There is a strange little verse in Genesis that has resulted in all kinds of fantasy novels, films, and unfortunate attempts at theology. That is the story of the Nephilim.
Much has been made about them, but the reality is somewhat more literary and less magical. The Nephilim are mentioned in three places in the Old Testament: Genesis 6:4, Numbers 13:32-33, and Ezekiel 32:27. However, their interpretation is not straightforward, and even the meaning of the word itself has been disputed.
The Meaning of Nephilim
The Hebrew word Nephilim means “fallen ones” or “those who cause others to fall.” The first meaning is more likely, given the root of the original word. However, translation by context is tricky because in Genesis the Nephilim are divine-human hybrids, in Numbers they are giants, and in Ezekiel they are fallen warriors in the underworld. That being the case, the meaning that most closely aligns in each passage remains “fallen ones.”
However, the word was often translated to mean “giants” in many ancient versions and in the King James Version. This is based on the translation of the Greek Septuagint, where the word Nephilim was translated as gigantes. This was an attempt to render the alien word ‘Nephilim’ into a meaningful translation. The Greek word for fallen ones is peptokotes, which is used in the Septuagint version of Ezekiel 32:27. The Latin version of the Bible rendered gigantes as “giants”.
But, gigantes does not mean giant as in a tall person. It was used for mythological beings and heroes of great strength, aggression, and power, who were not necessarily very tall. This is thematically fitting for the meaning of Nephilim, even though it was mistranslated to mean physical giants. However, the translation as giants affected later interpretations, such as 1 Enoch, where the Nephilim were described as being roughly 140m tall, which seems somewhat unlikely.
So, when we use the word Nephilim, we are talking about people or beings who are “fallen” and cause others to fall, who are powerful and aggressive, and, in some sense, understood to be more than human.
Key Bible Texts
The first time we encounter Nephilim in the Bible is in Genesis.
Genesis 6:4
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.
What this verse actually means is disputed. There are three main ways of interpreting the Nephilim texts. I will give two here, and the third one lower down.
The first one is the one I consider least likely. The phrase “sons of God” refers to the descendants of Seth marrying the descendants of Cain, thereby creating a lineage that was ‘fallen’ and unclean. This view was held by Augustine and by John Calvin, amongst others.
This is a simple explanation, but it does not fit with the other Nephilim texts and has limited acceptance, especially in the early sources. More importantly, the phrase “Sons of God” is used more specifically to mean spiritual beings or members of the heavenly court. In the earliest texts, this relates to vague heavenly powers similar to the stars and the sun; in later texts, these become angels or demons.
The other interpretation is the more popular and widely accepted one, which is that spiritual beings of some kind bred with human women to create hybrid offspring. This seems to be the clearer interpretation of the text.
Several deutero-cannonical books, including Jubilees and 2 Baruch, intertestamental writing, particularly 1 Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament letter of Jude, and the historical writing of Josephus, all support this interpretation. As do the church fathers Tertullian and Lactantius. 1 Enoch was particularly important for this understanding, and the letter of Jude quotes from 1 Enoch.
In this interpretation, angels see human women, lust after them, have sex with them, and in so doing, they fall and become demons. Their hybrid children are giants who are inherently evil. They became warlords and sorcerers. Some suggest that the Nephilim were responsible for creating cities, for inventing weapons, and for tempting other humans into sin. It was also suggested that Goliath was a descendant of the Nephilim.
These stories led to the idea of demons as fallen angels. In more modern interpretations, which still see Nephilim as hybrid humans, the sons of God were demon-possessed humans, although this interpretation lacks any kind of biblical or other ancient support.
At this point, the most likely interpretation of the text is that the Nephilim were the result of a union between spiritual beings and humans, producing hybrid humans who were powerful and aggressive.
The second Nephilim text comes from Numbers.
Numbers 13:32-33
They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
The first thing to note is that the great flood was obviously not effective at getting rid of the Nephilim. Suggesting that either they survived or that more Nephilim were made after the event. (An interesting aside at this point is the argument from some Old Testament scholars that the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim destroyed in the flood became the demons that inhabit the world to tempt and possess humanity. This is not a popularly held interpretation.)
The text is about Hebrew spies who go into Canaan to decide if it’s ready for the Hebrews to invade. One report stated that there were giants, the Nephilim, amongst one tribal group. Compared to the Nephilim, the Hebrews were like grasshoppers.
Now, this could mean that there were human-spiritual being hybrids in Canaan who were giants or very strong and aggressive, and thus dangerous. It could be that the spies really didn’t want to fight a war, so they lied about what they had seen. It could be propaganda after the fact to make the invasion of Canaan more justified and Israel’s victory more special. It could be leftover prejudice from their time in Egypt, where the Anak tribe was considered a political rival.
