The four interpretations…are attempts to read a notoriously difficult passage. You might wonder which views have been popular historically and which ancient and modern theologians have held such interpretations. Let’s talk about that next.
How should we understand the “sons of God,” the “daughters of man,” and the Nephilim in Genesis 6:1–4? In the previous post, we considered the echoes in the passage from earlier parts of Genesis, and we thought about the literary placement of 6:1–4 in light of what immediately precedes and follows it.
What are the ways interpreters have read 6:1–4?
Option 1: The Sons of God are Sethites
According to the Sethite view, the “sons of God” are the descendants of Seth. They are human beings only. Their marriages to “daughters of man” would be human marriages, and their offspring would be human children. If the Nephilim are considered the offspring of these unions, the Nephilim are not supernatural beings.
The distinction between the “sons of God” and “daughters of man” is a spiritual one. The godly line of Seth would be intermarrying with the daughters of man, and “of man” emphasizes that these “daughters” do not know the Lord. In the Sethite view, then, these marriages displease the Lord because they involve the joining together of believers and unbelievers.
Support for this view comes, first of all, from the immediately preceding chapter. In Genesis 5, the genealogy of Adam through Seth is traced to Noah. Genesis 5 reports family descent through birth of human “sons” and human “daughters.” Second, the prior chapters of Genesis have been interested in conflicting spiritual lines. We see Cain and Abel in Genesis 4. After Abel dies, the Lord gives Eve another son, Seth. And in Genesis 4, we see the respective lines of descent for Cain and Seth, lines we should contrast. Third, the Sethite view has the advantage of staying with the realm of humanity and not moving to the realm of angels, so there may be less initial objection to strangeness. The non-human views of the “sons of God” must deal with the accompanying oddities which the Sethite view can avoid. Fourth, 6:1–4 reports marriages, and throughout the Old and New Testaments we see human beings getting married. Jesus says in Matthew 22:30 that the angels in heaven do not marry.
Option 2: The Sons of God are Human Kings
The “human king” view understands that in the ancient Near East, a king might be viewed as divine or partly divine, a “son” of the gods. In Genesis 6:1–4, then, the “sons of God” would be human kings who have relationships with human women. These human women became wives to these “sons of God.”
According to the human king—or royal son—view, the offspring of these marriages would be mighty people, the Nephilim, who were human offspring.