Genesis 6:2

that the sons of God, &c. This is one of the most disputed passages in the book. But the difficulty, in a great measure, disappears, if it is frankly recognized, that the verse must be allowed to have its literal meaning. According to the legend which it preserves, intermarriages took place between Heavenly Beings and mortal women.

Commentators have often shrunk from the admission that this piece of mythology could have a place in the Hebrew Scriptures. Accordingly, very fanciful explanations have sometimes found favour; e.g. (a) "the sons of God" are the men of the upper classes, "the daughters of men" are "the women of the lower classes"; (b) "the sons of God" are "the sons of the god-fearing," "the daughters of men" are "the daughters of the impious"; (c) "the sons of God" are "the descendants of Seth," "the daughters of men" are "the women of the Cainite race."

Such interpretations may be dismissed as arbitrary and non-natural: and they furnish no explanation of the inference in Genesis 6:4, that a race of giants or heroes was the progeny of these marriages.

the sons of God Heb. B'nê Elohim, "sons of Elohim," i.e. beings partaking of the Divine nature. It has been pointed out above (see note on Genesis 1:26), that the Israelites believed the Almighty to be surrounded by a court of beings who were subordinate to Him in authority, office, and rank: their dwelling-place was in Heaven; their duty was to perform the tasks appointed them by the Almighty. They were "angels" or "messengers," Heb. mal"âkhîm, Gr. ἄγγελοι. The sons of God are mentioned in Job 1:6; Job 2:1; Job 38:7; Psalms 29:1; Psalms 89:1; Daniel 3:25; Daniel 3:28.

The expression must be judged in accordance with Hebrew, not English, idiom. "The sons of the prophets" (1 Kings 20:35: cf. Amos 7:14) are persons who belong to the guild of the prophets, members, as we should say, of the prophet's calling. No family relationship is implied. Similarly "the sons of God" are not "sons of gods," in the sense of being their children, but "sons of Elohim" in the sense of belonging to the class of super-natural, or heavenly, beings.

There is no reference, on the one hand, to Oriental speculations respecting emanations from the Deity; nor to actual sonship, or generation. The description is quite general. Nowhere do we find in the O.T. mention of the "sons of Jehovah" instead of the "sons of Elohim."

of all that they chose i.e. whomsoever they chose. The sons of God are represented as being irresistible. The sons of men could offer no effective opposition. The marriages, contracted in this way, are evidently implied to be wrong, and the result of mere unbridled passion. The men were powerless to defend their women folk.

In the later days of Judaism, this passage became the source of the strange legends respecting "fallen angels," of which we find traces in the N.T.: 2 Peter 2:4, "for if God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to Hell"; Judges 1:6, "angels which kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation"; and in the Book of Enoch.

There is no trace, however, in the Book of Genesis of any tradition respecting either the fall, or the rebellion, of members of the angel-host. Unquestionably English ideas are profoundly affected by the influence of Milton's Paradise Lost, and by the vague impression that a great and noble religious poem must have been founded upon literal facts.