Who Were the Giant Nephilim?

We're going to have the second split. We are going to have a Bible study. And normally in the Bible studies, I ask folks to solicit questions. We have a little basket in the back of the hall that is for you to ask any Bible study questions that may come to your mind. And if you write it down and put it in there, eventually Mr. Thomas promises that he'll get to your Bible study questions. I thought that I would cover one of the questions that has been asked as a Bible study question that I've heard over and over again for many years. And this is a discussion on the Internet. A lot of people have different points of views and theologies on who the Nephilim were, anciently. So I thought this would be a very good Bible study discussion for us to have today in the remaining half hour or so that we have of services. So here's the question. It says, angels took human form on more than one occasion. Could the fallen angels have produced the Nephilim or those who have enmity between Eve's seed? So the question basically is, could it have been possible that it was fallen angels who were the giants of old, who were the Nephilim, who mated with physical women and produced kind of a hybrid or a unique breed of being that were tall and gigantic and powerful? And could this have been produced by an inner marriage between fallen spiritual beings and human female women? So that's a question that comes up occasionally. And again, there's a lot of discussion on this on the Internet. So let's see where the question drives from. We'll begin by going to Genesis 6 and verse 1. If you'll turn there with me, Genesis 6 and verse 1. And we'll read the context of what it says and then we'll zero in a little bit more on beginning to answer this question. Genesis 6 and verse 1, it says, Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply in the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful, and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his day shall be one hundred and twenty years. So human beings would max out about a hundred and twenty years. And sure enough, even many thousands and thousands of years later, see the world's oldest person? It's rare that they even get to be a hundred and twenty years old. That seems to be the maximum that the human race is capable of. Verse 4, There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Verse 5, Then the Lord saw the wickedness of man, that it was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. Verse 7, So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air.

For I am sorry that I have made them. And then verse 8 introduces us to Noah. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. It means his father was a righteous individual, his grandfather going all the way back to Seth. He was from the lineage of Seth, which was a godly lineage. Noah walked with God. So that's the crux of it. Let's zero in now on the few verses here that I want to focus on. We'll begin in verse 3. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his day shall be one hundred and twenty years. There were giants, the Hebrew word that giants is translated from, is the Nephilim on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of men, and they bore children of them, those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Now, I'm going to look at another translation to point out something that's very important, because the scripture actually states that the Nephilim were on earth before the sons of God started to intermarry the daughters of men. They were on earth before and afterward. As a matter of fact, even after the flood, they were there at the time when Israel was preparing to enter the Promised Land. So I'm going to read this from the New International Version. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, speaking anciently, and also afterward when the sons of God went into the daughters of humans and had children by them, those were the heroes of old, men of renown. So again, it's very important to point out that this scripture states that the Nephilim were not the result of sons of God intermarrying the daughters of men. They were there before, during, and afterwards. So that's a very important point to point out. Genesis, from the very early beginning of the books of Genesis, it documents two paths that the human race took, beginning with the first family. One path was the righteousness of the lineage of Seth. And I believe it's nine generations between Seth and Noah, and of course we know the flood occurred. But everyone, including Enoch, was a righteous individual. This was a family culture, a family influence of righteous people remaining righteous. On the other hand, and that's spoken of, by the way, in Genesis 5, is the lineage of Seth leading up to Noah.

But in contrast to that, there is the lineage of Cain, all the way to the time of Lamech. This is an unrighteous lineage. What do you find in this lineage? You find murder, you find deceit, you find polygamy beginning, even though God created one man and one woman to have a relationship and to beget the human race. You find polygamy within the line of Cain. So this is an ungodly line that parallels that point in time in which you get to the flood. So let's define what the word nephilim means from Hebrew. It says, and I'm going to be quoting from the Believer's Study Bible, that traditional rendering, giants, follows the Greek translation. That's the Septuagint, written about 250 BC. The etymology of the term nephilim is uncertain. There are two possible derivations that are suggested. One comes from the latter part of the word. It means the separate ones from the Hebrew verb phila.

