Who are the sons of God in Genesis 6?

Bible People & HistoryIn theological review

The short answer

Christians differ on who the sons of God in Genesis 6 are, and the text does not settle the question by itself. The three main readings are that they were angels who transgressed their proper place, that they were the godly line of Seth intermarrying with Cain's line, or that they were human rulers and kings who took wives and ruled violently; each reading rests on real texts, and faithful Christians hold each of them.

The fuller answer

Genesis 6 opens the flood story with a strange episode. The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and took wives from among them, and their time produced the Nephilim, described as mighty men and men of renown, in days when human wickedness had become great on the earth. Everything turns on the phrase sons of God, which Genesis itself does not define in this passage. Because the phrase decides how the whole episode is read, and because honest interpreters have landed in different places for centuries, this answer sets out the three main readings fairly, with the texts each one stands on, and takes no house side.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown.

Genesis 6:4 (BSB)

The oldest reading takes the sons of God as angels. Its support is usage elsewhere: in Job 1:6 and Job 38 the same phrase describes heavenly beings before God, and no human group is called sons of God in the Old Testament in quite that collective way. Supporters add that 2 Peter 2:4 speaks of angels who sinned and were cast down, and Jude 6 of angels who left their proper dwelling, both near flood era judgements, and that 1 Enoch built its watcher story on this text. Against it, critics note that Jesus said angels do not marry, and that Genesis blames human beings, not angels, in the flood judgement that follows.

One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them.

Job 1:6 (BSB)

The second reading takes the sons of God as the line of Seth, the godly line of Genesis 5, marrying into Cain's line from Genesis 4, so the episode describes faithfulness dissolving through mixed marriages. The third reading takes them as rulers or kings, noting that royal figures can be called God's sons in texts such as Psalm 82 and 2 Samuel 7, and reads the passage as the rise of violent polygamous tyrants whose corruption filled the earth with violence. Christians differ here, and the difference does not touch any central doctrine of the faith: on every reading, the passage shows a world given over to corruption, judged by the flood and preserved through Noah alone.

Sources

Berean Standard Bible (BSB)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

No answer here is a dead end. Follow the question on, test it in practice, or work the method yourself on the Dig deeper page.

Did Adam and Eve really exist?Yes, Contend treats Adam and Eve as real people, the first human beings, created by God and standing at the head of the human race. Genesis 1 to 5 presents them as historical figures in a genealogy that runs on into recorded history, Jesus and the apostles speak of Adam as a real man, and Paul's teaching that sin and death came through one man, answered by salvation through one man, Jesus, only works if Adam was real.Was there really a flood over the whole earth?Yes, Genesis presents the flood in Noah's day as a real judgement that covered the earth as its people knew it and destroyed human and animal life outside the ark. The Hebrew text describes waters covering the high mountains and all flesh dying, Peter treats the event as history, and the honest open question among Christians is the flood's exact geographical extent, since the Hebrew word for earth can also mean land.Who is Satan, and where did he come from?Satan is a created spiritual being who rebelled against God and now accuses, tempts and deceives human beings, according to the Bible. Scripture never gives a full biography of his origin: it shows him already fallen in Genesis 3 and Job, calls him the accuser and the deceiver, and promises his final judgement, while two famous passages about the kings of Tyre and Babylon are often read as hints about his fall but speak directly about human kings.Is the Book of Enoch Scripture?No, not for most Christians: the Book of Enoch is an ancient Jewish work that Jude quotes for one true point, but the wider church did not receive it as Scripture, and its content and late, composite history fail the canon tests applied across this site. The Ethiopian church, which does include it in its canon, should be stated fairly as the exception.Who wrote the Bible?People did, and God did, and the Bible insists on both. On the human side it has many authors across many centuries, from Moses to John. On the divine side, Peter says men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, and Paul calls all Scripture God-breathed. Real writers, real styles, one intention behind them.Bible Character: NoahThe righteous man who built the ark and brought his family and the animals through the flood.Bible Character: AdamThe first man, formed by God from the dust of the ground and placed in the garden of Eden.