English
Translation
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{
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And it happened that the man began to be many upon the face of the ground, and daughters were born to
them. (Gn 6:1)
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וַֽיְהִי כִּֽי־הֵחֵל
הָֽאָדָם לָרֹב עַל־פְּנֵי הָֽאֲדָמָה וּבָנ֖וֹת יֻלְּדוּ לָהֶם׃
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Genesis 6:1 reports
that “the man” (the human race) began to multiply upon the “face of the ground”
to whom daughters were born.
Here, the first important point to
note is the terminology used. This is not merely some group of men
with
daughters in Gn 6:1. Had the text intended to convey such an idea, it would’ve
read that “אֲנָשִׁים ’ănāšîm (= “men”) began to
multiply ….” Instead one finds the term הָאָדָם hā’āḏām used which refers to all humanity and its daughters – all that issued
from Adam. This includes both Cain and Seth’s male and female descendants (cf.
Gn 5:3),[ii]
just as the word הָאָדָם hā’āḏām indicates in Gn 6:6-7 only a few verses later:
English Translation
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{
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And Adonai regretted that He had made the man in the earth, and He was grieved to His heart. (Gn 6:6)
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וַיִּנָּחֶם יְהוָה כִּֽי־עָשָה אֶת־הָֽאָדָם בָּאָרֶץ וַיִּתְעַצֵּב אֶל־לִבּוֹ׃
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And Adonai said “I will wipe out the man who I created upon the face of the ground – from man to beast, to creeping thing, and to bird of the sky – for I am sorry that I made them. (Gn 6:7)
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וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶמְחֶה אֶת־הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר־בָּרָאתִי מֵעַל֙ פְּנֵי הָֽאֲדָמָה מֵֽאָדָם עַד־בְּהֵמָה עַד־רֶמֶשׂ וְעַד־עוֹף הַשָּׁמָיִם כִּי נִחַמְתִּי כִּי עֲשִׂיתִם׃
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English
Translation
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{
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Then the sons of God saw the daughters of the man that they were good, and
they took for them wives from all that they chose. (Gn 6:2)
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וַיִּרְאוּ
בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים אֶת־בְּנוֹת הָֽאָדָם כִּי טֹבֹת הֵנָּה וַיִּקְחוּ לָהֶם
נָשִׁים מִכֹּל אֲשֶׁר בָּחָרוּ׃
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Here, two points of inquiry are necessary to address. First, who were these “sons of God” or בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים bǝnê hā’ĕlōhîm[iv] according to just the Hebrew Bible? And the second, what exactly does the phrase “saw that they were good” mean? Could its plain sense reading also hold a frequently overlooked connotation?
The
answer to the first inquiry is rather straightforward with some clues immediately
apparent. In 6:2, one sees הָאָדָם hā’āḏām used to indicate humanity
– the same group from 6:1 that had daughters born to them. There is a clear
terminological contrast between the sons of God
and the daughters of humanity (= הָאָדָם hā’āḏām). So whoever these sons of God
were, it is obvious that they did not issue from הָאָדָם hā’āḏām and
therefore were biologically separate.
In identifying the sons of God,
it is necessary to survey all occurrences of the genitival construction בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים bǝnê hā’ĕlōhîm. And this construction is found
in only one other book of the Hebrew Bible – Job:
English Translation
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{
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And there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Adonai, and the satan also came among them. (Jb 1:6)
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וַיְהִי הַיּוֹם וַיָּבֹאוּ בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים לְהִתְיַצֵּב עַל־יְהוָה וַיָּבוֹא גַֽם־הַשָּׂטָן בְּתוֹכָם׃
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And there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Adonai, and the satan also came among them to present himself before Adonai
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וַיְהִי הַיּוֹם וַיָּבֹאוּ בְּנֵי הָֽאֱלֹהִים לְהִתְיַצֵּב עַל־יְהוָה וַיָּבוֹא גַֽם־הַשָּׂטָן בְּתֹכָם לְהִתְיַצֵּב עַל־יְהוָה׃
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When the morning stars sang aloud in unison and the sons of God shouted (Jb 38:7)
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בְּרָן־יַחַד כּוֹכְבֵי בֹקֶר וַיָּרִיעוּ כָּל־בְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים׃
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According to Job, the sons of God are heavenly-divine beings that
convened in celestial meetings. They shouted for joy at the creation of the
world and are synonymous with morning stars – symbols for divine beings.[v] But outside of Job, there is
one more place to examine. The book of Daniel bears an Aramaic cognate of the
construction בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים bǝnê hā’ĕlōhîm, only with a singular construct noun.
It reads,
English Translation
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{
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He answered and said "Behold, I see four men loose and walking in the middle of the fire without any harm. And the appearance of the fourth is as a son of (the) God(s) (Dn 3:25)
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עָנֵה וְאָמַר הָֽא־אֲנָה חָזֵה גֻּבְרִין אַרְבְּעָה שְׁרַיִן מַהְלְכִין בְּגוֹא־נוּרָא וַחֲבָל לָא־אִיתַי בְּהוֹן וְרֵוֵהּ דִּי רְבִיעָיָא דָּמֵה לְבַר־אֱלָהִין׃
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In this case, the בַּר־אֱלָהִין bar-’ĕlāhîn (= בֶּן־הָאְֶלֹהִים)
is a divine being that appeared in fire to save the other three. This data in
conjunction with the other data from the Hebrew Bible leaves only one
conclusion: the sons of God are divine
beings or angels.
