Genesis 6:4
One of the most amazing facts revealed by paleontology
(the study of fossilized remains of creatures which inhabited the earth in a
former age) is that nearly all modern animals were once represented by
larger ancestors. One thinks of the mammoths and cave bears, giant
cockroaches and dragonflies, and huge reptiles like the dinosaurs. Along
with them are occasionally found giant human footprints, suggesting indeed
that “there were giants in the earth in those days.” Not only in the Bible,
but in numerous other ancient books, are preserved traditions of giants.
With such a uniform testimony from ancient tradition, and
with paleontological evidence as well, it is a superficial sophistication
which ignores the possibility that these data may contain primitive
reflections of the real events and characters described historically here in
the Genesis record.
The children of the unions of the demonically controlled
men and women of this period are the ones said to have become the “giants,”
the mighty men of old. The word in the Hebrew is
nephilim
and comes from the verb
naphal
(“fall”). Though some commentators suggest that the word means “those who
fall upon”—that is, “attackers”—the more natural and probable meaning is
“those who have fallen,” probably a reference to the nature of their
pseudoparents, the fallen angels. The name came also to mean “giants” and
was applied later to the giants seen in Canaan by the Israelite spies
(Numbers 13:33). The word was so understood by the translators of Genesis
into Greek, rendering the word in the Septuagint by
gigantes.
As to why children born of demon-controlled parents
should grow into giants, we can make at least a reasonable supposition,
though, in the absence of Biblical revelation on the subject, it can be no
more than that. Modern genetics has shown there are two basic causes of
variations in physical characteristics among men, namely mutations and
recombinations. In the genetic system is a tremendous number of factors for
different characteristics, some dominant in a particular population, some
latent or recessive. These can be “recombined” in various ways to allow an
almost unlimited variation in physical features. Recombination, however, can
operate only on factors which are already implicitly present in the genes.
Mutations, on the other hand, can introduce new features which were not
present at all, by responding to external influences whose energies effect
random changes in the genetic system.
Factors for large physical stature apparently have
resided from the beginning in the created gene pool of the human population.
Their emergence as frequent or dominant characteristics in a specific
population might result by chance in a small inbreeding population or else
might result by design in the case of controlled manipulation of the genes
by breeders understanding enough about the genetic process to do this.
Geneticists today appear on the verge of breakthroughs which would permit
exactly such “genetic engineering” as this sort of thing to be accomplished
on a practical basis.
It is believed that mutations can also produce “giantism.”
The strange process of cloning,
by which geneticists think they will one day be able to produce a race of
carbon copies of Einstein (or “Wilt the Stilt” Chamberlain, or whatever they
want) by implantation of body cells in human fertilized eggs might be still
another means of doing this.
The point is that, if modern geneticists can discuss with
all seriousness the imminent possibility of accomplishing such things, then
it is not unlikely that knowledge of these secrets could have been available
to the angelic (and demonic) hosts. Having gained essentially complete
control over both minds and bodies of these antediluvian parents, these
fallen “sons of God” could then, by some such genetic manipulation, cause
their progeny to become a race of monsters. The latter also then would be
under their control and possession as well.
The demoniacal combination of the materialism and
ungodliness of the Cainitic civilization in general, with this irruption of
the Serpent’s seed directly into large numbers of the human race and then
with the thrusting forth of hordes of the monstrous offspring of these
unlawful unions, all led to conditions in the world which were finally
intolerable even to a God of compassion and long-suffering.
The demon-possessed men and their progeny, along with all
the other godless inhabitants of the antediluvian world, were soon to perish
in the waters of the Flood. These waters are now the waters of the sea and
it may well be these that are referred to in connection with the final
judgment when it says that “the sea gave up the dead which were in it”
(Revelation 20:13). The evil spirits who indwelt their bodies have been
imprisoned in Tartarus (2 Peter 2:4) and are probably “the spirits in prison
which once were disobedient when the longsuffering of God waited in the days
of Noah” (1 Peter 3:19, 20), to whom Christ went in the Spirit after His
death to proclaim His ultimate victory over their evil purposes.
