Perhaps only second in infamy to the fallen angels are their offspring the Nephilim. This all pertains to the Genesis 6 affair, as I have come to term it whereby it is noted, as Ellen White rightly puts it, that “The Nephilim, the product of the sons of god mingling with the daughters of Adam…Genesis 6:1–4 tells the readers that the Nephilim, which means “fallen ones” when translated into English, were the product of copulation between the divine beings (lit. sons of god) and human women (lit. daughters of Adam).”
Before moving on it seems that I should elucidate that these are not statements by Seventh Day Adventism founder Ellen G. White but rather Ellen White, Ph.D. Hebrew Bible, University of St. Michael’s College and senior editor at the Biblical Archaeology Society. Within her article Who Are the Nephilim? The mysterious beings of Genesis 6, Biblical Archaeology website, January 3, 2016 AD she notes that the Nephilim have an undeserved bad rap, “It was once claimed that the mating of the sons of god and the daughters of Adam that resulted in the Nephilim caused the flood, and this caused the Nephilim to have a negative reputation.”
She also refers to the Nephilim as “the great Biblical giants, ‘the fallen ones’” who “are known as great warriors and Biblical giants…‘heroes of old, the men of renown.’”
She notes that they got a bad rap for two reasons, “This was believed because the next verse (Genesis 6:5) is the introduction to the flood narrative and because their name means ‘fallen ones.’” But, she claims, they are good guys—or, at least not stereotypically evil, etc., “Genesis 6:4 presents nothing but praise for the Nephilim and no criticism is present.”
Thus, she considers the bad rap interpretation to be “unlikely” to be correct and “the name ‘fallen ones’ is likely a reference to their divine paternity transforming—falling—into the human condition, albeit an almost superhuman condition.”
Well, Genesis 6 has not been discussed for millennia because it is simple and straight forwards. In fact, it contains a lot to unpack such as who are the sons of God, who are the daughters of men, who are the Nephilim, is Nephilim aka for the Gibborim (the term used for “mighty”), when were “those days,” when was “after that,” etc., etc., etc.
Yet, in a way it is straight forwards such that, for example, the Nephilim were “mighty men which were of old, men of renown” and so they are connected to the next verse, the flood narrative, because it states, “GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Now, I would not think that this solely refers to the Nephilim but that it does include them and their, subsequent, offspring.
You see, verse 6 states, “it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart” and verse 7, “And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast…”
It may be that the connection between the Nephilim and the flood is that as they had offspring and their offspring had offspring all of humanity, which had yet to spread all over the Earth, would essentially have inherited hybrid genetics. Nephilim were born, “when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them” with a timeline ending at the flood which may be plenty of time for various generations to pass.
Now, I wrote, “ending at the flood” but most people involved in Nephilim (and/or giants) research appeal to various forms of return of the Nephilim ideas—which I do not see within the Bible at all.
But wait, Ellen White notes that “Genesis 6, Ezekiel 32, and Numbers 13 are the only passages that mention the Nephilim by that term.” But if the Nephilim drowned at the flood how do they return so as to make appearances in in Numbers and Ezekiel? Well, this can all get complex and verbose as some claim that more Angels fell and repeated the whole cycle again (which I do not see within the Bible at all) or that Noah’s wife, sons or sons’ wives carried Nephilim genetics through the flood (which I do not see within the Bible at all).
I considered Numbers 13 in detail in the article Did Caleb and the spies see Nephilim giants in the land: the bottom line is that the LORD had told the Hebrews to inhabit the land, the spies discourage them from doing so, Caleb disagrees and encourages them and it is only then when they want to kick the fear mongering up a notch that the other spies claim that they saw the Nephilim. In fact, when Caleb relates the event in Joshua 14:12 he affirms the presence of the Anakim in the land but not the Nephilim.
Ezekiel 32 brings us to a point about etymology since “Nephilim” are not really mentioned therein. Rather, the primitive root whence some think Nephilim comes is found seven times in that chapter and that “Naphal.”
The Strong’s Definitions Legend reads thusly: to fall, in a great variety of applications (intransitive or causative, literal or figurative):—be accepted, cast (down, self, (lots), out), cease, die, divide (by lot), (let) fail, (cause to, let, make, ready to) fall (away, down, -en, -ing), fell(-ing), fugitive, have (inheritance), inferior, be judged (by mistake for 6419), lay (along), (cause to) lie down, light (down), be (× hast) lost, lying, overthrow, overwhelm, perish, present(-ed, -ing), (make to) rot, slay, smite out, × surely, throw down.
As an example of usage: the KJV translates it as follows: fall (318x), fall down (25x), cast (18x), cast down (9x), fall away (5x), divide (5x), overthrow (5x), present (5x), lay (3x), rot (3x), accepted (2x), lie down (2x), inferior (2x), lighted (2x), lost (2x), miscellaneous (22x).
Others think that Nephilim derives from the Aramaic root naphiyla which means giant (whatever that means: keep in mind that the average Hebrew male of those days was 5.5 feet tall).
In any case, Ezekiel 32 contains no reference to fallen Angels offspring, giants, or any such thing—here are all of the text containing naphal:
Verse 12 By the swords of the mighty will I cause thy multitude to fall, [naphal] the terrible of the nations, all of them: and they shall spoil the pomp of Egypt, and all the multitude thereof shall be destroyed.
Verse 20 They shall fall [naphal] in the midst of them that are slain by the sword: she is delivered to the sword: draw her and all her multitudes.
Verse 22-24 Asshur is there and all her company: his graves are about him: all of them slain, fallen [naphal] by the sword: Whose graves are set in the sides of the pit, and her company is round about her grave: all of them slain, fallen [naphal] by the sword, which caused terror in the land of the living. There is Elam and all her multitude round about her grave, all of them slain, fallen [naphal] by the sword, which are gone down uncircumcised into the nether parts of the earth, which caused their terror in the land of the living; yet have they borne their shame with them that go down to the pit.
Verse 27 And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen [naphal] of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their weapons of war: and they have laid their swords under their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of the living.
Thus, the fact is that we do not know as much about the Nephilim as many would think: they have a bad rap due to being offspring of fallen Angels, they were mighty in some way, that they are renown may mean that various myths and legends tell of them (sometimes describing them as gods or aliens, etc.) that they played a part in the reason for the flood seems contextually certain and that they all drowned in the flood never to reappear seems just as certain.
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