

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Verse 7 of 1 Peter 3 says these demon angels indulged in a gross immorality “IN THE SAME WAY” that the human residents of Sodom and Gomorrah indulged in immorality.

What type of immorality was that?

Well, in Genesis 19, some angels came to visit Lot at his home. These angels, who had taken on the form of human men, were beautiful to look at. Homosexual men of Sodom and Gomorrah saw them and wanted them so badly that they came to Lot’s house and tried to rape the angels.

Note that. Men of Sodom and Gomorrah wanted to have sex with creatures that were of a different type; we might say they wanted to have sex with “strange flesh.”

Take that phrase into Jude 6-7: “Angels… kept in eternal bonds... just as Sodom and Gomorrah... indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh.”

Like those men in Genesis 19, these imprisoned angels had sex with creatures of a different type than themselves.

SUMMARIZED CLEARLY: The men of men of Sodom and Gomorrah wanted sex with angels. The spirits who were imprisoned in Noah’s day wanted sex with humans – both sought “strange flesh.”

BACK TO GENESIS 6 and the sons of God co-mingling with the daughters of men.
We're back in the time of Noah, back in the time period when the angels Peter and Jude referred to were bound for pursuing sex with strange flesh.

Genesis 6:2-4 says “The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose... The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bore to them, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown."

Do you see the connection?

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Q6: WHO ARE THESE SONS OF GOD?

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I propose here that they were demons – the very same demons Peter and Jude spoke of who went after strange flesh and were imprisoned for it. The very same demons that Jesus visited to proclaim His victory between His death and resurrection.

It may bother us to think of the term “sons of God” as referring to demons. But doing so is very biblical when you look at the Old Testament. In fact, the phrase “sons of God” only occurs three other times in the Old Testament, all in the book of Job:

• Job 1:6: “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.”
• Job 2:1: “Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.”
• Job 38:6-7: “On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

In each of these verses the phrase “sons of God” obviously refers to angels, and in the first two examples it could easily be seen as referring to Satan’s angels, the unbound demons who came along with Satan.

So “sons of God” in the Old Testament always refers to angels. Why this phrase?

Because angels are brought into existence directly by God.

Humans living at this time were procreated, so in that way they were “sons of men.” But angels were created directly by God, so they would be “sons of God.”


CONCLUSION:
In this secondary, Whole Bible interpretation of Genesis 6, the text is describing angels who came down, looked at beautiful human women, and married the ones they wanted. These produced a generation of Rosemary's babies, a hybrid of demon and human. These were called “Nephilim.”


There is some debate, but it’s generally agreed among Semitic language scholars that the root of the word “Nephilim" (נְפִילִים) is the Semitic root word “Npl” (נָפַל), which means "to fall." That would mean that "Nephilim" means either “those who cause others to fall” or "ones who are fallen."

Numbers 13 suggests that they were giants, “mighty men," and "men of renown." ^{[See note at the end of this study]} What may have happened was that demons impregnated women and produced demon-possessed offspring who were very powerful, violent giants. Perhaps Goliath was one of them.

What would be their purpose in this? They may have been trying to produce some sort of unredeemable race – to corrupt the human stream. And that's one reason God would have had to drown the whole earth - to drown that unholy half-demon race. And then as God wiped out the earth, He permanently bound those demons before their time. For them to exist later in Numbers, other evil angels must have done this again after the flood. ^{[See note at the end of this study]}

I’ll close with two passages from scripture:

• Revelation 9:2-6 [The imprisoned demons are released, but with limitations]
  2 “When he opened the Abyss, smoke rose from it like the smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. 3 And out of the smoke locusts came down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. 4 They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 5 They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months. And the agony they suffered was like that of the sting of a scorpion when it strikes a man. 6 During those days men will seek death, but will not find it; they will long to die, but death will elude them.”
  
• Colossians 2:15 [Jesus’ victory over the dark, spiritual rulers and authorities]
  "[At the cross Jesus] disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”

ABOUT ANGELS: Following is a simple graphic I put together for myself to wrap my head around the various types of angels and which ones are bound or loose: