Genesis 6

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. ⁹ These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. ¹⁰ And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

In 1895 a 23-year-old Stephen Crane published a book of poems entitled The Black Riders and Other Lines. He was inspired to write his brief poems after being introduced to Emily Dickinson’s work. The Wikipedia page on the collection states that “Crane told friends that the poems came to him spontaneously and as pictures, saying, ‘They came, and I wrote them, that’s all.’”[1]The poems are provocative. Crane was an atheist and many of the poems reflect his anger at the idea of God or at God Himself. They are very interesting and many of them are memorable. Here is the ninth of the poems:

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

One looked up, grinning,

And said, “Comrade! Brother!”[2]

From the first time I read that it stuck with me. I do not know how Crane intended for the poem to be interpreted, but it is very difficult for me as a Christian not to see a deep theological truth in these words: the world is fallen and the story of human history appears to grant legitimacy to Crane’s picture of a devil looking at a man and saying, “Comrade! Brother!” Human beings far too often do act like devils and the story of human history must tragically be seen ultimately to be what is called “a narrative of declension,” a story with a downward trajectory. We have already seen this in the way that the lineages of Cain and Seth are presented in the latter half of Genesis 4 and in Genesis 5. We see it to in the events leading up to the flood in Genesis 6.

In the first ten verses of Genesis 6 we see three portraits: of the many, of the One, and of the few.

The Many: Lost Humanity

Let us being with the many, by which I refer to lost humanity. Humanity’s narrative of declension is abundantly evident in the first verses of Genesis 6.

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.

This is a fascinating section of scripture and it involves some rather mysterious references to persons or beings that are hard to define. Consider verse 2:

the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose

Who are these “sons of God” who “saw the [attractive] daughters of man” and “took [them] as their wives any they chose”? Answering that question has proven notoriously difficult. Spiros Zodhiates has delineated three theories concerning the identity of the “sons of God”:

The first theory is that the “sons of God” are fallen angels and the “daughters of men” are mortals…This ancient viewpoint hinges in part on the assumption that Jude 1:6, 7 [⁶ And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—⁷ just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.] refer to these angels.

The problem with this theory is that (a) God’s punishing of mankind with the flood makes no sense if the sin spoken of here was primarily committed by angels, (b) Christ says in Matthew 22:30 [For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.] that angels do not marry and possibly that they are asexual beings, (c) the idea of human beings who are not descended from Adam presents a “theological difficulty.”

The second theory [is that] [t]he “sons of God” are reckoned to be the godly line of Seth while the “daughters of men” are the of the line of Cain. Thus the thing with which they are charged is one which is common to the whole of Scripture…the intermarriage of the chosen people of God (the believers) with those who are unholy.

The problem with this theory is that (a) “the term ‘sons of God’ [is] not used with this meaning in any other place” and (b) the association of only sons with Seth’s lineage and only daughters with Cain’s is problematic.

The last theory is [that]…“sons of God” was sometimes used to describe kings (Ex. 21:6; 22:8; Ps. 82:6,7 [⁶ I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; ⁷ nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.”]). Therefore the “sons of God” are immoral kings who used their power to take as many women and whatever women they chose.[3]

This third theory also has problems. While The IVP Bible Background Commentaryagrees that “the term ‘sons of God’ is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to refer to angels, but the idea of sonship to God is also portrayed corporately for the Israelites and individually for kings,”[4]John Walton has elsewhere pointed out that “there is no precedent for ancient kings as a group being referred to as ‘sons of god.” He concludes on that basis that “[t]his keeps open the possibility that this title could refer to royal elites, though a reference to members of the heavenly council certainly cannot be ruled out.”[5]

It is therefore difficult to say with certainty who these “sons of God” were. But that is not the only difficulty. Verse 4 actually presents us with three interesting portraits of mysterious groups.

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.

The three portraits are of (1) the Nephilim, (2) the sons of God, and (3) “the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.”

Concerning the Nephilim, Robin Routledge has offered a helpful etymology.

