The Judgment of an Apostate World (Gen 6)
Here are my rough sermon notes explaining everyone’s favorite passage: Genesis 6:1-8. I crammed all I could into a single sermon.
1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Historically speaking, few scriptural passages have been as muddied as the opening verses of Genesis chapter six. Liberals, such as Julius Wellhausen, view this passage as a “cracked erratic boulder.” Similarly, Ronald Hendel observes, “All are agreed that the story is strange and incomplete.” Their common assumption is that Genesis 6:1-4 is the remnant of a foreign myth clumsily edited into the text of another narrative.
Another scholar, Sven Fockner notes, they assume it is “to be treated independently of everything that comes before or after it.”
Many conservatives, surprisingly, often reach a similar conclusion. While they do not deny the historicity of the passage, that’s it real history, they treat its connection to the immediate context as minimal. The very opposite of how Pastor Weis and I have been dealing with Genesus.
Hermeneutically (I know that’s $10 word, but it’s one we have to know; it refers to the art and science of interpretation), they focus on solving the identity of the “sons of God.” This approach would not be problematic if their interpretation were closely tied to the surrounding story.
Now, we aren’t going to consider all the different views in detail. But I will briefly summarize them for you.
Since ancient times, there have been three main interpretations:
The “sons of God” are the sons of rulers, and the “daughters of men” are daughters of common people. This is a minority view that you don’t read very often.
The “sons of God” are angelic beings, and the “daughters of men” simply refers to human women. This appears to be the majority view of many pre-first coming Jewish Rabbis and many early church fathers followed them. It fell out of favor for many years but has regained its popularity.
The “sons of God” are the descendants of Seth, while the “daughters of men” are the descendants of Cain, outside the godly line. This is my view, shared by early church fathers like Athanasius and Augustine, and it was the majority view among reformers such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Owen.
I hold to the majority Reformed view, often called the Sethite view. Many assume that people like me believe this way because we're uncomfortable with the "weird" aspects of Scripture.
But consider: A disembodied hand wrote on the wall—strange but true. Balaam's donkey spoke. The Red Sea parted. Water flowed from a rock, manna fell from heaven, the sun stood still, and an axe head floated. The heavenly host sang over the shepherds, and Jesus rose from the dead. Believers are temples of the Holy Spirit.
It’s all strange, yet it’s all true—Scripture says so.
Bible-believing Christians understand that the world is a strange place, a cosmos of both physical and spiritual realities. They don’t struggle to accept the supernatural or unseen spiritual realms.
If a Christian believes these things (as I do) but rejects some other “weird” things, it doesn’t mean they’re simply "weirded out." They may reject something due to subconscious influences of rationalism or because it isn’t rightly derived from Scripture.
For instance, I reject the angelic view of Genesis 6 for exegetical and biblical-theological reasons, as many have done throughout history. I believe in all the “weird” things in Scripture and have witnessed strange things myself.
I think the angelic view is a departure from solid principles of interpretation. Those principles favor the Sethite view.
One of these principles is that the immediate context should always take precedence over more distant passages. While all of Scripture is interconnected, with a unity across its 66 books, passages should be read in a contextual order: each verse in light of its passage, each passage in light of its book, and each book in light of its testament.
When I discuss this passage’s connection to its immediate context—Genesis and the Pentateuch—people often jump to its relationship with Job 1 and 2, Jude 1:6, or 2 Peter 2. There seems to be a common tendency to read these later passages back into Genesis 6, rather than approaching Scripture as progressive revelation that unfolds over time.
As John Owen concludes, the outcome of this approach with Genesis 6 often results in interpretations that conflict with “the course of the Mosaic narrative.” And remembering that Moses is the author is essential, and Genesis is 1 part of a five-book series we call the Torah or Pentateuch.
Moses constructs an argument in the Pentateuch, building it carefully, section by section, beginning with Genesis. And who did he first do this for?
Well, first and foremost, he wrote it for those leaving Egypt should go to and retake the promised land. It explains how they fell from fellowship with God, why God is restoring them to fellowship with Himself, and the unique role they play in God’s plans for the entire world.
