Sons of God and Men of Renown

What Genesis 6 Teaches About the Sons of God, the Daughters of Men, and the Giants

“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” — Genesis 6:8 (KJV)

Author’s Note on Terminology: This paper uses the traditional Christian terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” for clarity. The author recognizes that the books of the Old Testament are the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, which Jewish tradition holds as complete Scripture in its own right, and quotes them with respect for that tradition.

A note on what follows. The interpretation in this paper is my best understanding of Scripture, reached by following its own examples and patterns. It is held to one rule above all others:

Rule 1: No Scriptural conflicts. No conclusion here may contradict any passage of Scripture. Where Scripture does not settle a detail, I say so plainly.

Scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pronouns for God and Christ are capitalized in the author’s own words; KJV quotations are left as written.

1. The Question

Genesis 6 tells of a marriage problem before the flood, not an invasion from heaven. “That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Genesis 6:2). Two verses later come the giants: “There were giants in the earth in those days” (6:4).

A popular theory says the sons of God were fallen angels. In this story, they came down, fathered children with women, and the children grew into a race of half-angel giants. The theory is told in books, films, and many sermons. But it is not told anywhere in Scripture.

In this paper I test the theory the way I test every question in my research. Rule 1 is simple: no conclusion may conflict with any part of Scripture. The method is just as simple: read the original words, then follow how Scripture itself uses them everywhere else. When I do that, the sons of God turn out to be people who believed in God and followed Him. The giants turn out to be mighty men of renown. And Scripture leaves zero room for angels and humans producing children together.

2. Two Lines Before the Flood

Genesis 4 and 5 set the stage by tracing two families. One turned away from God; the other called on Him.

Cain’s family begins with murder and walks away from God: “And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD” (Genesis 4:16). Generations later, his descendant Lamech boasts of killing too: “I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt” (4:23).

Seth’s family begins with worship: “to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD” (4:26). From this line comes Enoch, who “walked with God: and he was not; for God took him” (5:24). From it also comes Noah.

So when Genesis 6 opens, Scripture has already given us two kinds of people on the earth: those who call on the LORD and those who have gone out from His presence. Genesis 6 tells what happened when the two mixed.

3. Every Time Scripture Says “Sons of God”

Scripture calls someone a son or child of God more than twenty times outside Genesis 6. Every one of them is either one of God’s people or a faithful servant before His throne. Not one is a fallen angel, a demon, or an unbeliever.

Two things stand out. First, the title always marks belonging to God. Even the judges of Psalm 82 were men placed in God’s own service; their failure is why He rebukes them. Second, the only heavenly sons of God, in Job, are faithful servants who stand before the LORD and sing at creation. Scripture never once gives the title to a fallen angel.

That leaves the angel theory with a problem it cannot solve. If Genesis 6 meant heavenly beings, they would have to be the faithful ones of Job, and holy angels “neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30). If it meant fallen angels, it would be the only time in Scripture they carry God’s family name. The plain answer is the one Scripture uses everywhere else: the sons of God were God’s people.

4. Whom Scripture Calls the Devil’s Children

Scripture has a separate name for those who reject God, and it is never “sons of God.”

Jesus told the leaders who wanted Him dead, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8:44). In His parable, “the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one” (Matthew 13:38). Paul calls the unbelieving “the children of disobedience” and “by nature the children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:2-3).

John draws the line in one sentence: “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God” (1 John 3:10). Scripture keeps the two families separate by name, just as Genesis 4 and 5 kept the two lines separate. In Genesis 6 the sons of God belong to the first family. Their sin was not what they were but whom they chose to join.

5. After His Kind: Rule 1 and the Mixing of Kinds

Rule 1 settles this question by itself, because a mixing of kinds would break the order God built into creation.

In the first chapter of the Bible, God makes every living thing “after his kind,” and the phrase appears ten times (Genesis 1:11-12, 21, 24-25). When the flood came, God kept the kinds apart even on the ark: “Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind” (6:20). Later His law forbade mixing them: “Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed” (Leviticus 19:19).

