The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim

by Scott Alan Roberts

  “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the Sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them…”

  (Genesis 6:4a)

  God. No…Angel. Wait… Gods?

  We’ve talked extensively about Elohim, and we know that the word refers to both the singular God and the multitude of gods of the Divine Council, the context of the passage defining which usage is to be incorporated. The Princes of the Divine Council are also referred to as angels, as they are seen in the biblical texts and the apochryphal books of Enoch. One such instance of the word elohim in the plural was when King Saul visited the witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28:13. The noun elohim is used in conjunction with a plural when the witch tells Saul that she sees “gods” (elohim) coming up out of the earth; this seems to indicate that the term was used to mean something like “divine beings” among spiritists in ancient Israel.

  Elohim () is used nearly 3,000 times in the Old Testament for the name of God, and in addition to meaning “God,” it can also mean gods, goddesses, divine rulers, angels, god-like being or beings, or judges. In the New American Standard version of the Hebrew Old Testament, the word elohim is used in these instances for:

  God, 2,326 times.

  God’s, 14 times.

  divine, 1 time.

  divine being, 1 time.

  exceedingly, 1 time.

  god, 45 times.

  goddess, 2 times.

  godly, 1 time.

  gods, 204 times.

  great, 2 times.

  judges, 3 times.

  mighty, 2 times.

  rulers, 1 time.

  shrine, 1 time.

  The shortened, singular name for God is the word El (), which has the same meanings as above, but in a shortner, singular form: god, mighty man, and strength. It is very interesting to note that the Sons of God, the angels, and gods of the Divine Council had the name El incorporated into many of their names to denote their status as Sons of God, names such as the archangels bore: Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, and even Azazel, who introduced the art of weaponry and warfare, as well as harlotry and prostitution to the humans. As mentioned earlier when talking about the bright shining gods, various other cultures have beings that have variants of the same word:

  Sumerian el meant “brightness” or “shining.”

  Akkadian ilu meant “radiant, shining one.”

  Babylonian ellu meant “the shining one.”

  Old Welsh ellu meant “a shining being.”

  Old Irish aillil meant “shining” or “to shine.”

  English elf meant “shining being.”

  Anglo-Saxon aelf meant “radiant being.”

  Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-50 CE) wrote a commentary of Genesis 6 called Concerning the Giants. In it, he emphasized that the passage was not a myth:

  And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of all of them whom they Chose.” (Genesis 6:2) Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels; and they are souls hovering in the air. And let no one suppose, that what is here stated is a fable, for it is necessarily true that the universe must be filled with living things in all its parts, since every one of its primary and elementary portions contains its appropriate animals and such as are consistent with its nature; the earth containing terrestrial animals, the sea and the rivers containing aquatic animals, and the fire such as are born in the fire (but it is said, that such as these last are found chiefly in Macedonia), and the heaven containing the stars: for these also are entire souls pervading the universe, being unadulterated and divine, inasmuch as they move in a circle, which is the kind of motion most akin to the mind, for every one of them is the parent mind. It is therefore necessary that the air also should be full of living beings. And these beings are invisible to us, inasmuch as the air itself is not visible to mortal sight. (But it does not follow, because our sight is incapable of perceiving the forms of souls, that for that reason there are no souls in the air; but it follows of necessity that they must be comprehended by the mind, in order that like may be contemplated by like. [author’s emphasis])24

  chapter 9

  …And Also Afterward

  It was sometime during the mid-1990s, while deep in an engaging conversation with friends, that a little light bulb popped on over my head, rather suddenly. We had been talking about aliens, D&D, Star Trek, and general metaphysical and ufological genre stuff, enjoying the heady, mystical, metaphysical atmosphere we seemed to be conjuring up in front of the fireplace. Of course, the Guinness was flowing pretty freely, and we all had reached that “higher plane” of enlightenment—you know, the one where all your thoughts suddenly have no filters, and your words come out as if they’d been under restraint for all the days of your life prior to that moment.

  Well, this was one of those moments.

  I jumped to my feet, yelling several exclamatory expletives of joy upon realizing that I had just stumbled upon a new discovery—at least for me. The information was nothing new, nor was it going to win me a Pulitzer or high praise around the world, but at that moment, it was completely new to me: UFOs and aliens are somehow inextricably linked to the Flood of Noah and the wildly fantastic breed of hybrid Nephilim that appeared at the beginning of the biblical account.