It is probably a mixture of all of the above. While there is no historical or archaeological evidence for any particularly above-average-sized people in Canaan at that time, that doesn’t mean there weren’t. But it does make it more likely that Nephilim means “aggressive and powerful” rather than “giants,” and that the invocation of the word Nephilim in Numbers is meant to signify the danger and evil of Canaan.
The final Nephilim text does not relate as strongly as the previous two.
Ezekiel 32:26-28
26 Meshech and Tubal are there, and all their multitude, their graves all around them, all of them uncircumcised, pierced by the sword, for they spread terror in the land of the living. 27 And they do not lie with the fallen warriors of long ago who went down to Sheol with their weapons of war, whose swords were laid under their heads and whose shields are upon their bones; for the terror of the warriors was in the land of the living. 28 So you shall be broken and lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are killed by the sword.
This translation from the NRSV continues the general translation tradition in this passage. However, Hendel, amongst others, argues that the Hebrew in verse 27 should be translated as:
They lie with the warriors, the Nephilim of old, who descended to Sheol with their weapons of war. They placed their swords beneath their heads and their shields upon their bones, for the terror of the warriors was upon the land of the living.
Here, Ezekiel refers to the Nephilim as undead warriors in the underworld and uses them as a motif, a lament, or a warning about the eventual destruction of all empires and people of power. Especially those who relief on their own might or power over that of God.
This text leans more towards the cultural idea and memory of the Nephilim than it adds to our understanding of them.
Children of Demons
In summary, the Nephilim have most commonly been understood as the hybrid offspring of humans and angels. This created fallen angels and fallen human offspring that were powerful, aggressive, mighty, and evil. The Nephilim became warlords and rulers, introducing violence, magic, and all manner of sinful things, and generally leading humanity astray. Not only fallen, but leading others to fall.
The continuation of Nephilim after the flood suggests that more Nephilim can be made, and so are possibly also existing today. Just as in the Bible, angels can eat and drink, so it seems they can also have sex. This provides another reason for the existence of particularly evil people in the world.
Historical-socio-political Interpretation
If we start with the assumption that spiritual beings did not have sex with humans, then we need to look at the Nephilim as a literary or mythological element to the Biblical text.
It has been suggested that belief in giant-sized heroes from the past stems from a culture encountering megalithic structures from prehistoric times, or the kind of stonework found in Mycenaean architecture called Cyclopean Masonry, which uses huge limestone blocks fitted together with minimal space between the blocks, using either clay mortar or no mortar at all. This is similar to Saxon myths about Stonehenge being built by giants, or to the attribution of the discovery of fossilised Mastodon bones to prehistoric giant races. This could have given the early Hebrews the physical evidence of giant figures, which supported or inspired their interpretation of the Nephilim.
A more important and I think central aspect to understanding the story of the Nephilim comes from viewing it as a critique or polemic against Mesopotamian hero cults and ‘religious’ narratives. This includes the Epic of Gilgamesh as one example of religious narratives in which heroes, especially children of the gods, were described as giant figures who were powerful, strong, and wise. These were linked to the Apkallu tradition in Sumerian Mythology, where semi-divine figures known as sons of the gods lived on earth and ruled as kings. These giants were leaders, kings, magicians, and wise ones. The Bible treats them differently.
Something often forgotten is that Judaism and the texts of the Old Testament are not that old. They are predated by thousands of years by Egyptian and Mesopotamian culture and religious beliefs. The creation story in Genesis stands in stark juxtaposition to both Egyptian and Babylonian creation myths. The prohibition given to Abraham against child sacrifice is extremely unusual in the Ancient Near East. The injunction against any physical representations of God is almost unique. The growing emphasis on monotheism only has one other example in that area.
The Hebrew scriptural tradition of the Nephilim acts as a polemic against their cultural neighbours. Rather than seeing these powerful heroes as wise and good rulers, or as mighty warlords, the Hebrew bible says that they are fallen and twisted creatures, something less than human, and evil destroyers of humanity. It’s like saying King Arthur or Robin Hood were Goblins who preyed on the weak. The Nephilim act as a critique of the Canaanite and Babylonian peoples – especially their divine figures – which acts as further justification for the Flood and for the prohibition against intermarriage for the Hebrew people in Canaan.
Conclusion
The reality of the Nephilim doesn’t have to be an either/or between socio-cultural phenomenon and spiritual reality. Maybe there were (are?) humans created through the union of a spiritual being and a human woman (the myths of the incubus are not uncommon, after all) who possess particular power and aggressive tendencies. Maybe the Hebrew scripture condemns them for what they are, and in doing so critiques and challenges the assumptions of the surrounding cultures in the Ancient Near East.
When we read the Bible, we should enter into the writer’s beliefs as much as possible, whilst being aware of the historical context. The Nephilim are a critique of Babylon and Canaan, a challenge to assumed religious traditions, and part of an explanation for why the world is as it is. But they are also a warning against getting involved with powers we don’t understand, or making alliances with the darker powers that lie behind the painful realities in our world.
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