Nephilim, Furthermore...

I decided to look further into this issue, as some readers might want more clarification or proof. I will also include myself in this search for more knowledge, as I was still a bit uneasy about this "sons of God" issue.

Genesis 6:4 " The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown."

I will not argue that there are places in the Old Testament that call angels "sons of God". Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7 and Daniel 3:25 "sons of Mighty". However, any claim to suggest that the term "sons of God" only refers to angels, is wrong. (I would like to note that, to my knowledge, no reader on this blog has suggested such.)

Showing that angels are called "sons of God" it is important to note, in Psalms 73:15 "generation of thy children" uses the same word "sons" describing them as they belong to God. in Deut. 32:5 the same word "sons" is used in reference to Israel. Hosea 1:10 stronger yet calls Israel "sons of the living God" Psalms 80:17 also belongs here.

So which one do we know to be true? So far in Genesis we have had no mention made of angels. Yet we have had reference to other sons which would be easily considered men of renown. Look at Genesis 5. The entire chapter is a list from Adam to Noah. An entire chapter of renown men, Adam to Noah, directly listed before chapter 6. The heritage listed in chapter 5 is also important to note, because it show that Noah, and his children, are men of renown, which plays perfectly into before and after the flood.

There is a distinction between two types of people. There would be the heirs or Cain, and the heirs of Seth. Those of Seth are called Sethites, and you guessed it, Cains heirs are called Cainites. That is why there needs to be distinction between normal men, and men of renown, or sons of God. The Sethites publicly worshiped God, stayed close to Him. Read over chapter 5 and you can clearly see this. The problem is that the Sethites were starting to marry women of men. That is to say that they no longer cared about the character of the women they married, it was a pretty face and figure that they cared about more.

I hope this clears this all up. I used a commentary by H. C. Leupold (1892-1972) titled "Exposition of Genesis: Volume I".