Genesis 5:1- 6:8
Gen 0010:
Mischievous Angels or Sethites
Notes by lay teacher: Sammy Horner
April. 25/2007
Genesis 5:1-2 (NASB)
1
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God.
2 He
created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man [Lit man] in the day when they were created.
Chapter 5 begins with “book
of the generations of Adam” and this is our line to Abraham and from Abraham to Jesus Christ. The Bible will inform
us that there were other sons and daughter born to each listed, but only those names that are important that (lead us to Noah
are mentioned). This is all in regard to the promise of Gen. 3:15
Genesis 3:15 (KJV)
15
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt
bruise his heel.
Genesis 5:3-5 (NASB)
3
When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became [Lit. begot,
and so throughout the chapter] the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.
4 Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters.
5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.
The messianic line and our
line begin with the birth of Seth. We also should notice that the son is born in the likeness of Adam not God, as Adam was
created. This is the human line or (the fallen line) in the likeness of Adam. This line will also need a promise of one who
would deliver and crush the serpent’s head.
If we were to follow and
chart out the line of Adam on a graph we would see that Adam is going to live 930 years. Adam lived through Seth, Enosh, Kenan,
Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah and he will live 55 years into the life of Lameck. Adam will live to within 28 years of
Noah’s birth.
Adam may have influenced
Lameck who named his son Noah, meaning rest or comfort.
Genesis 5:6-8 (NASB)
6
Seth lived one hundred and five years, and became the father of Enosh.
7 Then Seth lived eight hundred and seven years
after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters.
8 So all the days of Seth were nine hundred
and twelve years, and he died.
Genesis 5:9-11 (NASB)
9 Enosh lived ninety years, and became the father of Kenan.
10 Then Enosh lived eight hundred and fifteen years after
he became the father of Kenan, and he had other sons and daughters.
11 So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and
five years, and he died.
Genesis 5:12-14 (NASB)
12
Kenan lived seventy years, and became the father of Mahalalel.
13 Then Kenan lived eight hundred and forty years after
he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters.
14 So all the days of Kenan were nine hundred
and ten years, and he died.
Genesis 5:15-17 (NASB)
15
Mahalalel lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Jared.
16 Then Mahalalel lived eight hundred and thirty years
after he became the father of Jared, and he had other sons and daughters.
17 So all the days of Mahalalel were eight hundred
and ninety-five years, and he died.
Genesis 5:18-20 (NASB)
18
Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and became the father of Enoch.
19 Then Jared lived eight hundred years after
he became the father of Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters.
20 So all the days of Jared were nine hundred and
sixty-two years, and he died.
Genesis 5:21-24 (NASB)
21
Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah.
22 Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after
he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters.
23 So all the days of Enoch were three hundred
and sixty-five years.
24 Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.
Methuselah means his death
shall bring judgments, which probably lead his parents to be the first overly protective parents…
We also see the mercy of
God here because God said, “When this one dies judgment is going to come” and God allowed Methuselah to live longer
then any human being.
Genesis 5:25-27 (NASB)
25
Methuselah lived one hundred and eighty-seven years, and became the father of Lamech.
26 Then Methuselah lived seven hundred
and eighty-two years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters.
27 So all the days of
Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty-nine years, and he died.
Genesis 5:28-31 (NASB)
28 Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-two years, and became the father of a son.
29 Now he called his name Noah,
saying, "This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has
cursed."
30 Then Lamech lived five hundred and ninety-five years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other
sons and daughters.
31 So all the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy-seven years, and he died.
Lamech apparently knew
Adam and lived 55 years during the life of Lamech. Adam died before Noah but we have a link of one generation between the
story of Adam’s life and Noah who would carry the story on after the flood. Lamech
knew the story and believed and named his son Noah, saying, "This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of
our hands arising from the ground which the LORD has cursed." This is what God
had said to Adam in Chapter 3.
