1 – Introduction
Our
reference is from Genesis 6:1-8 where we read the following:
“And it came to pass, when men began to multiply
on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons
of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took
them wives of all which they chose.
And the LORD said, my spirit shall not always
strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred
and twenty years.
There were giants
in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons
of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the
same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. And GOD saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And it repented the LORD that he had made man
on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will
destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and
beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me
that I have made them.
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD”.
The text of
Gen 6:1-8 has puzzled Jewish and Christian Bible interpreters for centuries.
Its verses contain a number of notions, raising many questions, such as on the
identity of the
“sons of
God” and the “daughters of men”.
A specific
question is related to the appearance of the giants, the focus of this part of the blog.
The fact
that these giants existed becomes clear when we note how often the bible refers to
them. A few references, out of the many more that exist, are as follows:
Numbers 13:33…”and we even saw giants there, the
descendants of Anak. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that is how we must
have looked to them.”
Deuteronomy
3:11… “King Og was the last of the
Rephaim. His coffin, made of stone, was six feet wide and almost fourteen
feet long, according to standard measurements. It can still be seen in the
Ammonite city of Rabbah.)
Og’s bed (engraving circa 1770 by Johann Balthasar Probst)
Joshua
14:15… “Before this, Hebron was called
the city of Arba. (Arba had been the greatest of the Anakim.)
Deuteronomy
2:10…”A mighty race of giants
called the Emim used to live in Ar. They were as tall as the Anakim, another
race of giants”.
1
Chronicles 20:8….”These three, who were
killed by David and his men, were descendants of the giants at Gath”.
2 Samuel
21:18…”After this there was a battle with
the Philistines at Gob, during which Sibbecai from Hushah killed a giant
named Saph.”.
¿Who is
this group of individuals, called giants, and what do they represent?
We will
first identify a number of theories that try to explain the identity of the
various individuals identified in Genesis 6 verses 1-8, and then go into more
detail about the generally accepted theory for the appearance of the “giants”.
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