Before the rain first fell and the fountains of the deep broke open.
Before Noah built the ark and judgment thundered across the ancient world.
Before humanity learned what it meant to drown.
The Bible tells us something unsettling:
There were giants in those days.
The Nephilim.
A word that lands with the weight of myth, yet stands firmly inside Scripture's oldest pages.
Let’s talk about it…
Genesis 6:1-4 introduces them without explanation, almost as if the original readers were expected to recognize the name: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days... These were the mighty men of old, men of renown."
They appear suddenly in Scripture's narrative, and they vanish just as fast. Leaving nothing but questions scattered like footprints in wet earth.
Here's what we can say with Scripture as our guide:
1. Their origins are linked to a mysterious union
Genesis speaks cryptically of "the sons of God" taking "the daughters of men."
Whether you interpret "sons of God" as fallen angels, powerful human rulers, or something else entirely, the result is portrayed as crossing a boundary God never intended.
Something sacred was violated.
Something natural became unnatural.
2. Their presence is tied to corruption
Genesis 6 doesn't treat the Nephilim as interesting trivia or a fun detail for Bible nerds.
It's a warning shot.
Right after mentioning them, Scripture says: "The earth was filled with violence." (Genesis 6:11)
The world is spiraling. Humanity is disordered. Chaos is spreading like cancer.
Something has gone terribly wrong on a cosmic scale.
3. They reappear in Israel's nightmares
Centuries later, in Numbers 13:32-33, the Israelite spies return from Canaan trembling with fear: "We saw the descendants of Anak... from the Nephilim."
Whether this is a literal or frightened exaggeration doesn't really matter. What matters is what the Nephilim represented. They represented terror, chaos, and the overwhelming feeling of facing something far too big to overcome.
They were the monsters under Israel's bed. They were the stories parents told to explain why evil felt so powerful, so entrenched, so giant.
Though not Scripture, the ancient world tried desperately to fill in the gaps. And the voices of Jews living before Jesus give us fascinating insight into how they understood Genesis 6.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH
The Book of the Watchers (part of 1 Enoch) takes the phrase "sons of God" literally and runs with it. It describes heavenly beings, called ‘Watchers,’ descending to the earth and lusting after human women and taking them as wives.
They bear giant offspring: the Nephilim.
These giants consume everything in sight, then turn to violence and cannibalism.
The Watchers teach humanity forbidden knowledge like sorcery, weapon crafting, seductive charms, and astrology.
THE BOOK OF JUBILEES
An ancient Jewish commentary expands the tale even further. The Book of Jubilees says that when the giants died in the Flood, their disembodied spirits became the evil spirits that roam the world.
This became a major interpretive framework for Second Temple Judaism, explaining not just where demons came from, but why evil feels so relentless, so hungry, so inhuman.
THE WRITINGS OF JOSEPHUS
The first-century Jewish historian records local claims of giant remains still visible in his time. He affirms the angelic interpretation of Genesis 6 without hesitation.
Again, it’s not Scripture. But important windows into how ancient people understood this haunting story.
Together, these traditions paint the Nephilim as the face of spiritual rebellion.
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Even without resolving every mystery, the Nephilim speak a truth that echoes across the ages:
When humans overstep God's boundaries, we create monsters.
The Nephilim become a chilling symbol of what happens when:
Today, we may not battle literal giants. But think about this:
Like shadows cast by ancient giants, our world still feels the ripple of that early corruption.
The Nephilim remind us that evil rarely arrives full-grown. It grows. It multiplies. It devours.
The giants we tolerate today become the giants that rule us tomorrow.
