The Problems of Sons of Gods, Daughters of Humans, and the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1–4: A Reassessment

Abstract

This article engages with earlier scholarly discussions on Genesis 6:1–4 and proposes that, contrary to the majority view, Genesis 6:1–4 does not presuppose knowledge of the flood narrative. Instead, its primary literary role is to introduce the Nephilim in anticipation of the forthcoming land promise and conquest narrative. I argue that the Nephilim are not necessarily read as divinely inspired beings but are instead associated with other pre-Israelite settlers characterized by their immense size. The inconsistent biblical depiction of the promised land—including the Transjordanian territory—and the conflation of various giant terms further suggest that the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 are linked to the broader conquest narrative and associated traditions, particularly the eradication of giant groups such as the Rephaim.

1. The Problems

Scholars have long recognized the cruxes of understanding Genesis 6:1–4. The first difficulty arises from its immediate literary context. In the final form of the Hebrew Bible, the episode is preceded by two genealogies, namely, Cain and Seth’s in Genesis 4:17–26 and Adam’s in Genesis 5:1–28, 30–32. It is then followed by the flood narrative in Genesis 6:5–8:22. Having recognized it as a distinct literary unit, earlier scholars attempted to read Genesis 6:1–4 as a prelude to the flood story. For example, in his commentary on Genesis, Speiser titled Genesis 4:1–4 “prelude to disaster,” noting that “the story of the primeval titans emerges as a moral indictment, and thereby as a compelling motive for the forthcoming disaster” (Speiser 1964, pp. 44–46). Similarly, Robert Davidson referred to the passage as “the prologue to the flood story” (Davidson 1973, p. 68), and Ronald Hendel argued that “the story of the mingling of gods and mortals and the procreation of the demigods was originally connected to the flood narrative and functioned as its motivation” (Hendel 1987, p. 16). In a later work, Hendel reiterated this view, arguing that “in its context as a prologue to the flood, Genesis 6:1–4 serves as one of several illustrations of human evil or corruption” (Hendel 2004, p. 30). J. A. Soggin likewise remarked that “the present function of the text is to show the increase of sin among human beings; and this increase is one of the prerequisites for the Flood” (Soggin 1996, p. 136).

The juxtaposition of the episode in Genesis 6:1–4 with the flood story proved to be a popular interpretation already in the late Second Temple period as shown in the Watchers story in 1 Enoch 6–11 and Jubilees 5, as well as later in Targum Neofiti and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan. While this post-biblical interpretive tradition has had a long-lasting influence in shaping the canonical reading of the flood narrative, I would like to suggest another direction for interpreting this passage by focusing on its pre-canonical formation. The content of Genesis 6:1–4 stands on its own and does not necessarily rely on the flood narrative for its narrative logic and meaning. To be sure, there is a play on keywords between Genesis 6:1–4 and Genesis 6:6–8, which suggests a strong literary bond between the two units.1 Nevertheless, the lexical connection alone does not indicate that Genesis 6:1:4 primarily functions to introduce the cause of the flood. The second problem of Genesis 6:1–4 complicates this association. In this brief episode, we encounter not only the unusual imagery of the encounter between the sons of gods and the daughters of humans, but also the description that the Nephilim were present on the earth in those days. These figures are also identified as the warriors (הגברים) of old, men of renown. The only other biblical reference to the Nephilim appears in Numbers 13:33, where the leaders of the Israelite tribes, sent to spy out the land of Canaan, report what they have seen. According to their account, the Nephilim are obviously linked to giants. The two rather idiosyncratic presentations of the Nephilim raise a question: why are the giant Nephilim, who otherwise appear only in the conquest narrative of the Hexateuch, introduced in the episode of Genesis 6:1–4?

The third issue concerns a philological problem in verse 3. The two words in this verse—ידון and בשגם—are hapax legomena, which makes it difficult to pinpoint their exact meanings. Nevertheless, I will propose the most plausible interpretation that fits the context and argue that verse 3 is not a later editorial addition, as some scholars have suggested,2 but an integral part that constitutes the narrative logic of Genesis 6:1–4. In light of the three problems identified, this article reassesses the literary-historical questions surrounding Genesis 6:1–4. Contrary to the prevailing scholarly view that the pericope’s intrinsic function is to provide the rationale for the flood narrative, I contend that Genesis 6:1–4 was originally an independent tradition with no direct connection to the flood story.3 Its core narrative interest rather lies in the introduction of the Nephilim. Consequently, the apparent connection to the deluge, suggested by shared lexical material in Genesis 6:5–8, should be understood as a subsequent editorial seam, consciously woven by the author-editor of the flood story, not the composer of the Nephilim account.