It means to be separated, to be distinct. Another way that this can be derived is from the term the fallen ones, from the verb nephal, again coming from the root which is also neph, nephilim, nephal, meaning to fall. People of enormous size existed in ancient Israel, and they give some scriptures. And also afterwards indicates that the giants existed both before and after the sin of the sons of God, and therefore were not their offspring. Whoever these men of renown were, they were not to be feared by God's people. Unfortunately, they were when the spies came back with a bad report from the Promised Land. But this gives us a little context of where the word nephilim comes from. Putting some of this together by the time of Noah, who was a descendant of Seth, the righteous lineage of Seth is called the sons of God, because they were faithful to God's way of life for up to nine generations. But in time, they noticed that the girls who were of the lineage of Cain were very attractive and very beautiful, and they began to desire them and marry them. And so they began to intermarry the unrighteous daughters of men. And they had human children, and indeed some of those children may have been of large size and reputation. Jesus himself said in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 38, For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving into marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark. So there was this intermarrying going on between the godly lineage of Seth and the ungodly lineage of Cain, which was another reason that God decided to have a flood. Because once this began, even the righteous strain was being polluted. Because of that intermarriage, there was violence in the earth. Even the one thing that God saw as positive and optimistic in the human race was quickly being degraded as the sons of God were intermarrying and compromising their values and their standards by marrying female women who were known as the daughters of men. Okay, let's take a look at another scripture now and see the only other place where this word Nephilim is used. We're going to go to Numbers chapter 13, and I'm going to pick it up here in verse 31. Numbers chapter 13, I'm going to pick it up here in verse 31. I think we are familiar with the story that Moses sent spies into the Promised Land to find out what it was like. And they came back, and most of them came back with a very negative, a bad report about how terrifying the inhabitants were, how bad this land was. So we'll pick it up here in verse 31.

But the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land, which they had spied out, saying the land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants. Now that's hyperbole, shall we say? That's a little bit of it. Does it really devour its inhabitants? So nobody lives there? It's devoured everybody? You didn't see a human being at all in the land? Think of this logically. And all the people whom we saw are men of great stature. Everyone there you saw was a person of great stature? Well, no, this is the kind of thinking you have when you lack self-esteem, when you lack a sense of true worth and value. Remember, these were a slave people, and they lacked a positive self-image about themselves. So this wild exaggeration. There they saw giants. The descendants of Anak came from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. Again, highlighting their lack of self-image, self-esteem, self-worth. Even in our own minds, we were small and belittled and humiliated.

And we were in their sight. Now, since they can't crawl in their minds, they had no idea what these giants were thinking of, the Israelites, when they came and met them. And then I'll just go into Numbers 14, verse 1. So all the congregation lifted their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron.

And the whole congregation said to them, if only we had died in the land of Egypt, or only if we had died in this wilderness. So again, what I want to emphasize here, looking at the slide on verse 33. There we saw giants, that is, Nephilim, the descendants of Anak came from the giants, and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. This is after the flood, and there are gigantic human beings, and we'll talk about that in a minute, that they saw in the Promised Land. Now, obviously, the term giant is a relative term.

The largest documented human skeleton ever was nearly nine feet tall. Most others that are considered giants are between seven and eight foot tall. Now, I have to have a word of caution here, because there is a lot of stupid information on the internet. A lot of hoaxes showing a 25-foot human skull photoshopped. What we need to understand, brethren, is there is a mathematical principle called the Square Cube Law. It's part of basic physics, and you can't just size up a human being much beyond ten feet, and have it biologically function as a human being.

For example, if you are five foot tall and weigh 150 pounds, and you make yourself ten foot tall, you are not 300 pounds. If you want to maintain the dimensions and the physicality of a human being, you're weighing closer to a thousand pounds. You can't not just have, if you're going from five foot to ten foot, your bones twice as thick as they were when they were five foot, because your bones will break carrying that amount of weight. There is a reason that God created hippopotamus and elephants with trunks this wide.

So, physically speaking, if you understand physics in the Square Cube Law, you cannot have anything over ten foot tall nearly function and appear like a hominoid or a human being. It just cannot biologically happen or function. Most humans who get this tall, get to be eight, nine foot tall, suffer from a result of a defective pituitary gland, causing it to overproduce human growth hormones as it's growing from a child.