In the OT the Nephilim (נפלים) are referred to, specifically, only in Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33…The term, nephilim, may be related to the Hebrew verb נפל (näphal, ‘to fall’), suggesting that these are the ‘fallen ones’; though the nature of that fall is unclear. There may be a further allusion to Genesis 6:4 in Ezekiel 32:27, where the term נפלים (nophlim, ‘fallen’), the participle of נפל, occurs. Some also suggest a link with נפל (nëphel), which refers to an abortion or miscarriage (cf. Job 3:16; Ps. 58:8).[6]

This does not sound overly optimistic! The Nephilim are only clearly mentioned in one other part of the Bible. In Numbers 33, the Nephilim are mentioned by the spies who were sent to spy out the land of Canaan.

³⁰ But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” ³¹ Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” ³² So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. ³³ And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

This raises a rather obvious question: if the spies saw the Nephilim in Canaan after the flood, and they were mentioned in Genesis 6 before the flood, how did they survive the flood? While some have proposed that the lineage of the Nephilim survived through Noah’s son Ham via his wife’s genealogy, we cannot say for certain. Furthermore, there is another theory concerning the spies’ report, as Routledge explains:

It would appear, though, in the light of the lack of any previous, or subsequent, reference to the Nephilim in connection with the conquest narrative, that the specific reference to them here by the spies is only for rhetorical effect.[7]

This actually makes sense. The spies were scared at the mighty people they saw and drew on the terrifying and mysterious image of the Nephilim. Regardless, it is hard to define these three groups and it is hard to know how they relate to one another. Consider the verse again:

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.

This sounds like the Nephilim were contemporaries who existed independently of the sons of God impregnating the daughters of men. The “men of renown” would appear to be the offspring of the union between these sons of God and daughters of men. There is a note of conjecture in all of this, but something like this appears to be the case.

The exact identity of these groups and the exact nature of their relationship one to another should not lead us to miss the greater point that is being made here, which is this: humanity had degenerated into a convoluted mess of rule by the powerful, of the lustful and wanton taking of whatever women these powerful beings so desired without regard to God’s law, and of frightening characters who would haunt Israel’s memory on into the conquest of Canaan. In other words, this strange menagerie of characters speaks of the confusion and decline of humanity, further and further from Eden and the rule and worship of God.

Here is where Stephen Crane’s poem rings true:

I stood upon a high place,

And saw, below, many devils

Running, leaping,

And carousing in sin.

One looked up, grinning,

And said, “Comrade! Brother!”

Men acted like devils. But here we are confronted by an uncomfortable truth: the chaos of Genesis 6 is no different in our own day and no different in our own lives. Try as we might to distance ourselves from these ominous sounding verses, the reality is that the human race of every age knows what it is to seek power, to live greedily and lustfully. None of us are exempt.

Jesus put it quite bluntly in Matthew 7 when speaking about prayer. Listen:

⁷ “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. ⁹ Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? ¹⁰ Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? ¹¹ If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

It is almost an aside: “If you then, who are evil…” Jesus calls us evil. How devastating! But how very self-evident. This does not mean, of course, that we are all as evil as we can be every moment of our lives. It simply means what Paul says in a slightly less jarring but no-less humbling way in Romans 3:

²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God

So here is our first category: the many, that is, lost humanity.

The One: The Righteous and Loving God

Over against lost humanity we see the righteous and loving God.

³ Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

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.

We can see the righteousness of God reflected in His anger and regret at the sinfulness of human beings. First, we see that God limits the lifespan of man to no more, and usually less, than 120 years. In this way, the wickedness of human sinfulness was put in check. Then we find the amazing statement that God “regretted that he had made man on earth.” How are we to understand a perfect God “regretting”? We must realize that this kind of language represents the reality of the limitations of trying to communicate divine truths to mortal fallen beings. In short, all we have is language, and “regret” is an attempt to get at something beyond our understanding. R.R. Reno has offered a helpful take on this kind of language.

