Chuck Larsen

Genesis 6:3 is one of the most interesting verses in the book of Genesis. In the New English Version, it reads, “Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.’” I used to believe, along with some good commentators, that this verse referred to how long God would give humanity to repent before the flood would come and destroy them. But I’ve changed my mind! I now agree with the New Living Translation that puts it this way: “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.” Thelma Sutcliffe of Omaha helped change my mind. There was an article in the Omaha World-Herald about her recently. She passed away at 115 years of age. She was the oldest living person, verified by responsible sources, since the passing away of Kane Tanaka of Japan, who lived to be 119 years of age. Others claim to have lived longer, but their ages could not be verified. As far as I can find out, Lucile Randon celebrated her 118^th birthday in February of 2022 and is the oldest living person alive today. That could change at any minute and might have between me writing this and you reading it!

Another reason I changed my mind is the phrase “his days shall be.” Walton convinced me. He wrote, “Of nearly one hundred occurrences of the plural ‘days’ with pronominal suffix, almost all refer to life span. The exceptions that offer the greatest deviation from that pattern are references like Deut. 12:19, which pertains to Israel’s tenure in the land. It should also be noted that the refrain of ch. 5 is ‘All the days of X were Y years, and he died,’ so the reader is used to seeing the life-span formula.”^[1]

Notice also that death was pronounced upon Adam and Eve upon eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but the sentence was not carried out immediately. The genealogy of Chapter five of Genesis shows the patriarchs lived to be nearly a thousand years old at times. After the flood, we see the decreasing lifespans of the patriarchs from Abraham at 175 to Jacob at 143, and then at the end of Deuteronomy, we see Moses’ age at his death is given at 120 years exactly. Furthermore, the point of Genesis 6:3 is that “all” mankind will experience the consequences of the sin arising before the flood. It would not just affect the current generation. But “Life span limits all of us, not just some.”^[2]

^[1] Walton, John H. 2001. Genesis. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

^[2] Roop, Eugene F. 1987. Genesis. Believers Church Bible Commentary. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press.

I Enoch refers to the fallen angels of Genesis 6:1f as “Watchers.” They were angels sent to watch over humans but were seduced in their lusts for the daughters of men and cohabited with them. The book of Daniel refers to angels as “Watchers” three times. 200 of the heavenly watchers united in defiance of God and became demons upon the earth. I Enoch gives the names of the 20 leaders of ten. Another of the two hundred is mentioned by name: Azazel. He is credited with leading the human race astray. I Enoch chapter 8 says, “Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray and became corrupt in all their ways.” The holy “watchers,” Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel saw all the evil and reported it to the Most High. They told God, “Thou seest what Azazel hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were preserved in heaven, which men were striving to learn.”

God sends Raphael to deal personally with Azazel. He tells him to, “Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein.” Dudael is the prison of all the fallen angels, especially the evil Watchers. The way this place is described, Dudael is sometimes considered as a region of the underworld, comparable to Tartarus or Gehenna. The last two letters “el” is a reference to God Almighty. It is the “Dungeon of God” or the “Prison of God.” The most interesting thing about Azazel is that God tells the Holy Ones to attribute the current state of man’s sinfulness to him. God says, “And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin.”

In Leviticus, we read about the “scapegoat.” Two goats are to be selected and Leviticus 16:8-10 says, “And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.” The blood of the first goat makes atonement for the sins of man. Those sins are then removed from man and symbolically placed on the head of the scapegoat and returned to the one who corrupted all mankind.  According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, “Far from involving the recognition of Azazel as a deity, the sending of the goat was, as stated by Naḥmanides, a symbolic expression of the idea that the people’s sins and their evil consequences were to be sent back to the spirit of desolation and ruin, the source of all impurity.”[1]