There were giants “also after that,” in the days of the
Canaanites, and these were likewise known as, among other things, the
Nephilim (Numbers 13:33). Humanly speaking, they were descended from Anak,
and so were also known as the Anakim. These people were, of course, known to
Moses and it was probably he who editorially inserted the phrase “and also
after that” into Noah’s original record here in Genesis 6:4. Moses probably
also inserted the information that these were the “mighty men of old, men of
renown,” men whose exploits of strength and violence had made them famous in
song and fable in all nations in the ages following the Flood. To rebellious
men of later times, they were revered as great heroes; but in God’s sight
they were merely ungodly men of violence and evil.
Filled with Violence
Just as world conditions in the days before the Flood
presaged a coming catastrophe, so will world conditions in the last days of
this age
foreshadow an even greater catastrophe. Some of these characteristics are
summarized as follows:
(1) Preoccupation with
physical appetites (Luke 17:27)
(2) Rapid advances in
technology (Genesis 4:22)
(3) Grossly materialistic
attitudes and interests (Luke 17:28)
(4) Uniformitarian
philosophies (Hebrews 11:7)
(5) Inordinate devotion to
pleasure and comfort (Genesis 4:21)
(6) No concern for God in
either belief or conduct (2 Peter 2:5; Jude 15)
(7) Disregard for the
sacredness of the marriage relation (Matthew 24:38)
(8) Rejection of the
inspired Word of God (1 Peter 3:19)
(9) Population explosion
(Genesis 6:1, 11)
(10) Widespread violence
(Genesis 6:11, 13)
(11) Corruption throughout
society (Genesis 6:12)
(12) Preoccupation with
illicit sex activity (Genesis 4:19; 6:2)
(13) Widespread words and
thoughts of blasphemy (Jude 15)
(14) Organized Satanic
activity (Genesis 6:1–4)
(15) Promulgation of
systems and movements of abnormal depravity (Genesis 6:5, 12)
These conditions prevailed in the days of Noah and they
are all rapidly growing again today. There is good reason, therefore, to
believe that these present times are those which immediately precede the
return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Genesis 14:5–12
The result of this ill-considered rebellion
was that it precipitated Chedorlaomer’s destructive invasion.
Apparently, he not only directed his bitterness against the
Jordanian cities, but against all others in the region.
The rebellion of the
small kings of the cities on the east side of the Dead Sea
against what must have been the extortionate rule of absentee
suzerains was brutally crushed. This comparatively minor
insurrection was thereupon utilized as a pretext to settle old
scores and to raid and ravage with unleashed ferocity for as
much booty as could possibly be won. An old order was crumbling.
From southern Syria to central Sinai, their fury raged. A
punitive expedition
developed into an
orgy of annihilation. I found that every village in their path
had been plundered and left in ruins, and the countryside laid
waste. The population had been wiped out or led away into
captivity. For hundreds of years thereafter, the entire area was
like an abandoned cemetery, hideously unkempt, with all its
monuments shattered and strewn in pieces on the ground.2
The invasion of the northeastern kings first
crushed all the tribes north, east, and then west of the Salt
Sea before it reached the five cities on the southern shores,
against which the invasion had been mounted in the first place.
The purpose of these preliminary battles was no doubt to
eliminate the possibility of an attack from the rear while they
were occupied with the five kings.
Some of the tribes and places named are
interesting, though not all have yet been identified
archaeologically. The Rephaim, Zuzim, and Emim are first
mentioned as located in Ashteroth Karnaim, Ham, and Shaveh,
respectively. The Zuzim are probably the same as the Zamzummim
(Deuteronomy 2:20), who are said to have been giants, “a people
great, and many, and tall.” The same description was applied to
the Emim (Deuteronomy 2:10), whose name meant “the terrible
ones.” The Rephaim (“strong ones”) and the Zamzummim (“powerful
ones”) were possibly tribes of the Anakim (“giants”), who were
descended from Anak, the son of Arba (Joshua 15:13). Arba, in
turn, was one of the children of Heth (Heth was also ancestor of
the Hittites), from whom Abraham later purchased land in Hebron
(Genesis 23:19, 20). Hebron had earlier been known as
Kirjath-Arba (“the city of Arbah”—Genesis 35:27).
