by John R Ecob DD

We are first introduced to giants in the Bible at the time of the Flood where we read:

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 …  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 (Genesis 6:1-4).

Men had become very wicked.

Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually (Genesis 6:5).

The earth also was corrupt before God and filled with violence (Genesis 6:11).

So God determined to destroy the entire human race with the exception of eight righteous people.

What was it that tipped the scales to cause the Creator to take such drastic action? Down through history men have been exceedingly violent and continually pursued evil yet never has such drastic action been determined on the entire human race. Something tipped the scales requiring a completely new start for humanity. What was it? Cain was violent and killed Abel but he was allowed to live and was protected.

It was the presence of “the sons of God”, mingling with men and having children to the daughters of men who were giants; a new species of part god and part man. This was the final sin that required such drastic action.

After Adam sinned God slew animals and made coats of skins of animals for the guilty pair. He accepted Abel’s “more excellent sacrifice” (Hebrews 11:4) as a sin offering to atone for sin and He promised that “the seed of the woman”, a virgin born man, would one day bruise the serpent’s (Satan’s) head.

The Saviour who would deal the deadly blow on Satan must be a man; a perfect man, and that perfect man was Christ. Redemption was not for Satan or any of his fallen angels; it was for sinful mankind and a perfect man must atone for mankind.

When Satan and his angels sinned they did so in the full light and knowledge of the glory of God but when Adam and Eve sinned they were deceived. In the Old Testament God prescribed sin offerings to be offered for “sin through ignorance” (Leviticus 4:2). But if a person is fully enlightened and wilfully sets himself against God there is no remorse for sin, no desire for reconciliation but defiance that cannot be forgiven. Satan was in this catagory.

If Satan could corrupt the human bloodstream so that the human race was no longer 100% human but part angel and part man, then even if Christ came as a perfect man and died for all mankind it would be of no avail and the plan of God to redeem fallen, sinful mankind would be thwarted. In Noah’s day Satan’s scheme was well advanced and that’s why we read of Noah,

These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God (Genesis 6:9).

The Bible has many lists of the generations of different men. When the Bible speaks of the generations of Adam or Noah or Abraham it is always the list of the descendants of each of those men. When we read that Noah was “perfect in his generations” it is not talking about his moral or spiritual condition for we know that Noah was not perfectly sinless. It is referring to the record of his family line which had not been corrupted by intermingling with fallen angels called “the sons of God”. He had a perfect blood line, uncontaminated by fallen angels.

From this we can conclude that the union of the “sons of God” and the daughters of men that had produced giant creatures with human characteristics was wide spread, so much so that God said,

thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation (Genesis 7:1).

Noah’s family was part of the line of truly human beings and he preached for 120 years before judgment fell. Peter wrote of that time

when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water (1 Peter 3:20).

Can Angels Co-habitate With Women?

Some have objected to the thought of angels being able to father children and they quote Jesus’ words that

in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven (Matthew 22:30).

Jesus did not say that it was impossible for angels to cohabitate with women. He said that the angels of God, the holy angels in heaven, don’t marry. But these fallen angels were operating on earth and Jude speaks of them as those “which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation” (Jude 6). Satan’s angels had been given the specific task of polluting the human bloodstream and thus frustrating God’s plan of salvation for mankind.

Giants after the Flood

Satan’s attempt to corrupt the human race before the flood continued after the Flood for the Bible speaks of many giants living up to about 1,500 years after the Flood; to the time of David.

The Zamzummims were giants who lived in Canaan on the east of Jordan before the children of Lot destroyed them (Deuteronomy 2:20).

When Israel came into the land of Canaan they encountered the Anakims at Hebron (Numbers 13:33); and the Emims near Moab (Deuteronomy 2:10-11). Bashan east of Galilee was known as “the land of the giants” (Deuteronomy 3:13). Og king of Bashan slept on an iron bed nearly 14 feet long and the spies whom Moses sent in to Canaan reported that they were as “grasshoppers in their sight” (Numbers 13:33).

Even in David’s day there were giants among the Philistines. David and his men slew Goliath and his brothers.

The Bible is not the only record of these fallen angels after the Flood. The ancient Epic (poem) of Gilgamish which claims to be written during the lifetime of Noah after the Flood, describes Gilgamesh as a part man and part god who was also a violent giant. He terrorized the people of the city of Erech located south of Babylon which was built by Nimrod.

Satan did not give up his attempt to frustrate God’s plan of redemption after God destroyed the world with a flood but it seems that it was left to David to put an end to the age of the giants.

These Fallen Angels were Judged

From the New Testament we learn that all of those angels that sinned before the Flood have been judged by God and God cast them

down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment (2 Peter 2:4).

The original Greek word translated hell here is neither hades where the souls of the unsaved go after death, nor gehenna which is the lake of fire “prepared for the Devil and his angels”. It is tartaros which is the “bottomless pit”; the great gulf between paradise and torment in Old Testament times (Luke 16:26). It is a place of “darkness” (2 Peter 2:4) where there is the “smoke of a great furnace” (Revelation 9:2) specifically for angels that God has judged. It is where Satan will be bound for 1,000 years while Christ reigns on earth.

giants before the floodThis judgment was a strong disincentive to other fallen angels from seeking to pollute the human bloodstream and it seems that after David destroyed the last of the giants there was no further attempt by fallen angels to cohabitate with women.

Jesus was the “son of David”, “son of Man” and “Son of God”, who defeated Satan at Calvary and who will reign on David’s throne. It was therefore fitting that David should be the one that God used to put an end to  Satan’s attempt to polute the human bloodstream. The final victory will come when Jesus Christ returns and judges Satan and all his angels.

Fallen Angels Know Their Future

We know from the New Testament that fallen angels (demons) are terrified of being bound in the “abyss” (the bottomless pit). They know that they, with Satan, will one day be bound in tartaros for 1,000 years. When Jesus cast the legion of demons out of the Demoniac of Gaderra the demons pleaded not to be sent to the “abyss” “before the time!” (Luke 8:31; Matthew 8:29).

They asked to be sent into a herd of swine. They were prepared to live in pigs instead of some wretched human being if it meant they were not banished to tartaros before the time when Christ returns. Demons feared the bottomless pit.

Demons want to possess human beings. Man is made in the image of God and Satan wants to control humans in order to mar that image. Jesus indicated this in Matthew 12:43-45. He said,

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.

Fallen Angels are Subject to Christ

Satan knows the prophecies of the Bible and is fully aware that toward the end of the first half of the Tribulation the bottomless pit will be opened and those demons incarcerated in tartaros will be released for a short season to be an instrument in God’s hands to afflict those men who follow the Antichrist and who have taken his mark.

When the 5th trumpet judgment sounds those incarcerated demons will be given limited powers. They will not be permitted to kill men but will be able to torment men for five months such that men will

seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them (Revelation 9:6).

Satan and his angels go about “like a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8) seeking to devour and destroy men. He wanted to destroy Job but could not go beyond what God permitted. He desired to have Peter but Jesus prayed for him and Peter was restored. Believers need not fear for we can take the shield of faith by which we are able to “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked (one)” (Ephesians 6:16)