[1] https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2203-azazel

According to the book of I Enoch, Angels sent to watch over humans, became corrupt when they decided to take daughters of men as wives as mentioned in Genesis Chapter 6. The offspring of this unholy union were “giants.” I wonder if “monsters” could be a possible translation for that ancient word. According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, the word Rephaim and Nephilim and Anakim are just transliterations of the ancient language and not a real translation because we don’t have a word that means the same thing. In some modern translations, when the term is translated, it is rendered “giants.” But one or another of these terms is also used in the Bible to refer to the spirits of the dead, shades, or simply the dead. “It is difficult to identify whether the Rephaim were humans (living or dead), quasi-divine figures, or disembodied spirits. Old Testament usage associates the term with all these possibilities, while external Semitic source texts in which the term is found (Ugaritic, Phoenician) do not describe the Rephaim as giants.”^[1] Enoch explains that the “giants” took over the world and consumed everything that men produced. Men had to serve these giants and bring them whatever they had. Then in I Enoch, chapter 7, it says, “And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind.” Could this mean that the offspring of the demons fed on man’s flesh? It sounds like it. Verse 5 says, “And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another’s flesh, and drink the blood.” If Enoch is actually written by the 7^th from Adam, we might find the source of the prohibition of drinking blood in this reference.

According to a Wikipedia article, “Cannibalism has been well documented in much of the world, including Fiji, the Amazon Basin, the Congo, and the Māori people of New Zealand. Neanderthals are believed to have practiced cannibalism, and Neanderthals may have been eaten by anatomically modern humans. Cannibalism was also practiced in ancient Egypt, Roman Egypt and during famines in Egypt such as the great famine of 1199–1202.”[2] Some Native American Indians also practiced cannibalism. An article in the Seattle Times reports, “The first unequivocal evidence that American Indians practiced cannibalism has been discovered by researchers studying a small Anasazi settlement in what is now southwestern Colorado that was mysteriously abandoned about 1150 A.D.”[3]

There are even modern examples of cannibalism practiced for reasons other than survival.  Jeffrey Dahmer and Albert Fish were notorious cannibals. Modern science denounces the idea of Satanic possession and refers to this cannibalism as “mental illness.” There are other less famous cases as well, but we don’t like to think about demonic possession. Yet, Genesis chapters six and 1 Enoch speaks of it. 1 Enoch posits that the origin of cannibalism is demonic. In Kerth Barker’s 2014 book, “Cannibalism, Blood Drinking & High-Adept Satanism,” he talks about Satanism as a worldwide movement and how some practice cannibalism and blood-drinking.

^[1] Heiser, Michael S. 2016. “Rephaim.” In The Lexham Bible Dictionary, edited by John D. Barry, David Bomar, Derek R. Brown, Rachel Klippenstein, Douglas Mangum, Carrie Sinclair Wolcott, Lazarus Wentz, Elliot Ritzema, and Wendy Widder. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism

[3] https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20000907&slug=4041058

I Enoch, the pseudepigraphal book is an ancient Hebrew apocalyptic religious text ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. When Jude quotes it, he says it was written by the “seventh from Adam.” Enoch contains unique material on the origins of some demons and the Nephilim, an explanation of why the Genesis flood was morally necessary. It’s considered to date from sometime during the intertestamental period between 300 and 200 years before Christ. From archaeological finds of the book in various fragments as well as among the dead sea scrolls, we know the book was well known by Jews as well as early Christian writers. It appears to have been quoted by Jude and Peter in their epistles to the early church as well. It is not included in either the Jewish, Catholic, or Protestant bibles but the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo church include this book in their Bibles. The rest of the world, to a large extent, considers the book as non-inspired but may accept it as having some historical or theological interest.

Enoch refers to “Watchers.” They were good angels sent to look out or watch over man.  Hebrews 1:14 refers to the Angels as being charged with caring for and looking out for believers. But they became corrupt by leaving their natural state to co-habit with the daughters of men. Enoch 6:1-2 says, “And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’” Their leader was an angel named “Semjaza.” He led a host of 200 angels. They gathered on Mount Hermon and took an oath to partner together regarding taking the daughters of men as wives. Mount Hermon is sometimes referred to as the mountain of oaths because of this practice. Jesus’ sermon on the Mount where he instructs not to take oaths may have some roots in the oath taken by the fallen angels. The oath on Mount Hermon is said to have taken place in the days of Jared, the sixth from Adam.