Angels are a different kind altogether. They are spirits: “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire” (Psalm 104:4), “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). And a spirit has no flesh to father children with. Jesus said so after His resurrection: “a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39). He also said angels do not marry (Matthew 22:30).

Paul keeps the kinds apart even in the resurrection: “God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh... There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial” (1 Corinthians 15:38-40).

So the evidence lines up from Genesis to Corinthians. God made the kinds separate, kept them separate, and commanded His people to keep them separate. Scripture has zero record of angels or demons fathering children with humans, with believers, or with the sons of Abraham. A theory that needs that to happen conflicts with Scripture, and under Rule 1 it cannot stand.

6. The Daughters of Men: A Warning Scripture Repeats

Genesis 6 is the first time Scripture shows God’s people marrying outside the faith, and it would not be the last.

Notice how the sons of God chose: they “saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Genesis 6:2). They chose by the eye. That is the same pattern as the first sin: “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes... she took” (3:6).

From then on, God warned His people again and again against this same mixing:

• Abraham: “thou shalt not take a wife unto my son of the daughters of the Canaanites” (Genesis 24:3).
• Esau married Hittite women, “which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and to Rebekah” (26:34-35).
• Moses: “Neither shalt thou make marriages with them... For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods” (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).
• Solomon: “his wives turned away his heart after other gods” (1 Kings 11:4).
• Nehemiah: “Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things?... even him did outlandish women cause to sin” (Nehemiah 13:26).
• Paul: “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers... Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate... And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters” (2 Corinthians 6:14, 17-18).

Paul’s words close the circle. Those who stay separate from unbelief are God’s “sons and daughters.” In Genesis 6, the sons of God did the opposite, and Moses’ warning came true before Moses was born: their children were turned away from following God. By the time of the flood, only Noah’s household was left walking with Him.

7. The Original Words: Giants, Mighty Men, and Men of Renown

Genesis 6:4 uses three terms. Read in Hebrew, and followed through Scripture, all three describe powerful people, not a new kind of being.

“There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” (Genesis 6:4)

Giants (nephilim). The Hebrew word appears three times in two passages, once before the flood and twice after it: Genesis 6:4, and Numbers 13:33, where the spies used it twice of the people of Canaan. Genesis 6:4 itself says the nephilim were there “in those days; and also after that.” A name still in use after the flood cannot belong to a race the flood wiped out; it was a name for a kind of man and his reputation. (Other places where the KJV says “giants” translate different Hebrew words, such as rephaim, as with Og in Deuteronomy 3:11.) The English “giants” comes from the old Greek translation, which used gigantes. The root of nephilim is naphal, “to fall,” and Scripture often uses it for attacking, falling upon someone with force: “the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away” (Job 1:15). That fits the world of Genesis 6, where “the earth was filled with violence” (6:11). And notice the order of the verse: the nephilim were already “in the earth in those days,” before the marriages are mentioned. The verse never says the children of the marriages were the nephilim.

Mighty men (gibborim). This is what the children “became.” Scripture uses the word for strong, valiant men on both sides of faith. Outside it stands Nimrod, who “began to be a mighty one in the earth” (Genesis 10:8). Inside it stand the believers: the angel greeted Gideon, “The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour” (Judges 6:12), and Scripture lists “the names of the mighty men whom David had” (2 Samuel 23:8).

Men of renown (anshei hashem, “men of the name”). This means famous men. Scripture uses it inside Israel’s own camp: “two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown” (Numbers 16:2).

All three words describe what men did and how they were known: violent, strong, and famous. Powerful men of renown lived among the believers and outside them, before the flood and after it. None of the three words describes a mixed being.

8. When Scripture Means Size, It Measures

Scripture does describe some very tall people. When it does, it gives a measurement or says plainly that they were tall.