Whatever Genesis 6 means, it’s part of this narrative purpose and set within this immediate context.
Genesis has a clear structural framework based on the Hebrew word toledot, which is often translated in English as "These are the generations of." This is sometimes referred to as the toledot formula, and there are ten occurrences throughout Genesis.
The first of these is found in Genesis 2:4, which says, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.”
The next toledot appears in 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.”
So, Genesis is structured around a series of generational accounts. One trusted commentator suggests this phrase could be translated as “This is the family history of,” adding, “It always announces a new section of narrative.” Even though some sections are named for individuals, like Genesis 5:1 with Adam, the narrative actually focuses on their descendants—what comes from or is generated out of them.
For example, in Genesis 25:19, we read, “These are the generations of Isaac,” but what follows are the stories of Jacob and Esau, those who came from Isaac. This is even clearer in Genesis 37:2, which states, “These are the generations of Jacob.” The text then immediately continues with “Joseph, being seventeen years old…” The “generations of Jacob” section tells Joseph’s story because Joseph descended from Jacob.
In Genesis 2:4, we read, “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth…” and the focus immediately shifts to the creation of man, who is quite literally generated from the earth—God made Adam from the dust of the ground.
So, Genesis is organized around a series of toledot that together tell the family history of Israel. Now, to which toledot does Genesis 6:1-4 belong? Structurally speaking, what is the immediate context of Genesis 6:1-4?
Genesis 6:9 begins the family history of Noah with the phrase, “These are the generations of Noah,” marking a new narrative section. Therefore, the story of the sons of God and daughters of men in Genesis 6:1-4 belongs to the previous *toledot,* which begins in Genesis 5:1: “This is the book of the generations of Adam.”
Thus, Genesis 5:1 through Genesis 6:8 tells the story of those who were directly generated from Adam—his children. Remember, chapters and verses aren’t part of the original text, so Genesis 6:1 isn’t a new section; it belongs to the *toledot* of Adam and is directly connected to the genealogies in Genesis 5. That chapter discusses those who descended from Adam through Seth.
If you were to read Genesis on its own, without drawing from other books of Scripture, you’d naturally assume that all references to “sons” in Genesis 5:1-6:8 refer to the same group of people.
This is why identifying the “sons of God” is pretty straightforward—they are the descendants of Seth. The real question is why their marriage to the “daughters of men” is such a problem.
I believe this becomes clear when we consider two things within the immediate and broader context.
First, we must consider the role of marriage and childrearing in fulfilling the creation mandate. v. 1 clearly echoes the creation mandate to be fruit and multiple. It says, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land…”
Second, we must ask what sort of marriages are displeasing to God.
In my view, these two subjects are often overlooked when interpreting Genesis 6:1-8. It’s not some “strange and incomplete” passage. Rather, it fit perfectly with God’s larger purpose for humanity—namely, His desire to dwell among a set-apart people.
So, let’s get quickly caught up…
In Genesis 1-2, God makes everything in an orderly and very good way. He puts mankind, who makes in His image, in the Garden of Eden, which is something like a temple garden where they have special fellowship with God. It’s place where they worship God. Now, they are given a command to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That was something Adam couldn’t do by himself. So, in Genesis 2 we have the first marriage. So one of the great purposes of marriage from the beginning was to fill the world with image-bearers who worship God. Remember that.
Things quickly go awry in Genesis 3. Adam’s helpmate, Eve, is deceived by the serpent, and Adam knowingly follows Eve in rebellion against God. So, here, we have an example of a husband knowingly but essentially following his wife into sin. Rember that.
At first, it seemed the creation mandate was also lost in the fall. But Adam and his wife found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
Though mankind was driven from Eden, God gave them hope of restoration through the promise of a future human descendant in the Gen. 3:15. Here, we are introduced to the concept of two “seeds,” which develops progressively throughout Scripture.
The seed of the woman will strike down the seed of the serpent.
Adam’s renewed allegiance to God is illustrated by his naming of the woman as Eve, meaning “mother of all living” (Gen. 3:20). By this act, Adam expresses his faith in the genealogical hope that will come through his wife’s labors. Once again, marriage and childbearing are at the center of God’s plan for His creation.