Enoch continues to give the names of the leaders of the 200 angels. According to Enoch 6:7, The names of the leaders (without accent marks) are Semiazaz, Arakiba, Rameel, Kokabiel, Tamiel, Ramiel, Danel, Ezeqeel, Baraqujal, Asael, Armaros, Batarel, Ananel, Zaqiel, Samsapeel, Satarel, Turel, Jomjael, and Sariel. All of these angels, turned demons, took wives of the daughters of men according to their oaths. Furthermore, these demons taught the women “charms, enchantments, cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants.” Witchcraft seems to have its roots in these fallen angels. They are also said to have taught astrology, the constellations in the stars, enchantments, and “signs of the earth, the signs of the sun, and the course of the moon.” Thus, According to Enoch, many new age practices of today have their roots in these demons as well.

The early verses of Genesis chapter 6 tell us about “The Sons of God” that take for themselves the “daughters of men” as wives and have offspring. These verses are likely some of the most discussed verses in the entire book of Genesis. There are three different ways this has been understood.  The first two views support Exell’s insistence, “It is clear that angels cannot be intended by ‘the sons of God’ in this context, as they do not marry, nor are they given in marriage.”^[1] The first way is that the sons of God refer to the line of Seth and the daughters of men refer to the line of Cain. Leupold explains this position. He writes, “Here now is the natural sequence of thought: after the Cainites were observed to be going in one definite direction in their development, and the Sethites, too, were seen to be going in an entirely different direction, and these two streams of mankind were strictly keeping apart because they were so utterly divergent in character, now (Ch. 6) the two streams begin to commingle, and as a result moral distinctions are obliterated and the Sethites, too, become so badly contaminated that the existing world order must be definitely terminated.”^[2] A variant of this position says, “The intermarriage mentioned here is not simply between the line of Seth and the line of Cain. Instead, the two lines exemplify the difference between the faithful and the unfaithful, which probably accounts for the more general characterization of sons of God/daughters of mankind instead of the specificity of sons of Seth/daughters of Cain.”

Another opinion that has support among ancient Jewish writers is that the phrase represents more or less the Cinderella story. The sons of God refer to powerful human beings as kings, princes, judges, or rulers who leave their social status and marry commoners. Steinmann concludes this view by saying, “The marriage of the sons of God to the daughters of mankind is, then, a reference to aristocrats intermarrying with commoners.”

However, as Steinmann concedes, “The oldest-known interpretation is found in ancient compositions such as 1 Enoch and the book of Jubilees, as well as in a number of the early church fathers. It is also widely held among modern scholars…This position holds that the sons of God are angels and cites Job 1:6; 2:1, where this phrase is used to describe members of God’s heavenly court.”^[3] Gerhard Von Rad argues that this settles the issue once and for all. He says, “The question, which has been asked from the time of the early church down to our day, whether, namely, the “sons of God” are to be understood as angelic beings or as men, i.e., as members of “the superior human race of Seth,” can be considered as finally settled. The b^enē hā ’^elōhīm, here, by the way, clearly contrasted to the daughters of men, are beings of the upper heavenly world…These angelic beings let themselves be enticed by the beauty of human women to grievous sin; they fall from their ranks and mix with them in wild licentiousness.”^[4] Robert Newman writes a convincing article in the Grace Theological Journal and after studying the New Testament references to whether the “sons of God” were supernatural beings or human beings he concludes that “Jude and 2 Pet clearly favor the supernatural position.”^[5]

^[1] Exell, Joseph S., and Thomas H. Leale. 1892. Genesis. The Preacher’s Complete Homiletic Commentary. New York; London; Toronto: Funk & Wagnalls Company.

^[2] Leupold, H. C. 1942. Exposition of Genesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

^[3] Steinmann, Andrew E. 2019. Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary. Edited by David G. Firth. Vol. 1. The Tyndale Commentary Series. London: Inter-Varsity Press.

^[4] Rad, Gerhard von. 1972. Genesis: A Commentary. Edited by Peter Ackroyd, James Barr, Bernhard W. Anderson, and James L. Mays. Translated by John H. Marks. Revised Edition. The Old Testament Library. Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster Press.

^[5] Grace Seminary. 1998. Grace Theological Journal.