2. The Secondary Nature of the Connection to Flood Narrative

The most compelling evidence for the passage’s independence from the flood narrative is internal to the pericope itself. When analyzed on its own terms, Genesis 6:1–4 reveals no explicit moral judgment that would precipitate a worldwide disaster. Verse 1 simply initiates a new narrative unit with a standard temporal clause, ויהי כי. The narrative unfolds sequentially: as the human population increased and daughters were born, the sons of gods perceived the beauty of these women and chose wives from among them (vv. 1–2). Here, the adjective טבת (“beautiful”) lacks any moral overtone in this context. Its semantic value is primarily aesthetic, closer to the meaning of “attractive in appearance,” a reading supported by its position as the object of “seeing” (ויראו).4 This scene is followed by a divine speech from Yahweh limiting the human lifespan to 120 years (v. 3).

The passage culminates in the introduction of the Nephilim, framing their origin against the backdrop of the union between divine beings and human women (v. 4). Crucially, no term in this narrative connotes the wickedness, corruption, or violence that the Priestly (Gen 6:11–12) and non-Priestly (Gen 6:5–7) sources explicitly identify as the rationale for the flood. Moreover, a significant discrepancy is noted if one assumes Genesis 6:1–4 is part of the non-P prologue to the flood story along with Genesis 6:5–8.5 The latter passage locates the cause of the flood squarely in the evil inclination of the human mind (v. 5), whereas Genesis 6:1-4 describes an event initiated not by humans, but by divine beings—the “sons of gods”—who chose human wives. In the latter narrative, it is the sons of gods who take the initiative. If this action were understood by the non-P author as an evil warranting a global catastrophe, why are the sons of gods completely absent from the flood story? By the same token, if the Nephilim were considered the culpable evildoers, the primary justification for the flood, where are they in the flood narrative? Even more perplexing is the post-flood reappearance of the Nephilim as inhabitants of Canaan (Num 13:33). The stated purpose of the flood, in both the non-P (6:7) and P (6:13) traditions, was the complete extermination of all flesh from the earth. The survival of the Nephilim beyond this cataclysm is not just a narrative inconsistency; it directly subverts the flood narrative’s theological premise. If the Nephilim were indeed a cause of the disaster, one would expect them to be exterminated. However, they reappear in the conquest narrative as if the flood never happened.6

I argue that the most plausible scenario to explain these discrepancies is that no intrinsic literary link existed between Genesis 6:1–4 and the core flood narrative (Gen 6:5–9:19) during their pre-canonical formation. The compositional agenda of Genesis 6:1–4 is not concerned with an upcoming disaster; rather, their primary interest was in introducing the Nephilim in the context of humanity’s growth on the earth.7 In this reading, Genesis 6:1–3 relates more closely to the preceding genealogies that chronicle the increase in the human population. If knowledge of the flood story is not presumed when Genesis 6:1–4 was composed, to what, then, does the narrative lead?

The argument for the passage’s independence is further strengthened by textual elements outside of Genesis 6:1–4. Specifically, the portrayal of Noah in Genesis 9:20-27 as a vintner seems independent of the flood hero in Genesis 6:5–9:19, implying the former narrative does not presume knowledge of the latter.8 It is also significant that the name “Canaan” is introduced toward the end of the so-called primeval history as an individual (Gen 9:18, 25-27; 10:15), a people (Gen 10:18), and a geographical location (Gen 10:19; 11:31). The cluster of references clearly anticipates the subsequently narrative arc, namely the establishment of the population identified as the “Hebrews” through the land promise given to Abram (Gen 12:1–2). In this light, the otherwise disconnected appearances of Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33, though spatially and chronologically remote, share a literary link that points toward the theme of the land conquest. As Brian Doak has demonstrated, the biblical descriptions of various giants tend to conflate them with one another (Doak 2012, pp. 51–118). This feature suggests that the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 functions not only as a specific clan of giants, prior to their appearance in Numbers 13:33, but also as archetypes for the pre-Israelite gigantic settlers that the Israelites would face in the conquest narrative.