  See? Nothing new.

  But what occurred to me at that moment was a sudden understanding of the link between events that took place thousands of years ago, and what seemed like events that were taking place today. And this was the biblical passage that spawned the entire gadzooks! scene in front of my friends’ living room fireplace:

  “26 Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. 27 People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.”

  (Luke 17:26-27)

  And cross-referenced in Matthew’s gospel:

  “37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; 39 and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”

  (Matthew 24:37-39)

  These were the words of Jesus, spoken to his disciples. In their context, they were speaking less about the conditions of the times of Noah, than they were speaking to the suddenness of God’s wrathful judgment, in that people were still marrying and partying all the way up until they heard the slamming door of the ark that Noah had been building for 120 years. When the first little droplets of rain started to pitter-patter off their foreheads, they suddenly realized that all Noah had been saying was coming to pass. It’s not that they hadn’t heard Noah’s words of warning; it was that they didn’t believe them.

  There was a deeper application of the passage than the simple suddenness of judgment—the idea that the things that were taking place all around us in current-day ufology and alien contact scenarios, seemed to be exactly what was taking place when the Watchers interbred with human women and sired the Nephilim. We asked ourselves that night: Is this a repeat of angelic or demonic beings attempting to infiltrate the human bloodline to stave off a second judgment? Was this the precursor to the fulfillment of all the eschatological prophecies and the path to Armageddon?

  Genesis 6:4 leaves us hanging on a haunting, almost chilling three words: “…and also afterward.” We have already established that several passages in the books of Moses tell us that the Nephilim survived the flood. But this seems to stand in stark contradiction to the verse in Genesis where we are told:

  “21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, birds, cattle, beasts, all swarming creatures that swarm upon the earth, and every man; everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out eve
ry living thing that was upon the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark.”

  (Genesis 7:21)

  Is this an oversight or a contrdiction in the passage, or was it an intentional ruse to throw us off the path of the Nephilim? It is clear that what Moses wrote was an account of the Hebrew version of the Flood, but as we discovered earlier, the account of the Nephilim themselves, as recorded in the first few verses of Genesis Chapter 6 have earmarks of having been edited, or added completely at a later date. Was this the work of Joshua, Moses’ successor? Or was it the addition of later scribes?

  Or does it simply mean that the Nephilim were not considered as anything but the offspring of spirit beings, therefore not included in the list of things destroyed in Genesis 7:21?

  Then there is a question that is often associated with this entire topic: Could this hybrid race of Nephilim giants, produced from the union of the princes of heaven—the lesser gods of the Divine Council—and earthly women, still be roaming the earth today? Because according to Genesis 6:4, they survived the Flood, regardless of who wrote the passage. If it is a detail that Moses did not write or was somehow unaware of, someone edited the text and added in the appropriate phrases telling us that the Nephilim were still on the earth after the Flood that was supposed to have destroyed them.

  As discussed in Chapter 8, the Old Testament mentions several occurrences of “giants” and “Nephilim” appearing, specifically the giant-races of Canaan: the Rephaim, the Emim, the Horim, the Zamsummim, and the Anakim.

  “10 The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. 11 Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaites, but the Moabites called them Emites. 12 Horites used to live in Seir, but the descendants of Esau drove them out. They destroyed the Horites from before them and settled in their place, just as Israel did in the land the LORD gave them as their possession.”

  (Deuteronomy 2:10-12)

  The Kingdom of Og, the King of Bashan, was the “land of the giants.”

  “12 That is, the whole kingdom of Og in Bashan, who had reigned in Ashtaroth and Edrei and had survived as one of the last of the Rephaites. Moses had defeated them and taken over their land.”

  (Joshua 13:12)

  Anak, and his seven sons of the Anakim were also giants, along with the famed Goliath and his four brothers:

  “4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. He was over nine feet tall. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.”