Genesis chapter four gives us the genealogy of Cain the murderer and the devolution of man further and further from God. Chapter five then moves to the godly genealogy of Seth and those who proclaimed the name of God in word and deed. There were ten generations from Cain. There were 10 generations from Seth, and each of the characters had many sons and daughters. The life expectancy for them all was approaching 1000 years. It’s hard to imagine how many children were born during that time. Genesis 6:1 just says, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them….” There are nearly 7 billion people on the planet in our society, and our life expectancy is less than 100 years. The longevity and the productive nature of those living in the days of Noah were ten times that of ours today. I’m not saying there were 7 billion people alive at that time, but there were indeed a lot of them.

Daughters are singled out in this verse as well. Is it necessary to say, “daughters were born to them?” I wouldn’t think so unless there was a reason for that. The reason is going to become apparent. In the 6^th Chapter of the Book of I Enoch, we find what might be a parallel verse to Genesis 6:1 with a little more detail. It says, “And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters in those days.”^[1]

When we met Lamech of Cain’s line, we saw the advancement of evil had to do with the man who first took two wives and murdered a young man. Some argue that he murdered two men, a young man and another man who wounded him. Sex and violence have gone together throughout history, and I expect the account of Lamech’s murder is not different. He took a second wife, and possibly the young man he killed apposed that, and perhaps the other man interceded to prevent it for some reason and was also killed. Now, In Genesis chapter six, we are introduced not only to bigamy but mighty men, or angels, who step into the story and take from the females on earth anyone they want. Here is the root of the harem in Arabia and the massive accumulation of wives and concubines that result in the downfall of great men, even the man after God’s heart, King David, and his son Solomon. With David, he looked down and saw that Bathsheba was beautiful and took her. Then he murdered her husband! Illicit sex and violence go together.

^[1] Charles, R. H., and W. O. E. Oesterley. 1917. The Book of Enoch. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

After the nine generations from Adam to Lamech, we reach the climax of the genealogy. It’s Noah! The last verse of Genesis five says, “After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” According to Cassuto, we have all this pre-flood information because Noah preserved it for us. The genealogies and all the advances made before the flood were preserved for the post-flood generations. He writes, “The teachings and occupation of Jabal, as well as those of his brothers, were apparently transmitted to mankind after the Flood through Noah and his sons. Similarly, there is a Babylonian story about books that were hidden before the Flood in the ground beneath the City of the Sun, Sippar, in order to save them from the water, and were disinterred after the Flood.”^[1]

At the beginning of Genesis chapter five, we saw the mention of “The book” of the genealogies of Seth. The word “Sepher” (Book in Hebrew) implies that Moses had a source from which to draw his information. The details of the accounts of Chapter five were preserved for us by Noah and his descendants. It’s also essential to notice that the life spans of these patriarchs were contemporaneous. Speiser says, “Finally, prodigious as are the lifespans of the individual patriarchs, they are dovetailed to such an extent that the total elapsed time adds up to no more than 1656 years in the Hebrew version. The death of Adam must be dated to the generation of Noah’s father, Lamech. In turn, Noah himself would have witnessed the sixtieth birthday of Abraham.”^[2] We owe the preservation of the pre-flood history to Shem, Ham, and Japheth. All three of these sons lived with the patriarchs mentioned in Chapter five. The point being is that we have actual source documents for the information in early Genesis. It was not tradition passed on by word of mouth and corrupted by various enhancements along a long and mysterious road to Moses. The information we have is as trustworthy as any first-hand account.

I’d expect that Shem was the primary bookkeeper. The Semites were best at keeping records. I have suggested that the comment back at the end of Chapter four at the beginning of the genealogy from Seth says, “At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord,” really meant to “preach” about God to their fellow man. Since it is placed at the beginning of Seth’s genealogy, I expect that it refers to them and not the genealogy of Cain that preceded the comment. They were too busy building cities, domesticating animals, and making instruments of war to fool around with the idea of God. The history of man and his relationship with God was preserved through Seth’s line. They were the first to write, and the book from which Moses got the details of early Genesis came directly from them.

^[1] Cassuto, U. 1998. A Commentary on the Book of Genesis: Part I, From Adam to Noah (Genesis I–VI 8). Translated by Israel Abrahams. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University.

^[2] Speiser, E. A. 2008. Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. Vol. 1. Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven;  London: Yale University Press.