In Genesis 4, Adam and Eve begin to multiply and have two sons, Cain and Able. No doubt that they hoped one of them would be the promised one. But here, a theme of descent and disappointment really takes hold. Cain, the first man born, murders his brother, Able. It’s key to remember the root of that conflict. It revolved around how to come to God with sacrifices rightly. Cain was proud and would not worship God on God’s terms. Able would. So we have mankind multiplying and two brothers, one violent, at odds over how to worship God.
At the tail end of Genesis 4, we see that Cain’s nature is magnified in his descendants, especially Lamech. These are culturally innovative people, but they magnify their name, not God’s. Moreover, they are violent people, as seen in Lamech’s murdering.
In Genesis 5, Adam’s line through Seth stands in stark contrast to the murderous line of Cain. First, it’s worth noting that Seth is given to Eve as a replacement for the godly Abel (Gen. 4:25). Like his brother before him, Seth honors the name of God, as shown by the fact that he and his descendants “call upon the name of the Lord” (Gen. 4:26). In other words, they worship God rightly. We also see God’s creation mandate continuing through Seth’s line, with the image of God being passed down through him (Gen. 5:1-3).
As one commentator put it, this genealogy focuses on the transmission of the divine image, not its violent elimination.”
These echoes of Eden continue in Adam’s genealogy. For example, Enoch’s walk with God reflects a time before the fall (Gen. 5:24). The most significant echo is found in Lamech’s naming of Noah, which means “rest.” In Noah, Lamech sees the hope of the promised seed that will bring rest from the curse (Gen. 5:29). This shows that the Sethites are a godly line who walk with God and look forward to the hope found in the promised seed. While the Cainites are concerned with making a name for themselves often through violent means, the Sethites are concerned with honoring the name of God.
After concluding Adam’s genealogy, the narrative turns to the so-called erratic “sons of God” passage. One liberal scholar even argues, “The coherence of the plot is minimal, with no clear connectivity between beginning, middle, and end.”
However, all the textual evidence demonstrates the exact opposite to be true. Genesis 6 expertly weaves together all the major themes of the preceding chapters. Just as God commanded in the creation mandate, mankind has multiplied and filled the earth (Gen. 6:1, 12). The only problem is that the earth is filled with men who, like Cain, seek to make a name for themselves and do so violently (Gen.6:4, 11). This predicament is the results of a conflict between two seeds.
It says, “the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.”
The serpent tempted Eve with a fruit she found to be pleasing to her eyes (Gen. 3:6) and then present it to her husband. In sense, the devil used Eve to corrupt Adam. Adam followed the voice of his wife instead of word of the Lord. Similarly, the Sethite line is tempted by ungodly women that they find beautiful (Gen. 6:2). It’s the same demonic tactic reapplied.
The Cainites overwhelm the godly Sethites just as Cain overwhelmed Abel. It seems that all those who keep the “way” of God had been corrupted (6:12). However, God had once preserved the godly line through the blessing of a son and here He does it again through Noah (Gen. 6:8).
The “sons of God” passage brings clarity to the question of why the judgment of the flood was necessary. It had nothing to do with angelic entities corrupting men. It not about demon babies. The text makes it clear that man—not angels—were to blame for the corruption that had filled the world (Gen. 6:5, 12).
The issue, ultimately, was apostasy by way of marriage. Owen explains:
At this time, when a very large number of these wicked apostates were intermingled with the ranks of the godly, a stage was reached at which the Church could no longer cleanse itself by a judicial explosion, nor yet be free to act by way voluntary recession and withdrawal. With no check in sight apostasy rapidly spread unit the entire Church was corrupted and undermined.
Marriage was supposed to be the means by which the world would be populated with godly image-bearers. Tragically, the Sethites followed their lust into apostasy by marrying women of a foreign god. The world, as a result, was overrun with idolaters instead of God-worshippers. God decided to cleanse the world and start over with a new Adam in Noah. Like his forefather, God commanded Noah to be fruitful and multiply. God’s desire for a holy people to dwell among a set apart people would not be frustrated.