3. The Giants in the Conquest Narrative

In addition to the identification of the Nephilim as warriors in Genesis 6:4, the passage in Numbers 13:33 further provides a scribal comment that the sons of Anaq (בני ענק) are “from the Nephilim.” The same report states that the Israelite spies sent by Moses had seen the descendants of Anaq in the land (Num 11:28). A parallel version of this report in Deuteronomy likewise describes the land’s inhabitants as greater and taller than the Israelites, specifically mentioning the “sons of Anaq” (Deut 1:28). The Deuteronomic account further conflates these groups, absorbing other giant traditions into this Anaqim–Rephaim lineage. The Anaqim are identified with the Emim (האמים), a strong and tall people who formerly lived in Moab (Deut 2:10). Immediately after that, the text clarifies that these Emim are considered Rephaim (רפאים), while only the Moabites call them Emim (Deut 2:11). According to this description, the Emim and Rephaim belong to a common gigantic lineage. They are also equated with Anaqim. This conflation is reinforced in depicting the Israelites’ journey through Transjordan, where the land of Ammon is called “the land of Rephaim” since they used to live there. Like the Moabites, the Ammonites had their own name for this group: Zamzummim (זמזמים). Here again the Rephaim are identified with Anaqim at least when it comes to their size (Deut 2:20–21).

These scattered descriptions of various giant groups appear to blur identical boundaries. According to the Deuteronomic tradition, the terms Rephaim, Anaqim, Emim, and Zamzummim all designate the same legendary giants who had settled in Transjordan; to the Israelites, they were known primarily as the warrior figure, the Rephaim.9 What is more, the conflation of the Nephilim with sons of Anaq in Numbers 13:33 suggests that “Nephilim” became a general designation for the gigantic figures who occupied Cisjordan, including Canaan, prior to the Israelite conquest. While the text never explicitly equates the Nephilim (of Cisjordan) with the Rephaim (of Transjordan), it forges an indirect link through their shared identification with the Anaqim.10

The meaning of these conflations should be understood in connection with the biblical traditions of the land promise and conquest. Notably, the description of the promised land is not homogeneous across the biblical texts. According to the book of Joshua, the conquest of the land begins only after the Israelites cross the Jordan River and arrive at Gilgal (Josh 3–4), a view in which Transjordan is not considered part of the promised land proper (cf. Josh 3:10). In contrast, as Moshe Weinfeld has shown, other biblical traditions, especially in Deuteronomy, regard the Transjordanian territory as a legitimate portion of the promised land (Weinfeld 1983, pp. 67–69). For instance, Deuteronomy 2:24–25 marks the beginning of the conquest not at the Jordan, but at the crossing of the Arnon River, the boundary of Moab between Moab and the Amorites. Yahweh’s explicit command to conquer the land of Moab and its king Sihon further confirms the Transjordan territory was considered a legitimate part of Israel’s promised inheritance. This expanded view on the range of border, which includes Transjordan, is also presented in Moses’s speech to the Israelites, which declares that “your borders shall extend from the River—the Euphrates—to the Mediterranean Sea” (Deut 11:24b). Similarly, Exodus 23:31 sets the borders in Yahweh’s voice: “I will set your borders from the Sea of Reeds to the Sea of Philistia, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates.” Intriguingly, the foundational land covenant with Abram not only defines the territory from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates but also lists the Rephaim alongside the Kenites, Kenizzites, and Kadmonites in addition to the six nations more typical of conquest lists (Gen 15:18–21).11 The inclusion of the Rephaim in this seminal promise serves to legitimize the conquest of lands on both the west and east of the Jordan. Likewise, the introduction of the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 can be understood as foreshadowing the conquest, which involves encounters with native gigantic settlers, including both the Nephilim and the Rephaim.

