Who are the Sons of God in Genesis 6?

When reading the story of the Genesis account one comes to a rather awkward passage at the beginning of Genesis 6 that has led to debate for many centuries. The passage follows the thoughts of Chapter five, providing a chronological bridge between what had transpired in the Garden of Eden and what would occur during the flood judgment. Here we find the story of the “Sons of God” marrying the “daughters of man” and producing a race of children which many believe grew into a race of giants (nephilim).

The problem arises from the enigmatic use of the phrase “Sons of God.” We see this somewhat ambiguous phrase used several ways in the scripture and it begs the question of how to interpret this difficult passage. Whenever one is dealing with a passage which is so difficult to understand the first course of action must be to let Scripture interpret Scripture.

There are basically three interpretations which have been proposed for who these Sons of God are. The first is that they are angelic or possibly even demonic spirits which came to earth and married. The second is that they are a dynasty of evil kings. Finally we have the theory that this refers to the descendants of Seth. When we examine scripture it appears that the “Sons of God” most likely refers to humans not angels. Remembering that it is best to interpret Scripture through Scripture we find the theory of Angelic beings facing problems when we read in Matthew that Angels do not marry. Everywhere we see the Angels in Scripture they are represented as asexual beings. It would therefore be rather odd for there to be a segment of angels which would be so attracted by the beauty of the daughters of man (which the Old Testament gives as their motivation) that they would inhabit the earth and marry them. Also the fact that the punishment for the action was directed to mankind solely ,seems to argue against this belief.

This leaves us with the evil kings and the sons of Seth. Both options are preferable to the idea of angelic beings. The benefit of believing it was the Sons of Seth is that it most easily explains why this type of marriage would enrage God so much, since God strongly prohibits the mixing of his people with pagans in the Old Testament. The benefit of believing it was a group of evil kings is because it most easily explains why these people could take whomever they wanted as wives. Also upon examination we find that the phrase “Sons of God” is used to refer to nobility at times and that even though the Hebrew uses the name Elohim, this is not always exclusively of God. Finally, while the Nephilim are sometimes thought of as giants it is probably more proper to think of them as mighty men who conquered and possessed much. This would make sense if their fathers were rulers as well.

When digging into Scripture the signposts of this passage seem to point us to an understanding of these “Sons of God” as a group of tyrants, who lived as their own gods, doing whatever they wanted and angering a Holy God in the process. We cannot say definitively whether these men were tyrants or descendants of Seth. However, it certainly appears that to believe there was some race of half-man, half-angelic beings which wrought havoc throughout the earth is superfluous.