Genesis 6:1-4 - Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men

1-4. This fragment seems to have been placed here as an instance of the wickedness which necessitated the Flood. Stories of unions between deities and the women of earth, which resulted in gigantic and corrupt races, were common to many nations of antiquity; and it is now generally held that we have here traces of a similar tradition among the Hebrews, which had survived to the writer's day. But though the passage retains signs of these primitive ideas, it is free from the polytheistic and impure features which are found in the pages of heathen mythology. Probably such passages as 2 Peter 2:4; Judges 1:6., which speak of the fall of the angels, are based on these verses.

Genesis 6:1-4

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

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.

4 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.