• Og: “For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron... nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it” (Deuteronomy 3:11).
• Goliath: “whose height was six cubits and a span,” with a coat of mail weighing “five thousand shekels of brass” (1 Samuel 17:4-5).
• An Egyptian: “a man of great stature, five cubits high” (1 Chronicles 11:23).
• A Philistine at Gath: “a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes” (2 Samuel 21:20).
• The Emims: “a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims” (Deuteronomy 2:10-11).

Each of these comes with a measure, a detail, or the word “tall.” Genesis 6:4 gives none. Instead it explains its own term: “mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” The Emims passage adds something too. They were “accounted” giants, reckoned as giants, and different nations called them by different names. “Giant” was a reputation as much as a height.

There is one more thing Scripture suggests. People before the flood lived far longer than we do: Adam reached 930 years and Methuselah 969 (Genesis 5:5, 27). Bodies that lasted that long may well have been larger and stronger too, and giants “in those days” fits that. Scripture never states early humans’ size outright, so I hold this as a likely inference, not a doctrine. Either way, a larger human is still a human, made after his own kind.

9. “As Grasshoppers”: What the Spies Were Really Afraid Of

The only other place the word nephilim appears is the spies’ report in Numbers 13. Read in full, it is a report of fear, and God Himself called it evil.

The spies began with what they actually saw: strong nations and fortified cities. “Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there” (Numbers 13:28). Then they listed the armies: Amalekites, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, and Canaanites (13:29). “We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we” (13:31).

Then the report grew: “And they brought up an evil report of the land... all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight” (13:32-33).

Look closely at the words they chose:

• “In our own sight.” The grasshopper was how they saw themselves. It measured their courage, not anyone’s height.
• “Walled up to heaven.” Moses later repeated their words: “The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven” (Deuteronomy 1:28). No wall reaches heaven. The report was built on exaggeration.
• “Which come of the giants.” If the nephilim had been a half-angel race, they would all have died in the flood: “And every living substance was destroyed... and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark” (Genesis 7:23). The spies were using an old name for a fearsome reputation, not a family tree.

Scripture uses “grasshopper” the same way everywhere else, as a picture, not a measurement. Before God, “the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers” (Isaiah 40:22). The Midianite armies “came as grasshoppers for multitude” (Judges 6:5). Nineveh’s captains were “as the great grasshoppers” (Nahum 3:17).

And “so we were in their sight” turned out to be the exact opposite of the truth. Forty years later, Rahab told the next spies, “your terror is fallen upon us... as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you” (Joshua 2:9, 11). The powerful kings were the frightened ones.

Caleb and Joshua had seen the same men and the same walls. Their report was different: “neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not” (Numbers 14:9). God’s verdict on the other report was severe: “those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD” (14:37). In the end, “Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak” (Joshua 15:14). The “giants” were men, and men of faith defeated them.

10. The Verses the Angel Theory Leans On

The angel theory points to two short passages, Jude 6-7 and 2 Peter 2:4-5. Read in full, neither one says angels had children with women.

Jude 6-7. “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

Verse 6 names the angels’ sin: they left their position and their home. That is rebellion, the war Revelation describes: “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon... and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:7, 9). Verse 7 is about Sodom, and the KJV places “in like manner” with “the cities about them”: the nearby cities sinned the same way Sodom did. The “strange flesh” was Sodom’s sin, not the angels’. The men of Sodom demanded the visitors, thinking they were men: “Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us” (Genesis 19:5). The angels were the ones pursued, and they struck the men blind (19:11).

Jude is listing three separate examples of judgment: Israel’s unbelief in the wilderness (verse 5), the rebel angels (verse 6), and Sodom (verse 7). They are not one story.

2 Peter 2:4-6. “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell... And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes.” Peter gives the same kind of list: angels, the flood, and Sodom, three examples, one after another. He calls the people judged by the flood “the world of the ungodly,” and he says nothing about the angels marrying anyone.