4. Delimiting the Divine–Human Boundary

Earlier scholarship, possibly influenced by later traditions like the Targumim and 1 Enoch, often considered that the Nephilim are the offspring of the sons of gods and human daughters, thereby attributing mythical, semi-divine status to them (see, e.g., Alter 1996, p. 25; Cassuto 1961, p. 298; Hendel 2004, p. 16; Westermann 1984, p. 378; Routledge 2015, pp. 28–29). However, the Hebrew syntax of the Masoretic Text in Genesis 6:4 is not straightforward enough to conclude that the Nephilim are the object of the birthings but rather suggests a different relationship. The verse begins by introducing the Nephilim’s presence: “The Nephilim were on earth in those days (and also afterwards)12 when the sons of the gods used to come to the daughters of the human.” Here, the use of yiqtol verbal form (יבאו) in a past-tense context is understood in an iterative or durative sense (Joosten 2012, p. 286). The subsequent phrase, וילדו להם, a weqatal verb, continues this iterative meaning (Joosten 2012, p. 307). Therefore, this sequence of repeated actions—that is, the coming and birthing—does not necessarily precede the existence of the Nephilim on earth. Instead, the sentence structure conveys a reverse meaning: Nephilim already existed in those days when divine beings and humans used to have sexual intercourse and give birth (see also Day 2012, pp. 432–33). As such, the qatal verb היו denotes a more distant past relative to the time period indicated by the yiqtol–weqatal sequence (Joosten 2012, p. 195).

Furthermore, the verb וְיָלְדוּ, vocalized as a qal, lacks an explicit direct object. According to Hendel’s analysis, the J source systematically uses the qal conjugation of ילד for both male and female agents, whereas the P source and other late biblical texts resolve this ambiguity by using the hifil stem for a male agent (“to beget”) and the qal stem for a female agent (“to give birth”) (Hendel 2000, pp. 39–41). Consequently, the semantic agent of the verb in Genesis 6:4 could be either the mothers (i.e., the human daughters) or the fathers (i.e., the sons of gods).13 In either case, the problem of the unidentified direct object remains. If the agent is male, one would expect a direct object marked with the nota accusativi את, as in Genesis 4:18 (ועירד ילד את מחויאל, “and Irad begot Mehujael”). The same syntax applies if the agent is female (see, e.g., Gen 4:17, 20).14 Perhaps the only way to make the Nephilim the offspring is to emend the vocalization to a qal internal passive (“they were born”), similar to the form in verse 1. However, the Samaritan Pentateuch’s rendition of the verb as the hifil conjugation ויולידו (“they begot”), rather than as the nifal, discourages such an emendation.15

The unique usage of verbal tenses, together with the ambiguous object of the verb וילדו, support the alternative reading that the Nephilim were not intended to be understood as the offspring of the sons of gods and human daughters. In other words, their origin is not presented as semi-divine hybrids or supernatural. Their existence on earth is already presumed alongside other human generations before the unions between human daughters and divine beings took place. Therefore, just as the sons of Anaqim are referred to as a “people” (עם) by the Israelites (Deut 9:2) and the Rephaim are listed among the populations in the land to be conquered alongside the Amorites and Canaanites (Gen 15:19–21), the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 should also be understood as being genuinely human in nature.

The incident between the sons of gods and human daughters concludes in verse 3 with Yahweh’s decree delimiting the divine–human boundary. As argued previously, nothing in the description of this union is explicitly condemned as morally negative. Instead, Genesis 6:3, as the climax of the narrative, emphasizes a threat perceived by Yahweh. This kind of theme, namely a divine reaction to the human potential to be like gods is also central to Genesis 3, where Yahweh expresses concern to the members of the divine council that “the human” (האדם) has become like one of them knowing good and evil.16 Consequently, Yahweh blocks access to the tree of life to prevent humanity from any possible way to gain immortality (Gen 3:22–24). Similarly, Genesis 11 describes Yahweh’s anxiety that humanity’s collective action in building a city and tower is the beginning of what they are going to do and that nothing will be impossible for them. As a response, Yahweh decided to confuse their language to limit a human potential that might threaten the divine realm (Gen 11:6–8). Genesis 6:3 functions in precisely the same manner. Yahweh’s limitation of the human lifespan is, therefore, a divine countermeasure to a perceived threat against the cosmic boundary, intended to establish and enforce the separation between mortals and gods. It is important to emphasize again that in none of these cases is the divine decision prompted by sinful human action. It is, rather, a divine countermeasure to a perceived threat against the cosmic order. Accordingly, these decrees should not be interpreted primarily as punishments, but as preemptive actions to maintain divine boundaries. With this thematic framework in place, let us turn to the philological problems in verse 3.

