The Watchers

Generations have passed since the exile from Eden. Humanity has begun to multiply on the face of the earth.

And then, abruptly, the biblical text introduces one of the most mysterious and debated events in all of Scripture:

“That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.”

Who were these "sons of God"? The phrase (bene elohim) is the exact same Hebrew phrasing used in Job when the heavenly host rejoiced at creation, and when they presented themselves before the Lord.

A boundary had been crossed. A union between heaven and earth that was never meant to be.

The Nephilim

The result of this union was not ordinary mankind.

“There were giants [Nephilim] in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.”

The text describes them as mighty men, giants, legends of antiquity. The earth became filled with them, and simultaneously, it became filled with corruption and violence (Genesis 6:11).

God’s response was total destruction through the flood.

The Angels Who Sinned

Genesis leaves many questions unanswered. But the apostles in the New Testament looked back at this event and added crucial details.

Peter and Jude describe a specific group of angels who committed a severe transgression:

“And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”

“For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Tartarus], and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment...”

Scripture paints a picture: Heavenly beings left their proper dwelling, descended to earth, sinned, and are now imprisoned in deep darkness.

But the Bible is brief. Where did Peter and Jude get such specific vocabulary about "chains of darkness"? To understand the atmosphere of the 1st century, we must look at what they were reading.