Rashi is an acronym for Rabbi Shlomo ben Yitzchaki or Rabbi Solomon son of Isaac aka Salomon Isaacides (1040-1105 AD):
That the sons of the nobles saw the daughters of man when they were beautifying themselves, and they took for themselves wives from whomever they chose.
The sons of the nobles: Heb. [font for “sons of Elohim”], the sons of the princes (Targumim) and the judges (Gen. Rabbah 26:5). Another explanation: [Hebrew font for “sons of Elohim”] are the princes who go as messengers of the Omnipresent. They too mingled with them (Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 22). Every [font for “Elohim”] in Scripture is an expression of authority, and the following proves it (Exod. 4:16):“And you shall be to him as a lord ([font for “Elohim”])” ; (ibid. 7:1):“See, I have made you a lord ([font for “Elohim”]).”
As opposed to the much, much earlier commentators, by Rashi’s day the non-Angel view of the Genesis 6 affair was all the rage.
Non-Angel meaning the Sethite view or other views such as Rashi’s nobles view.
The princes view is generically cited as Targumim thus, various Targums (in Hebrew masculine plural is denoted by ending a word with “im”). These are Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible often containing much Rabbinic folklore which date from a couple of centuries before Jesus to the 600s AD.
The judges view is cited to the Midrash Genesis Rabbah which is a homiletic commentary dating to circa 450 AD.
Rashi also writes:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of the nobles would come to the daughters of man, and they would bear for them; they are the mighty men, who were of old, the men of renown.
The Nephilim: They were called [font for “nephilim”] because they fell ([font for “naphal”]) and caused the world to fall ([font for what looks to be a form of “naphal”]הִפִּילוּ) (Gen. Rabbah 26:7), and in the Hebrew language it means giants (Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, ch.22) and Targum Jonathan.
Well, Rashi had claimed that the text refers to “The sons of the nobles” for which he provides us the Hebrew but the Hebrew he provided reads “sons of Elohim” which Rashi interprets as nobles—apparently whilst ignoring that Job chaps 1 and 38 use this term of being who are clearly not nobles nor princes nor judges but are clearly Angels.
FYI: I did not reproduce the Hebrew because when copied and pasted into the Word program (wherein I do my writing) the order of the letters is reversed.
Rashi takes the common, yet not only, view that Nephilim has naphal as its root word and since naphal means to fall the Nephilim are said to be know as such because they fell (from heaven, into sin, caused the world to fall, etc.). Nephilim may come from the Aramaic root naphiyla which means giant and even when tracing it to naphal Rashi concludes that “it means giants”—whatever giant might mean.
FYI: Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer is another midrash dating to circa the 9th c. AD and Targum Jonathan (ben Uzziel) aka Pseudo-Jonathan dates to the 600s AD.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A plea: I have to pay for server usage and have made all content on this website free and always will. I support my family on one income and do research, writing, videos, etc. as a hobby. If you can even spare $1.00 as a donation, please do so: it may not seem like much but if each person reading this would do so, even every now and then, it would add up and really, really help. Here is my donate/paypal page.
Due to robo-spaming, I had to close the comment sections. However, you can comment on my Facebook page and/or on my Google+ page.