Genesis 5:32 (NASB)
32
Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
When it came to translating
names in the word the translators tried to transliterate a name that could be spoken instead of translating the meaning of
the name. Let’s go back and translate the names into their meanings.
Adam: Man
Seth: through the idea of
definite and conspicuous position—Appointed. Eve felt that Seth was appointed
to replace Abel.
Enos: mortal or frail.
Kenan: It can mean sorrow
or dirge.
Mahalalel: mahal: blessed
or praise; el the name for God. The blessed God.
Jared: Shall come down.
Enoch: figurative to initiate or discipline: - dedicate,
train up. (Teaching)
Methuselah: Death shall bring
which probably lead his parents to be the first over protective parents…
Next we have Lamech. I had
to do a lot of digging to find this one but I did find roots that lead to lament. Lamech: lament
Noah: Rest
Now let’s put these
words into a sentence.
Man (is) Appointed Mortal
Sorrow: The Blessed God Shall Come Down Teaching His Death Shall Bring the Despairing Comfort, or Rest.
As I stated in lesson one
in the Genesis series, “This appears to me that the New Testament was written before the Old Testament. Actually what this proves to me is that the writer of this drama wrote the glorious ending in the beginning,
proving that He, God is outside of time and can see the end from the beginning as He stated in Isaiah. "Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one
like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things which have not been done, Saying, 'My purpose
will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure.” Isaiah 46:9-10 (NASB)
Genesis 6:1-3 (NASB)
1
Now it came about, when men <H120> [Man mankind] began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters
were born to them,
2 that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives
for themselves, whomever they chose.
3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he
also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."
Genesis 6:2 (KJV)
2
That the sons of God saw the daughters of men [Adam] <H120> that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which
they chose.
<H120> from <H119>
('adam); ruddy, i.e. a human being (an individual or the species, mankind, etc.) —Strong's Talking Greek & Hebrew
Dictionary
[daughters of men] The Hebrew
is singular -- daughters of Adam would be singular and should be translated the daughters of man [Adam].
The (Holman Christian Standard
Bible) translates the verse
“the sons of God saw that the daughters of man [Or the human women] were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves.” Genesis 6:2 (Holman
Christian Standard Bible)
“Of all which they
chose” has a little violence in it. They just took what ever they wanted.
(KJV) Genesis 6:3
3 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.
Now let’s look at verse
3 in the New American Standard Version.
Genesis 6:3 (NASB)
3
Then the LORD said, "My Spirit shall not strive [or rule in; some ancient
versions read abide in] with man forever, because [Or
in his going away he is flesh ] he also is flesh; nevertheless [Or therefore ] his days shall be one hundred and twenty years."
[strive] Hebrew: duwn (<H1779>),
to rule, judge. And translated only here as "strive". Elsewhere the Hebrew word is translated, "judge, judgment, contend,
execute, and plead," with many versions translate it "remain in," i.e., My breath of life will not always remain in THE Adam,
[man].
The “therefore his days shall be one hundred and twenty years” in verse 3 explains why some commentaries’
state that the “hundred and twenty years” was a judgment of time before the flood for the sons of God (or) the
Nephilim. I agree with this because there were still those who lived beyond 120
years after the flood. After the flood mankind slowly began to live fewer and fewer years because of the breaking up of the
covering that covered the earth. This is the reason we are now being bombarded with cosmic rays that have brought about our
ageing processes. The inferred ultraviolet lights are no longer filtered out because the canopy mist that was over the earth
was broken up.
Genesis 6:4 (NASB)
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God
came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.
There are two views here.
Many students of the Bible
have been taught that this passage refers to a failure to keep the "righteous" lines of Seth separate from the "worldly" line
of Cain. The idea has been taught that after Cain killed Abel, the line of Seth remained separate and righteous. And the line
of Cain turned ungodly and rebellious. The teaching is that the "Sons of God" are those in the line of Seth and the "daughters
of men" are limited to the line of Cain. The problem that can not be answered is why are the resulting offspring giants?
