Gen 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.
It appears that the Nephilim were people of large physical stature; this is the popular scholastic assumption. The word “Nephilim” is the Hebrew word נפל נפיל , translated as nephîyl nephil (pronounced nef-eel’, nef-eel’) means “a feller, that is, a bully or tyrant: – giant.” It comes from the root word נפל , translated nâphal (pronounced naw-fal’) which is defined in a number of ways including “to fall, to be cast down, divide, fail, become a fugitive, to become inferior, to be judged, to overthrow, to slay, to smite and to throw down.”
“Sons of Gods” refers to the lineage of Seth, a bloodline that gave reverence to God in their lifestyle and relationship with Him. “Daughters of Men” refers to the female offspring of Cain, a bloodline that wasn’t concerned with the things of God. Assumptively the “daughters of men” handled themselves in such a way to attract the “sons of God” to desire them for their attractive looks and charms.
The seed of Seth undoubtedly had a more godly nature than the seed of Cain. Thus the seed of Seth, the “sons of God”, had a higher moral character which warranted them respect and influence in that regard. It could also be assumed that these men were chosen as leaders for their gallant nature. So when the “sons of God” took wives of the “daughters of men”, because of this union of godly blood with ungodly blood, they produced children who had a lofty and refined nature from the Seth side while simultaneously having an aggressive, violent, rebellious nature from the Cain side. The end result is a child who has the intellectual ability to be graceful while simultaneously possessing the physical stature to be both intimidating and demanding.
Thus because of their combined mental and physical characteristics, these “men of renown” had the ability to essentially do as they pleased, forcing their will and desires upon whomever they chose. This tendency gave way to the spirit of violence that grew rampant in that day as they consistently collided with each other. According to Barnes notes, “The giants,” the well-known men of great stature, physical force, and violent will, who were enabled by these qualities to claim and secure the supremacy over their fellow-men. “Had been in the land in those days.” In the days when those intermarriages were beginning to take place, the warriors were asserting the claim of might.
Of course it could also be safe to assume that male offspring from the lineage of Cain took wives from both bloodlines, producing some mixed-nature children and also some who, being of the same bloodline, were exceedingly wicked in their ways.
Ultimately these mixed-breed offspring became, as the scripture says, mighty men. They were known for their physical stature (big and strong), their character (powerful and dominant) and their exploits (oppressively taking what they wanted) with a ‘may be best man win’ type mindset. As is the nature of all men, stories were shared of what these men did, who they’d conquered and how they’d gone about securing their fame. Thus they became the “men of reknown.”
Consider that with the reality that not all of the “sons of God” took wives from the “daughters of men”. Obviously there were female descendants from Seth’s lineage as well and we can deduce that these ladies were of the same moral character as well. Gen 6:2 indicates that the sons of God “they took them wives of all which they chose” so it’s obvious that some of the marriages were indeed godly seed with godly seed. It would be entirely appropriate to assume that Noah did so since he was “perfect in his generations” (Gen 6:9) which indicates he was “blameless” or “found without character flaw.”
Of course inherent to this discussion comes the question of whether or not the seed of these mighty men was destroyed in the flood. On one side it could be argued that it did since only Noah and his family were on the ark. However what is unknown is the makeup and heritage of the wives that Noah’s sons took. Were these wives of pure descent as Noah’s sons were or did the sons marry wives “whom they chose” that might have been from Cain’s bloodline? There is a compelling reason to believe that at least one of the wives was, likely that of Ham, because clearly there were men of great physical nature after the flood and they were known to be in Canaan of which Ham was the father of. Within Canaan were the Anakim which were a tribe of giant stature. They were mostly destroyed when Joshua and the children of Israel invaded but a remnant survived having fled to Philistine which is where Goliath was from.
This concept of good and evil co-existing is of course very applicable to us today, a society when the righteous seed of God, born again, are to co-exist with a world full of iniquity. Thus making the words of Jesus “as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of man” all the more clear to us now.