  (1 Samuel 17:4-7)

  “15 Once again there was a battle between the Philistines and Israel. David went down with his men to fight against the Philistines, and he became exhausted. 16 And Ishbi-Benob, one of the descendants of Rapha, whose bronze spearhead weighed three hundred shekels and who was armed with a new sword, said he would kill David. 17 But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s rescue; he struck the Philistine down and killed him. Then David’s men swore to him, saying, “Never again will you go out with us to battle, so that the lamp of Israel will not be extinguished.” 18 In the course of time, there was another battle with the Philistines, at Gob. At that time Sibbecai the Hushathite killed Saph, one of the descendants of Rapha. 19 In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod. 20 In still another battle, which took place at Gath, there was a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot—twenty-four in all. He also was descended from Rapha. 21 When he taunted Israel, Jonathan son of Shimeah, David’s brother, killed him. 22 These four were descendants of Rapha in Gath, and they fell at the hands of David and his men.”

  (2 Samuel 17:16-22)

  The account of David and Goliath pits the youngest shepherd son of Jesse against the giant from Gath who fought for the Philistines. Goliath came down from the ridge where the Philistines were encamped, every day for 40 days, taunting the armies of Israel, challenging them to single-handed combat.

  David and Goliath, Gustave Doré, 1866.

  Photo licensed under Wikipedia Creative Commons.

  King Saul had promised that whomever could defeat the giant in hand-to-hand, single combat would become Israel’s champion. That man would also become the captain of the king’s body guard, get the king’s daughter’s hand in marriage, and have his family become “tax free” in Israel all their days. Not a single soldier answered the call, but they remained encamped, waiting for something to break.

  “1 Now the Philistines gathered their armies together to battle, and were gathered together at Sochoh, which belongs to Judah; they encamped between Sochoh and Azekah, in Ephes Dammim. 2 And Saul and the men of Israel were gathered together, and they encamped in the Valley of Elah, and drew up in battle array against the Philistines. 3 The Philistines stood on a mountain on one side, and Israel stood on a mountain on the other side, with a valley between them. 4 And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of bronze. 6 And he had bronze armor on his legs and a bronze javelin between his shoulders. 7 Now the staff of his spear was like a weaver’s beam, and his iron spearhead weighed six hundred shekels; and a shield-bearer went before him. 8 Then he stood and cried out to the armies of Israel, and said to them, ‘Why have you come out to line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and you the servants of Saul? Choose a man for yourselves, and let him come down to me. 9 If he is able to fight with me and kill me, then we will be your servants. But if I prevail against him and kill him, then you shall be our servants and serve us.’ 10 And the Philistine said, ‘I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together.’”

  (1 Samuel 17:1-10)

  You can still visit the Valley of Elah today, where the flat, low valley is bordered on two sides by low ridges, and where the armies of Israel encamped on one side and the armies of the Philistines on the other.

  Saul was the logical choice to fight Goliath on two counts: He was the king, and the Bible tells us that he stood “head and shoulder” over all the rest of the men of Israel. Saul was a tall man, but nowhere near the height of the giant of Gath. When David came to the camp to deliver food to his brothers, who were soldiers in the Israelite army, he heard the tauntings of Goliath, who by that time had started ascending the Israelite side of the valley to shout out his challenge. David, as the story goes, answered the call. King Saul attempted to dress the shepherd boy in his own armor—some commentators think as a ruse to let the rest of the army think it was Saul himself going into battle against the giant—but the armor was too big for David. David went into the valley and faced off against Goliath, who mocked him in disdain.

  “41 So the Philistine came, and began drawing near to David, and the man who bore the shield went before him. 42 And when the Philistine looked David over, he disdained him; for he was only a youth, ruddy and good-looking. 43 So the Philistine said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?’ And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 And the Philistine said to David, ‘Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field!’”

  (2 Samuel 17:41-44)

  And, of course, David replied:

  “45 You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. 46 This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take yo
ur head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. 47 Then everyone gathered here shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.”

  (2 Samuel 17:45-47)

  And the rest of story we all know: David picked a smooth stone from the valley floor, put it in his sling, and buried it into Goliath’s forehead, killing him instantly. And before you go adhering to the theories that Goliath was just a man with gigantism, keep in mind that he was called a man who had been a “warrior from the days of his youth” (1 Samuel 17:33). When someone is inflicted with gigantism, the older they get, the more brittle their bones become, and the more unstable their musculature and ability to function, or even walk, normally. Goliath was a warrior; he was not a man inflicted with a physical ailment that gave him great size and debilitated him.

  Goliath was the offspring remnant of the Nephilim, and he had four other brothers.