They all live very short lives and they have mobility issues. They can barely walk. Their sheer size is difficult under cardiovascular system. Their heart cannot pump the enormous amount of blood that is required to keep something that large functioning and warm at a proper temperature. Also, their skeletal structure cannot support the weight. Therefore, they have knee problems, they have hip problems, they have ankle problems, and this is well documented to everyone who has suffered from this issue. Now, with that being said, what does the Bible imply about Goliath? We've all heard of Goliath. He was the giant who fought David. So, let's talk about Goliath for a minute. Turn with me, if you would, to 1 Samuel 17, verse 41.

And before that, I will go back to explain how tall he was. Verse 3 says this, The Philistines stood on the mountain on one side, and Israel stood on the mountain on the other side, with a valley between them. And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath from Gath, whose height was 6 cubits and a span.

Now, it is believed that a cubit was 18 inches long. Some believe it's 16 inches, but 18 inches is what most scholars believe a cubit was, anciently. And a span, 9 inches. That means Goliath's height was 9 foot 7,5 feet tall. Now, if you saw something like that, do you think you would perceive it as a giant?

Do you think you would perceive it as large? Well, I'm going to give you an example here. We're going to show you Greg Laius. Now, I am approximately, with my shoes on, 6 feet tall. This is a yardstick. This is an additional 3 foot. So, Goliath would have stood about, using my fiscus, about an additional 6 inches. This is how tall Goliath would have been compared to a normal human being. Now, if you saw someone walking in the city of Cleveland, this size, do you think you would consider him terrifying?

Do you think you would consider him a giant? You absolutely would. And this is approximately how tall Goliath would have been. So, understanding that this is what they faced, you can understand the terror that existed within the warriors of Israel. So, let's now pick it up here in verse 41. I'm going to focus on that in a minute.

Then David said to the Philistine, You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you and take your head from you. And this day I will give the carcasses of the camp of the Philistines to the birds of the air and the wild beasts of the earth. That all on the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's and He will give you into our hands. So it was when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, that David hastened and ran towards the army to meet the Philistine. Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone, and he slung it and struck the Philistine in the forehead so that the stone sank in his forehead and he fell on his face to the earth. Alright, let's take a look at a couple of things before we focus on that scripture. An interesting statement. Chapter 17, verse 38. So Saul clothed David with his armor. Saul says, I'm sure not going in there to fight that giant, but you can, David, and you know what? I'm going to help you. I'm going to give you my armor to wear. No need to thank me. I'm just going to give you my armor. So he put a bronze helmet on his head, and he clothed him with a coat of mail, and David fastened his sword to his armor, and he tried to walk, for he had not tested them, and David said to Saul, I cannot walk with these, for I have not tested them, and David took them off.

David knew that his strength, his advantage here, was his mobility. It was his ability to run, to move quickly. Now, what would he have observed about that giant? What would he have known by looking at that giant, knowing that his advantage was his agility? His mobility is able to move quickly. Well, let's take a look at some scriptures. Interesting one. Verse 41. So the Philistine came and began drawing near to David, and the man who bore the shield went before him. Who is this man? Every warrior I've ever known has their own shield in their own arm, and their sword in their other hand. Then, this implies that the giant lacked mobility, or he lacked the agility to hold the shield in one hand, and to hold a sword in the other, like most other warriors do. And how well did this work? Well, I can tell you, for the guy who was bearing the shield, when that stone sank into his forehead, he said, Uh-oh! So again, this indicates that there's something wrong here. The giant does not have the mobility, or perhaps the weight of the shield just made him off-balance, and he couldn't carry his own shield. So again, there's an individual who was bearing the shield, trying to protect the giant in front of him. Interesting thing in verse 44, and the Philistines said to David, You come to me, and I will give you the flesh to the birds of the air, and the beast of the field. Interesting statement. It's like he didn't want to move. It's like he knew he wasn't fast. He didn't want to put forth that effort. He was large, he was lumbering, but he was not very mobile. Verse 48, And so it was when the Philistine arose and came and drew near to meet David, notice that he arose. He doesn't seem to be very mobile, much like the kind of giants today that we have who suffer from a pituitary gland. And because of that, they grow very large, but they have mobility issues. Continuing, he came and drew near to meet David, that David hastened and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine. He is outflanking him. Why can he outflank him? Because the giant has mobility issues. Notice, he rises up, the giant, and he just draws near. David runs! He knows that's his advantage. He absolutely knows that that is his strength. So, putting all of that together with a little bit of background about Nephilim, who they were, why they exist, how people get to be gigantic heights, even in our world today, let's begin to answer the original question. The phrase Satan's seed is nowhere found in the Bible.