Our sin does not evoke an emotion of grief or regret in God, at least not of the sort we can identify in our own lives. Since God is the source of creation itself, we must think of God sorrowing only in a way consistent with the complete absence of the vulnerability, despair, and impotence that are so closely associated with human experiences of sorrow, grief, and regret—that is, God sorrows in a way unfamiliar to our experience. But this denial of an inner-worldly sense for divine sorrow does not make the verse meaningless. Reference to divine sorrow suggests that humanity is deeply relevant to God’s identity. What happens to us matters fundamentally to God, so much so that God cannot be God if our sin has the final say over the future of creation. In this sense, our sin grieves the Lord. It strikes to the quick of his inner life. Our sin enters into the love of the Holy Spirit that binds the Father to the Son, giving that love a specific, cruciform shape.[8]

I believe Reno is getting to the heart of the matter: God’s “regret” is fundamentally different from ours. This language is an approximation of a truth that is beyond the grasp of our minds. Even so, it does communicate something that really happens in the interior life of God, given His love for His rebellious creation. Thus, the best we can do is speak of God “regretting” and being “grieved.”

We also see God’s righteousness in His decision to send the great flood.

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.”

Behold the seriousness of sin! We are prone to laugh at, to giggle at, and to excuse sin in our day, but it is no laughing matter! Sin represents a radical distortion of God’s desire for human beings and for the whole created order. Thus, God decides to send devastating judgment upon the earth. Here we see the righteousness of God.

But we also see God’s love. One of the beautiful things about scripture is that no matter how dark and mournful and hopeless the picture gets, there is always a note of hope. We find this in verse 8.

⁸ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Do you see? God is perfectly just. He is rightly angry at sin, but He finds in the midst of lost humanity a remnant. How powerful! How life giving! How hopeful! “‘I will blot out man…from the face of the land’…But Noah found favor.”

There is always a glimmer of hope, church! And this leads us to our final picture.

The Few: The Redeemed Community

Noah represents the few, the redeemed community saved by God.

⁹ These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. ¹⁰ And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

In this sad narrative of declension, we find a narrative of ascension. While the mass of humanity goes down, down, down, it is granted to some to go up, up, up. To whom? To those who, like Noah, “walked with God.” Noah and his family are saved! Noah walked with God! Noah was among those spoken of at the end of Genesis 4 who called on the name of God! Noah believed! Noah trusted! Noah walked with God!

Do you see? You need not remain in the sad declension narrative, downward trajectory story of lost humanity! Through the grace of God you can rise! You can live! You can be saved from the coming judgement!

I love the imagery Moses used to describe Moses: “Noah walked with God.” Walked with God. What an idea! What an image! What a reality! Beautifully, Paul will use the same image in Colossians 2:

⁶ Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, ⁷ rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

Hear the Word of God: (a) receive Christ Jesus the Lord and (b) walk in him. As you do so, you will be “rooted and built up in him and established in the faith.” What is more, you will “abound in thanksgiving.” Why? Because you will know that salvation is a gift of God’s grace and God’s mercy. It is undeserved yet it is freely offered.

You do not have to live in the chaos of the Nephilim and the greedy and lustful sons of God and their mighty men of renown. All of these will perish in the flood. All of these are doomed to fall under God’s judgment.

But Noah…

But Noah…

But YOU…

All because of Jesus.

All because of Him.

 

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Riders_and_Other_Lines

[2]Stephen Crane.  Stories and Collected Poems.  (New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1997), p.11.

[3]Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Old Testament. Gen. Ed., Warren Baker (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 1994), p.17.

[4]John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews, Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), p.495.

[5]John H. Walton, “Genesis.” Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009, p.43.

[6]Robin Routledge, “The Nephilim: A Tall Story?” Tyndale Bulletin. 66.1 (2015), p.20-21.

[7]Routledge, p.28.

[8]R.R. Reno, Genesis. Brazos Theological Commentary on the Bible. (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2010), p.116.