A
second piece of data that needs to be addressed is the phrase “saw that they
were good.” Even to the cursory reader, the meaning of this seems obvious. But
intimation bears another clue. This exact phrase כִּי טוֹב … אֱלֹהִים וַיַּרְא = “And God
saw … that it was good” occurs systematically throughout the creation week. It
is a formula that denotes God’s
satisfaction with a fulfilled volition. Some examples include:[vi]
English
Translation
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And God saw the light that it was good.
And God divided between the
light and the darkness. (Gn 1:4)
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וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת־הָאוֹר כִּי־טוֹב וַיַּבְדֵּל אֱלֹהִים בֵּין הָאוֹר
וּבֵין הַחֹשֶׁךְ׃
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And God
called the dry land “Earth” and the gatherings of water he had called “seas.”
And God
saw that it was good. (Gn 1:10)
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וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לַיַּבָּשָׁה אֶרֶץ וּלְמִקְוֵה הַמַּיִם
קָרָא יַמִּים וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים כִּי־טוֹב׃
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And the earth sent out the green plant
seeding seed according to its kind and the tree producing fruit whose seed is
in it according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (Gn
1:12)
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וַתּוֹצֵא הָאָרֶץ דֶּשֶׁא עֵשֶׂב מַזְרִיעַ זֶרַע לְמִינֵהוּ
וְעֵץ עֹשֶׂה־פְּרִי אֲשֶׁר זַרְעוֹ־בוֹ לְמִינֵהוּ וַיַּרְא
אֱלֹהִים כִּי־טוֹב׃
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After reviewing the foregoing, Gn 6:2’s subtle clue should be
most apparent:
English
Translation
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{
} The Massoretic Text WLC |
Then the sons
of God saw the daughters
of the man that they were good, and they
took for them wives from all that they chose. (Gn 6:2)
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וַיִּרְאוּ
בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים אֶת־בְּנוֹת הָֽאָדָם כִּי
טֹבֹת הֵנָּה וַיִּקְחוּ לָהֶם נָשִׁים מִכֹּל אֲשֶׁר בָּחָרוּ׃
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These divine beings “saw” that female descendants of Adam were “good” to take for themselves. The application of God’s creative formula to these beings hints at their divine class and communicates a sense of divine corruption against absolute morality and God Himself. Adonai previously “saw” an untainted creation as “good,” but these beings “saw” it “good” to corrupt such. Therefore, the world was later returned to its initial state of primordial water.
The most
ancient opinions identify the sons of God
with divine beings. One example is Flavius Josephus, a Judean historian from
the first century ce. He writes,
For many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat
sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the
confidence they had in their own strength; for the tradition is, that these men
did what resembled the acts of those whom the Greeks call giants. But Noah was
very uneasy at what they did; and, being displeased at their conduct, persuaded
them to change their dispositions and their acts for the better; but seeing
they did not yield to him, but were slaves to their wicked pleasures, he was
afraid they would kill him, together with his wife and children, and those they
had married; so he departed out of that land. (Ant. 1:73-74)
The 2nd century bce
pseudepigraphic book 1 Enoch clearly understands Gn 6:1 ff. to be referring to
angels of God:
And the angels,
the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them, and said to one another:
"Come! Let us choose for ourselves wives from people, and we will beget for
ourselves children." (1 En 6:2)
Several other second temple period documents, too lengthy to
quote here, also identify the sons of God
in Gn 6:1 ff. with fallen angels.[vii]
In summary,
the usage of הָאָדָם hā’āḏām as denoting all humanity, the identification of the “sons of God” = בְּנֵי הָֽאֱלֹהִים with divine beings
(= “angels”) throughout the Tanach, and the divine phraseology of Gn 1 that is
applied to these sons of God all lead to one incontrovertible conclusion: Gn 6:1 ff.
reports that beings who did not issue from Adam, took daughters of Adam and
mingled with them, producing giants.[viii]
This warped mixing of divine ones with the earthly produced a warped offspring.
It seems Job 4:18-19 beautifully summarizes the matter:
Behold, he put no trust in his
servants; and his angels he charged with folly: How much less in them
that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which
are crushed before the moth? KJV
[i] הָאָדָם hā’āḏām
meaning “the man” in the most literal sense. In the corporate sense, by
synecdoche, this refers to the whole race that issued from “the (first) man,”
Adam. I’ve translated it here in the most literal sense for emphasis of
contrast as employed by the text, a point that shall be demonstrated.
[iv] בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים bǝnê hā’ĕlōhîm occurs with some variance in spelling. The definite article הַ (= "the") that precedes “God” is not a fixed spelling, for throughout the Torah particularly in Genesis and Exodus one finds the word “God” spelled with and without the definite article. Thus, the spellings בְּנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים bǝnê hā’ĕlōhîm and בְּנֵי אֱלֹהִים bǝnê ’ĕlōhîm make no difference in interpretation – cf. Gn 5:24, 6:11-12, Ex 18:19, et al.
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