This implies that Satan or his demons can create something, that Satan or his demons can spawn something. There is only one creator. You will be hard-pressed to find that there's been a new spirit being a new demon created in the last 10,000 years because they cannot reproduce. There are no new ones.

They are spirit. They are sealed. They are condemned. They are within their own limited sphere of influence. Granted, Satan and his demons can possess the body of a person, as is mentioned in Matthew 17 and other places, or an animal. In Matthew 8, they temporarily went to some swine. But there's no scriptural support for spirits procreating with humans. Again, they can possess the body of a human being, a human being that already has its own body.

And if that human being should intermarry, even when they're possessed with another person, the DNA in everything is carried from that physical body into their mate. It is not from any influence of the demon possession. Now, in contrast to this, since God can trust his angels, he's given them additional authority and powers.

Angels can manifest themselves in the human form, like the angels who came and talked to Abraham and had a nice meal with him. So angels, again, because they are in the good side, they're in the light, God gives them additional authority and the ability to manifest themselves in the human form. But again, you will not find any example of angels even having the capability of procreating with a human being. And the reason is that there is a huge gulf between the spirit world and the physical human world.

What did Jesus say about spirit existence in a question he was asked about marital relationships? The Sadducees, who didn't believe in the resurrection, came to try to trick him. And they said, a woman married this man, and he died. She married again, and he died. And that happened seven times. They said, so whose wife is she going to be in the resurrection? They thought they were going to trick Jesus Christ. And he replied, are you not an Arab because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? Jesus says, I'm not going to answer your ridiculous question because it's illogical.

And it contradicts what the Scriptures say. He says, when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in the marriage. They will be like angels in heaven. They will be spirit.

Spirit does not marry. When you are spirit, you have an intimate relationship with everything in the spiritual world, not just one physical human being. The spiritual realm is a whole different level of existence, Jesus is saying. And you shouldn't confuse that. You need to understand that there's a gulf, a big difference between the spirit realm of existence and the mere physical human realm and human needs.

What did Jesus say about the spirit existence? Let's take a look at John chapter 3 and verse 6 as he's talking to Nicodemus. He's saying, you just don't understand how the spirit of God works, Nicodemus. You're thinking in physical ways about being reborn, entering your mother and being born again. He's saying, you just don't get it. That which is born of flesh is flesh.

Period. Can't go there. And that which is born of spirit is spirit. It's a different level, a different plane of existence. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So is everyone who is born of spirit. Don't blend, don't mix.

And confuse yourself by trying to mix flesh or carnality or something that is physical and human with something that is on the spiritual level of existence. The only recorded miraculous event where spirit ever became human, the one time miraculous event by the creator himself was the birth of Jesus Christ. And it was not through a sexual act. Here's what was told to Joseph. It says here in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 20, But while he thought about these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you, Mary your wife.

For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. So this was not through a sexual act. This was through the divine presence of God's Spirit, impregnating her with the right amount of chromosomes and so on, so that her natural female egg would be fertilized and could produce a son. Again, this is the only recorded miraculous event where spirit ever ultimately became human, the birth of Jesus Christ. And it was made possible because it was the creator himself who guided the power of the Holy Spirit to do this miraculous event, to offer salvation for all mankind.

So in summary, the Nephilim were large humans who lived before and after the sons of God and daughters of men intermarried. They may have been the result of a genetic or biological defect. We don't know exactly what caused the huge size that they had, but I think there's indications. And we look at the story of David in Goliath that he indeed, much like occurs to people today who were that large, he indeed had mobility issues and problems.

They were the result of two human parents. Because of their size and perceived strength, they were anciently considered to be giants and celebrities. And that's our Bible study for today. We'll ask Art and Mr. Howson to come forward and lead us into closing him.