First, the meaning of the verb יָדוֹן is a long-standing philological puzzle. An older argument, based on the root דין (“to judge”), has largely been abandoned as it fits neither the vocalization nor the context.17 The most prevalent reading is “to remain” or “abide,” which aligns with textual witnesses, including the LXX, the Peshitta, and a Qumran paraphrase (ידור in 4Q252), favors a derivation from the root דור “to dwell.”18 While Moshe Bernstein correctly notes that ידור is not to be considered as a primary textual witness from a biblical quotation, but rather as a paraphrase (Bernstein 2013), its meaning does not betray its context, where Yahweh limits the human lifespan (i.e., Yahweh’s sprit does not dwell in flesh forever). At the same time, the attested form and vocalization in the MT strongly suggests that the most plausible verbal root is the geminate דנן*, an identification some scholars have proposed.19 Although this root is unattested as a verb in Biblical Hebrew, its Akkadian cognate danānu (“to be strong”) would suggest an interpretation like, “my spirit shall not be strong in human forever.” Yet this reading is still dubious in context. What would it mean that the spirit is strong? The passage concerns Yahweh’s decision to make humans absolutely mortal by limiting their lifespan. Other biblical descriptions of human death similarly portray it as Yahweh taking away breath (רוח).20 The challenge, therefore, is to find a meaning that respects both the MT’s form (דנן) and the context (“dwell/remain”). Previously, Umberto Cassuto provided the compelling solution by drawing on broader Semitic evidence. He noted that a cognate Arabic verb from the same geminate root means “to remain, dwell” in the fourth conjugation (Cassuto 1961, p. 295; see also Lane 1867, p. 917). He further demonstrated that an Akkadian substantive, dinnû (“describing a bed”),21 is derived from the geminate root danānu but is semantically closer to the Arabic verb “to dwell” than to the primary Akkadian meaning “to be strong.” (Cassuto 1961, p. 296) This suggests that the root dnn had a semantic range that included “to dwell,” likely as a homonym. Hence, one can reason that the verbal root of ידון derives from the geminate root *דנן without being forced to adopt the contextually difficult meaning “to be strong,” thereby resolving the philological dilemma.

Secondly, concerning the hapax legomenon בְּשַׁגַּם, there is near-unanimous agreement that it comprises the preposition ב, the relative pronoun ש, and the particle גם, yielding the meaning “since also, because of.”22 Still, the primary problem with this analysis lies in the distribution of the relative pronoun ש, which is almost exclusively restricted to late books such as Qohelet, Ezra, and Chronicles. In the prose section of Genesis to 2 Kings, the relative pronoun is consistently אשר.23 Rather than posit another exception to this standard distribution, I propose that the word in question is a rare archaic noun denoting “flesh,” possibly cognate with the Classical Ethiopic śəgā (“flesh, meat as opposed to spirt, body, corpse”).24 In this reading, the following phrase, הוא בשר is a secondarily made scribal annotation, using a deictic element הוא to clarify the meaning of the archaic word שגם with the common Biblical Hebrew term בשר.25 Taken together, I propose a new translation of verse 3 as follows: “Yahweh said, ‘My breath will not stay in human forever, in šagam (that is, flesh); and his days shall be 120 years.”

5. Summary and Conclusions

In this article, I have both built on and challenged previous scholarly discussions on Genesis 6:1–4 and argued, contrary to the majority view, that it does not presuppose the flood narrative. Instead, its primary literary function is to introduce the Nephilim in anticipation of the land promise and conquest narrative. I have demonstrated that Nephilim of the pre-canonical literary tradition are not presented as semi-divine creatures but are treated in conjunction with other pre-Israelite inhabitants of great size. The inconsistent biblical descriptions of the promised land—which at times extending to the Transjordanian territory—and the textual conflation of divergent giant clans indicate that Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 are connected to the broader conquest narrative, which involves the eradication of groups like the Rephaim.

While looking forward to the conquest, Genesis 6:1–4 is also firmly rooted in the theology of the primeval narrative of Genesis 1–11. I have argued that verse 3, far from being a later addition, is integral to the passage, resonating with the theme found in Genesis 3 and 11 where Yahweh acts to preserve the divine–human boundary. Therefore, Genesis 6:1–4 serves a unique dual role as a bridge text—linking the universal concerns of humanity’s origins with the particular origins of Israel as actualized in the conquest.