Who were the Nephilim?
Genesis 6:1-4
1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
New International Version (NIV)
The answer
The Nephilim were real inhabitants of the ancient world, remembered for exceptional might and renown, and commonly identified as giants. Genesis 6:4 says they were on the earth “in those days, and also after that,” but it gives neither their height nor a detailed genealogy.
Genesis 6:4 mentions them in connection with the period when “God’s sons” married “men’s daughters” and had children with them. The verse calls the figures in view “the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” It does not explicitly call the Nephilim angels or explain exactly how they originated.
The principal interpretive question is therefore the identity of God’s sons in Genesis 6:2:
- The angelic reading: Common in ancient Jewish and early Christian interpretation, this understands God’s sons as angelic beings who married human women. The Nephilim are then connected with the extraordinary offspring of those unions.
- The Sethite reading: Held by many later Christians, this takes God’s sons as men from Seth’s godly line who married ungodly women. Their compromised families belonged to the increasingly corrupt pre-flood world.
- The ruler reading: Found among Jewish and Christian interpreters, this identifies God’s sons as powerful rulers or judges who took women as they pleased. Their offspring became renowned warriors or powerful men.
What Genesis states plainly is that the Nephilim were present before the flood and again afterward, and were famous for might. Genesis 6:4 itself does not settle every question about their ancestry, so claims about their appearance, size, or precise origin should not go beyond that description.
Answered from Scripture · reviewed November 12, 2026
Scripture cited
- Genesis 6:1-8