Where the story really comes from. The tale of angels fathering giants is told in the book of Enoch, a Jewish writing from the centuries before Christ that is not part of Scripture. Jude quotes one prophecy credited to Enoch (Jude 14-15) because his readers knew that book well. He met them on familiar ground to make his point about judgment, the way a preacher today might quote a well-known saying. Quoting one line does not make a whole book Scripture, and it does not make the rest of the book true.

Scripture does this in several places:

• Paul quoted a Greek poet at Athens: “as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:28).
• Paul quoted a Cretan prophet: “One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies” (Titus 1:12).
• Paul quoted a Greek saying: “Evil communications corrupt good manners” (1 Corinthians 15:33).
• Paul named Jannes and Jambres, Pharaoh’s magicians, whose names are never given in Exodus and come from Jewish tradition (2 Timothy 3:8).
• Jude himself tells of Michael disputing with the devil “about the body of Moses” (Jude 9), a story not found in the Old Testament.
• The Old Testament cites outside books too: “Is not this written in the book of Jasher?” (Joshua 10:13; 2 Samuel 1:18), and “the book of the wars of the LORD” (Numbers 21:14).

In every case, Scripture uses a familiar source to make its own point, without approving the whole book. When I set Enoch’s angel story beside the Bible, the story is in Enoch, not in the Bible.

11. The Judgment Falls on Man

If angels had caused the corruption before the flood, Genesis 6 would say so. Instead, every line of the judgment points at man.

“My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh” (Genesis 6:3). “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (6:5). “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth... And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created” (6:6-7). “For all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth” (6:12).

The story follows the warning God would later give through Moses. When God’s people married into unbelief, their children were turned away from following Him, until only one family was left: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD... Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God” (6:8-9). Noah was the last of Seth’s faithful line still calling on the name of the LORD.

Jesus Himself summed up those days, and He named marriage, not angels: “But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark” (Matthew 24:37-38).

That makes Genesis 6 a warning for believers today, not a tale about monsters. The danger before the flood was God’s own people trading faithfulness for what pleased the eye. Paul’s call still stands: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord... and ye shall be my sons and daughters” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18).

12. Conclusion

When Scripture explains its own words, Genesis 6 tells a human story with a lasting lesson.

• The sons of God were people who belonged to God. Every other time Scripture uses the title, it means God’s people or His faithful servants, and never a fallen angel, a demon, or an unbeliever.
• The daughters of men came from the line that had gone out from God’s presence. The sin was an unequal yoke, the first of many Scripture warns against.
• The giants were mighty men of renown, known for strength and violence, found among believers and outside them. When Scripture means size, it gives a measure; Genesis 6 gives none.
• The spies’ “grasshoppers” was a report of fear, which God called evil and Rahab later proved false.
• Rule 1 closes the case. God made each kind after its own kind, kept the kinds separate, and commanded His people to keep them separate. Angels are spirits without flesh who do not marry. Scripture has zero record of angels or demons fathering children with humans.

The real warning of Genesis 6 is still for us. God’s people can drift from Him one choice at a time, until only a Noah is left. But the same chapter holds the hope: “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” That grace is still offered to every son and daughter who walks with Him.

Sources and References

Scripture: all quotations are from the King James Version (KJV). Hebrew word meanings (nephilim, naphal, gibborim, anshei hashem) follow James Strong, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, with each word’s use traced through Scripture.

The book of Enoch (1 Enoch 6-7) is cited only as the source of the fallen-angel story, not as Scripture.

Related CJC papers

• The Shepherd’s Gathering — What Scripture Teaches About the Timing of the Rapture and the Last Trumpet
• Fear Not the Second Death — What Scripture Teaches About the Thousand Years, the Book of Life, and the End of Sin
• The Five Exoduses — God’s Pattern of Deliverance

Continuous Jubilee Calendar: Welsh, Chip. The CJC Research Kit and the CJC papers above, available at https://scripturescjc.com/.