The Mysterious Sons of God in Genesis 6 - A Clear Look at a Controversial Passage

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We see a very strange account in Genesis 6 where sons of God took the daughters of men to be wives. Who are these sons of Gods? There are three usual interpretations:

  • Descendants from Cain’s line
  • Pagan rulers who did polygamy
  • Fallen angels 

[1] The 1st interpretation is that the sons of God were wicked descendants of Cain intermarrying with godly descendants of Seth. It kind of fits the scene of lust running everywhere.

[2] The 2nd interpretation says it refers to powerful human rulers, pagan kings who took many wives and sinned through polygamy, like Lamech who is a descendant of Cain (Gen 4: 17).

The problem with these 2 interpretations is that nowhere else does sons of God refer to any kind of human beings. And if they were men indeed, that may not explain much about how giants were born as offspring because of that. Also, these options, in general, do not seem to justify the harsh judgment of flood that follows after this scene.

[3] The 3rd and what I feel is the most appropriate interpretation is that the sons of God refers to fallen angels. A potential problem with this is in Matthew 22:30, which implies that angels do not marry. But that specifically refers to angels in heaven, not the fallen angels. Even so, the reason scholars lean toward this is that almost all other places (see Job 1:6, 38:7, 1 Sam 18) where “sons of God” is mentioned, it refers to angels, which includes fallen angels.

To add to this, the NT texts place this account along with other Genesis events and identifies it as fallen angels and angels who left their proper domain (2 Peter 2:4, 5; Jude 1:6).

This continues to be an open debate for many years. Whatever it is, God saw it as a total irredeemable corruption, worthy of the flood. Which one do you think it is?

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