There is no indication that
the lines of Seth and Cain were to keep themselves separate nor were they instructed to. The command to remain separate was
not given until much later.
There is no Inferred, stated
or implied evidence of the godliness of Seth in the scripture. Only one person
was translated from the judgment to come, which was Enoch. And there were only
eight who were given safety in the ark. If the lines of Seth were so faithful, why did they perish in the flood?
The scripture states that,
Adam was created in the likeness
of God (Gen. 1:26-28); we are begotten in Adam's likeness. God's likeness was perfect; Adam's was imperfect and depraved,
with the law of sin and death working in and bringing Adam, you and I to ruin.
Job 25:4 (KJV)
4 How
then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
Romans 5:12 (NIV)
12
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because
all sinned--
Ephesians 2:3 (NKJV)
3
among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
There is a messianic line
but the messianic line is full of sinners.
Enoch was the only one mentioned
as being godly in Seth's line except Noah.
Origins of the Sethite View
begin in the 5th century a.d. The "angel" interpretation of Genesis 6 was viewed as an embarrassment when attacked by opponents.
The worship of angels had also begun within the church along with celibacy and the "angel" view of was feared as impacting
these views.
Celsus and Julian the Apostate
used the traditional "angel" belief to attack Christianity. Many leaders of the time such as Julius Africanus, Cyril of Alexandria
and Augustine resorted to the Sethite interpretation as a more comfortable ground and embraced the Sethite theory which as
a result prevailed into the Middle Ages. The view is still widely taught today among many churches that find the literal "angel"
view a bit troubling. There are many Bible teachers who still support this view.
There are many problems with
the Sethite view.
The "Sethite" interpretation
does not contribute to the apparent cause for the Flood, which is the primary thrust of the text?
If the text was intended
to distinction between the "sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain," why didn't it say so? There is no basis for restricting
the text to either line of Adam's descendants. Further, there is no mention of the daughters of God [Elohim.]
The very expressions "sons
of God" and "daughters of men" signify two different kinds -- one the product of God, the other the product of man. Seth was
not God nor was he righteous, so why call the sons of God the sons of Seth?
The Unnatural Offspring
The most serious flaw in
the unfounded "Sethite" view is the appearance of the giants as a result of the unions between the lines of Seth and Cain.
The procreation of offspring
by parents of conflicting religious views does not produce unnatural giants. Christians marrying non-Christians may produce
"out of control children," but never a superhuman or giant! It was this abnormal and perverted procreation and the resulting
abnormal creatures that were designated as a major motive for the judgment of the Flood.
So where did the giants get
their start? Gen. 6:4 makes it clear -- from a union of the sons of God and daughters of men. If the sons of God were ordinary
men from the line of Seth in the same sense that the daughters of men were ordinary women from the line of Cain, then we must
conclude four things:
(1) Ungodly women have the
power to produce monsters if married to godly men.
(2) Godly men have the power
to produce giants when married to ungodly women.
(3) A mixture of godliness
and wickedness produces giants.
(4) Extreme wickedness on
the part of either parent will produce giant offspring.
All four conclusions are wrong, as proven every day by the
ordinary offspring of wicked and godly parents. Thus, the theory that giants came from the marriage of Seth's sons with Cain's
daughters is disproved. —Dake's Study Notes
Why were the offspring distinctively
designated "mighty" and "men of renown?" This description characterizing the children is not accounted for if the fathers
were merely men, even if godly.
The Biblical term "Sons of
Elohim" (which is, of the Creator Himself), is restricted to the direct creation by the hand of God and not to those born
to those of their own order.
The phrase “sons of
God” is only used 3 other times in the scripture.
The term translated "the Sons of God" is, in the Hebrew, B'nai HaElohim, "Sons of Elohim." The term
is consistently used in the Old Testament for angels.
Job 1:6 (NASB)
6 Now
there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.
Job 2:1 (NASB)
1 Again
there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present
himself before the LORD.
