Have you ever wondered why Goliath was so tall? So have I. But before I learned Goliath had two different heights, I conducted research on what the Bible has to say about Giants. (Buckle your seat belts. This is going to be a wild ride.)
When the Israelites were getting ready to conquer Canaan, ten of their twelve spies reported about Giants. According to Numbers 13:31-33, “But the men who had gone up with [Caleb] said, ‘We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!’ Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging report of the land they had investigated, saying, ‘The land that we passed through to investigate is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw there are of great stature. We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them.’”
Where did their concept of the Nephilim originate? The Nephilim are first mentioned in the prologue to Noah’s Flood. According to Genesis 6:1-4, “When humankind began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful. Thus they took wives for themselves from any they chose. ... The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God were having sexual relations with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men.”
Before continuing, I should mention there are two ways to interpret this Genesis 6 passage. Either the “sons of God” represent the sons of Seth, or they represent Angels. If you agree with the latter, as supported by 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6, then the rabbit hole deepens.
What do the Nephilim have to do with Noah’s Flood? The Book of Jude gives us another clue: According to Jude 1:14, “Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, even prophesied of them, saying” and then Jude proceeds to quote from the Book of Enoch, which was written between the 3rd and 1st Centuries B.C. (Obviously, since the Book of Enoch was not written during the time of Enoch, it wasn’t considered authentic enough to be included in the Bible.)
What is the Book of Enoch about? The Book of Enoch tells the story of a group of Angels, called Watchers, who try to destroy mankind by spawning man-eating Giants. (I can't make this stuff up.) God decides to lock up the Watchers and destroy the Giants by means of a Flood. God sends Enoch to give the Watchers the bad news.
Assuming this is what the ancient Hebrews believed, how exactly did the Nephilim end up in Canaan, after the Flood? When the ten Israelite spies spoke of Nephilim, could this simply have been hyperbolic propaganda put forth in order to oppose Moses and the invasion of Canaan?
When the Israelites were getting ready to conquer Canaan, ten of their twelve spies reported about Giants. According to Numbers 13:31-33, “But the men who had gone up with [Caleb] said, ‘We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!’ Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging report of the land they had investigated, saying, ‘The land that we passed through to investigate is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw there are of great stature. We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them.’”
Where did their concept of the Nephilim originate? The Nephilim are first mentioned in the prologue to Noah’s Flood. According to Genesis 6:1-4, “When humankind began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful. Thus they took wives for themselves from any they chose. ... The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God were having sexual relations with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men.”
Before continuing, I should mention there are two ways to interpret this Genesis 6 passage. Either the “sons of God” represent the sons of Seth, or they represent Angels. If you agree with the latter, as supported by 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6, then the rabbit hole deepens.
What do the Nephilim have to do with Noah’s Flood? The Book of Jude gives us another clue: According to Jude 1:14, “Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, even prophesied of them, saying” and then Jude proceeds to quote from the Book of Enoch, which was written between the 3rd and 1st Centuries B.C. (Obviously, since the Book of Enoch was not written during the time of Enoch, it wasn’t considered authentic enough to be included in the Bible.)
What is the Book of Enoch about? The Book of Enoch tells the story of a group of Angels, called Watchers, who try to destroy mankind by spawning man-eating Giants. (I can't make this stuff up.) God decides to lock up the Watchers and destroy the Giants by means of a Flood. God sends Enoch to give the Watchers the bad news.
Assuming this is what the ancient Hebrews believed, how exactly did the Nephilim end up in Canaan, after the Flood? When the ten Israelite spies spoke of Nephilim, could this simply have been hyperbolic propaganda put forth in order to oppose Moses and the invasion of Canaan?
The source material for an Angelic interpretation, beyond the plain meaning of the Scriptural text, is quite extensive and goes far beyond Enoch - check out RCN's paper for additional sources if interested:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newmanlib.ibri.org/Documents/Gen6.htm