It is also significant that the “sons of Anak”
were identified with the “giants” (Hebrew
nephilim—Numbers
13:33), which is the same word as that used for the “giants” of
Genesis 6:4. The word
nephilim,
although translated “giants” in the Septuagint, actually means
“fallen ones” (or possibly “those who fall upon”), and was
associated in antediluvian days with the illicit activity of the
fallen angels in their possession and corruption of the
antediluvian women (see the comments on this subject in chapter
VII). Although it is well not to be dogmatic on this subject, it
seems possible to infer from the above references that, soon
after the Flood, another unusually intense demonic invasion of
earth took place, probably in connection with the rebellion at
Babel, and that certain Canaanite tribes in particular
subsequently became so demon controlled that a race of monsters
was again produced, as in the days before the Flood. Finally,
Moses and Joshua were instructed by God to utterly exterminate
these tribes, just as God had destroyed the antediluvians.
The theory that these references to the
Rephaim and others may have occult implications is strengthened
when it is noted that the same word (i.e.,
rephaim)
is also used as the term for the spirits of certain of the
wicked dead (see Job 26:25; Proverbs 2:18; 9:18; 21:16; Isaiah
14:9 and 26:14).
At the time of the invasion described here in
Genesis 14, there were evidently considerable numbers of these
demon-energized tribes living in Canaan. Somehow, evidently,
Abram had managed to coexist with them in peace. At this time
they were apparently scattered in pockets throughout the land of
Canaan, rather than all living at one place. The fact that the
invading kings could defeat them gives some indication of the
numbers and strength of the armies from the east.
Glueck identifies Ashtaroth Karnaim, where
the kings encountered the Rephaim, as two adjacent sites in
southern Syria, Tell Ashtarah and Sheikh Sa’ad, which was called
Carnaim in New Testament times. The name Ashtaroth, of course,
comes from the name of the moon goddess, Astarte (Greek),
equivalent to the Babylonian Ishtar and the Canaanite Ashtaroth,
the goddess of sensual love, whose worship was one of the
sources of the gross immorality of the Canaanites.
After defeating the Rephaim, Chedorlaomer
smote the Horites in Mount Seir. These are now known to have
been the same as the Hurrians, well known to archaeologists as
one of the leading tribes of the ancient Middle East. They
possessed Mount Seir, which later became the country of the
Edomites (Deuteronomy 2:22; Genesis 36:20). The kings went on to
El-Paran, in the southern wilderness, and then returned to
Kadesh, on the western side of the Salt Sea, where they smote
the inhabitants of the region that would later belong to the
Amalekites (Amalek was a grandson of Esau). They also defeated a
contingent of the Amorites, who were probably the dominant tribe
in Canaan at this time.
After thus routing all who might stand in
their way, the eastern confederacy then turned its full
attention to the rebellious kings of the five cities of the
south. They joined battle with them in the Vale of Siddim,
decisively defeating them, so that the “kings of Sodom and
Gomorrah fled,” possibly hiding in the asphalt pits, with many
of their followers fleeing to the mountains.
Chedorlaomer’s armies then gathered up all
the possessions of the vanquished cities, including the women
and children and servants, as well as many captured soldiers,
and headed north again. Unfortunately for them, however, they
also took Lot and his family captive as well. Lot was living in
Sodom proper by this time. In spite of his carnality, Lot was a
“righteous man” (2 Peter 2:8), as well as nephew of Abram, who
had received God’s call; so God would not allow Lot to be
carried off by Chedorlaomer.
Morris, Henry M.: The
Genesis Record : A Scientific and Devotional Commentary
on the Book of Beginnings. Grand Rapids, MI : Baker
Books, 1976, S. 313