Job 38:7 (NASB)
7 When
the morning stars sang together And all the sons of God shouted for joy?
The sons of God in Gen 6:4
were understood by the ancient rabbinical sources, as well as the Septuagint translators, as referring to fallen angels and
it was translated in the Septuagint as “The angels of God went in unto the daughters of men” because the daughters
of men there is the daughters of Adam. It was also understood by the early church fathers. These bizarre events are also echoed
in the legends and myths of every ancient culture upon the earth: the ancient Greeks, the Egyptians, the Hindus, the South
Sea Islanders, the American Indians, and virtually all the others.
Attempting to attribute any
other view to this text flies in the face of centuries of understanding of the Hebrew text among rabbinical and early church
scholarship. The text clearly intends to establish a contrast between the "angels" and the women of the Earth.
The phrase “sons of God”
is never used of believers in the Old Testament. It was understood
by the ancient rabbinical sources, by the Septuagint translators 285 years before Christ, and by the early church fathers
that the sons of God refer to angels. Any attempt to apply this term to "godly leadership of Seth" I believe is without Scriptural
foundation.
Josephus writes, "many angels
of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence
they had in their own strength ... these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants" (Antiquities,
Book 1,3:1). Again he says, "There were till then left the race of giants, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely
different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are
still shown to this very day" (Antiquities, Book 5,2:3). —Complete Works of Josephus
Because of a limit of time
when teaching I have added the notes below from the teaching that will continue in the next lesson. I have added these notes
so that you will not be lift wondering who wins this battle.
Genesis 6:5-8 (NASB)
5
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually.
6 The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
7 The LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things
and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them."
8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.
Genesis 6:9 (NIV)
9 This
is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God.
But
With the exception of Noah
and his family all flesh had been defiled upon the earth before the flood, which means the entire human race, except for Noah's
family, had become a mixture of fallen angels, men, or giants. Noah’s were the only ones capable of giving the race
a new after the flood. It states in Gen 6:9 that Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations. The Hebrew for "perfect"
is tamiym (HSN-<H8549>), which means without blemish. The word is used to describe physical perfection, not moral perfection.
The word is used to describe the sacrificial animals of the Old Testament which had to be of pure stock and without blemish
(Ex. 12:5; 29:1; Lev. 1:3; 3:1-6; 4:3,23-32; 5:15-18; 6:6; 9:2-3; Ezek. 43:22-25; 45:18-23), without spot (Num. 19:2; 28:3-11;
29:17,26), and undefiled (Ps. 119:1). When the word is used here it would mean that Noah and his sons were the only pure Adamites
left, and for such purity and they were all preserved in the ark.
So what does this mean for
you and me today? Let us look at the hope we have.
2 Thessalonians 2:3-9 (AMP)
3 Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first [unless the
predicted great falling away of those 2 Thessalonians 2:3-9 (AMP)
3 Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for
that day will not come except the apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great falling away of those 4 Who opposes and
exalts himself so proudly and insolently against and over all that is called God or that is worshiped, [even to his actually]
taking his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming that he himself is God.
5 Do you not recollect that when I was still
with you, I told you these things?
6 And now you know what is restraining him [from being revealed at this time];
it is so that he may be manifested (revealed) in his own [appointed] time.
7 For the mystery of lawlessness (that hidden
principle of rebellion against constituted authority) is already at work in the world, [but it is] restrained only until
he who restrains is taken out of the way.
8 And then the lawless one (the antichrist) will be revealed and the Lord
Jesus will slay him with the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by His appearing at His coming.
9 The coming
[of the lawless one, the antichrist] is through the activity and working of Satan and will be attended by great power and
with all sorts of [pretended] miracles and signs and delusive marvels—[all of them] lying wonders—
When you and I and the Holy
Spirit are removed from the earth the restraints and chains’ will be removed.
Praise God we will be out of here and when the restraints are removed there will be nothing that will stop the fallen
sons of God from doing what ever they want to do.
