Tag: Nephilim

Gen 6 – Regret and the Troubled Heart of God

Almost sixteen hundred years had past since Adam was cast out of Eden. In that time, mankind’s population grew significantly.

When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” [Gen 6:1-3]

I just recently watched some news about some woman who celebrated her 122nd birthday and I thought about the verse above of God shortening our life expectancy to 120 years.

As you can see in the illustration of chapter 5, Adam/Seth’s family line lived an average of over 900 years. At first, I thought their long life was due to the earth’s pre-flood atmosphere because of the Genesis 1 water shell protecting the earth from the sun’s radiation. But by the words of God, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever…”, it was He that undeservedly sustained their extremely long life for almost 2 eons. Why? My educated guess is because it is part of His grand plan. Of course, from the perspective of those in that era, God’s plan for salvation was unfathomable.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. [Gen 6:4]

The Nephilim is loosely translated as giants in some Bibles and left untranslated in others. How did these giants come about? According to traditional Jewish beliefs, the Nephilim are the produced offsprings of the ‘sons of God’ (fallen angels) and human females. The children were then endowed with some kind of supernatural power that the other population of that time would consider them as heroes of old. It is funny that Hollywood in the 80s actually put out several movies of that particular era. One of which is the legend of ‘Conan the Barbarian’ starring, of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger. In that movie, though the character of Conan was the hero of the story by saving the damsel in distress, his personality depiction is still that of a crude uncaring uncivilized barbarian who would later gain the throne. Interestingly enough, sequel movies of this character, in my opinion, made him less a hero and more a liability to mankind. Of course, this was just a movie. In reality, however, will the heroes of old were not really men of renown but men who had gained such great corruptive power that influence the rest of the population.

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” [Gen 6:5-7]

Who ever said that God cannot be affected by our actions? God may be ‘all seeing’ and can never be caught unaware, but he can still regret. Keep this in mind. For God to regret, it would have to be that we have to display such great wickedness for him to act on. This is just my opinion but I believe, throughout our history, God had also intervened somewhat destructively to correct mankind’s evilness. The Bible gave us a number of examples which we will explore in later Bible studies. But I wanted to site a mystery of a great vast Mayan city that is now being discovered and explored by archaeologists today in the jungles of South America. What is the mystery? Why was this vast city which once had millions but had abandoned it? And what happened to the people? Again, this is my opinion. I think that because these people worshiped their Serpent god and showed similar wickedness depicted in Genesis 6, God… ahem… took a hand.

Going back to Genesis 6, a question has to be asked of how is it that mankind had so greatly follow the path of wickedness? To answer this, we have to go back to Genesis 4 and follow the history of Cain.

Now, in my illustration, I laid out the timeline of both Seth and Cain.

Just before Seth was born, Cain had murdered his brother Abel. Because of his murderous deed, the Lord God put an unknown mark on him so that anyone who finds him will not kill him. So, he took with him his wife (who is obviously one of many daughters of Adam and Eve) and settled in the land called Nod supposedly East of Eden. If you look at my illustration, I have laid out the massive land mass with the suggestive outlines of our respective continents today. There are three areas where Cain may have settled (take note the three question marks in red). In one theory, archaeology suggest that mankind came into the picture in the African region. Some have suggested India while other scholars believe that the land of Nod may be in Asia or China to be more specific, which boasts the oldest known civilization. It was there that Cain built a city named after his first son, Enoch. As the population grew, so did the city.

From Genesis 4, Cain sired Enoch to Irad to Mehujael to Methushael to Lamech. From Lamech (took two wives), he sired 4 offsprings one of which became the father of a nomadic tribe that raised livestock. The other became the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. One who is named, Tubal-Cain, advanced the society by becoming the father of the forge and probably brought in the age of bronze and iron. Interestingly enough, the Bible also mentions a sister of Tubal-Cain named Naamah. But her biblical significance is lost to me except that she was named.

What about the wickedness? It is quite apparent that the callous wickedness of Genesis 6 started with Cain murdering his brother but is multiplied in the life of his great great grandson, Lamech who boasted to both his wives and said, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”

Mankind is doomed! Thank the Lord for His plan.

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. [Gen 6:8-14]

In my next post, we will cover more on what God required of Noah.