The issue of apostasy by marriage develops into a prominent theme in the rest of Genesis.
You can see this demonstrated positively in the care that was taken by the patriarchs to find appropriate wives for their firstborn sons. Abraham was adamant that Issac would not take a wife “from the daughters of the Canaanites.” So much so, that he required that his oldest servant swear that he would find a wife for Isaac from one of Abraham’s family (Gen. 24:1-9).
The same concern preoccupied Isaac and Rebekah concerning the future wife of Jacob. Isaac commanded his son saying, “You must not take a wife from the Canaanite women” (Gen. 28:1). Again, the same principle, though presented in more murky manner, is found in the story of Dinah’s defiling. The sons of Jacob tell Shechem and his father Hamor that the only way there can be intermarriage is if they “become as we are by every male among you being circumcised” (Gen. 34:15). This truth was deceptively used as a means of revenge but it still indicates that they were aware of the prohibition of religiously mixed marriages.
After the conclusion of the patriarchal period, the prohibition of religiously mixed marriage is best understood in a corporate sense. In Exodus 4:4, God begins to refer to Israel as His firstborn and, like Abraham before Him, He is deeply concerned that His son not be joined to the women of the land. This fact is made abundantly clear in the covenant renewal passage of Exodus 34:
“But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you and you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods and make your sons play the harlot with their gods.”
This passage reveals what was only implied in the patriarchal passages: daughters of the land are forbidden because they lead to spiritual apostasy.
In Numbers 25, God’s intense displeasure towards religiously mixed marriage and its consequences is displayed in the plague He visits on Israel. The plague was only lifted after Phinehas, in a holy zeal, drove a spear through an Israelite man and a Midianite woman caught in the sexual act. In verse 11, God reveals to Moses that Phinehas had delivered Israel because “he was jealous with My jealousy among them, so that I did not destroy the sons of Israel in My jealousy.” God will not share His people with other gods.
Perhaps, there is no better known case of apostasy by marriage than that of King Solomon (1 Kings 11). It is interesting to note that, among his many marriages to foreign women, the text brings special attention to his union with the daughter of a great city-builder, Pharaoh. There lies in this detail an allusion to the motif first introduced in the Sethites' marriage to the daughters of Cain the city-builder. Like the Sethites before him, Solomon was absorbed into the idolatry of his foreign wives (v. 4).
This remains a perennial problem among the Israelites even post-exile. Nehemiah runs up against this same sin in his labors to rebuild the wall. In Nehemiah 13:27, the great leader sternly rebukes the Israelites saying, “Do we then about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God by marrying foreign women?” Nehemiah’s answer to this problem was a cleansing. Matthew Henry explains, “He obliged them not to take any more such wives, and separated those whom they had taken.”20 This underscores that God’s people are to be a distinct people.
All the major threads in play with religiously mixed marriages come together in the final book of the Old Testament, Malachi. In chapter 2, God is angry with Judah and has no regard for the offering of her priests (v. 1-9, 13). Why is God upset? One commentator explains, “Narrowing now from the general to the particular, the prophet turns to a practice which through the centuries had undermined spiritual life in Israel, namely marriage into a family of a different religious and cultural background.”
Malachi also explicitly shows that a great part of the wickedness of religiously mixed marriage is that it undermines the creation mandate. God is seeking to populate the world with a godly seed (v. 15).
Listen to Malachi 2:15, “Did he not make them one, with a portion of the Spirit in their union? And what was the one God seeking? Godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and let none of you be faithless to the wife of your youth.”
That’s what is happening in Genesis 6.
The sons of God, like the sons of Israel, have been led into rebellion by marrying the daughters of Cain. Instead of filling the world with right worship from heart, they filled the world with violence and wickedness.
Look at v. 5, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
In v. 11-12, we see the earth described as being "corrupt" in God's sight (v. 11) and that "all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth" (v. 12). The term "corruption" here isn’t just a reference to sin in a general sense, as all of humanity is born with a sinful nature. Rather, the corruption refers to a specific deviation from the right path—particularly, it involves a turning away from the proper worship of God just as Cain did.
This idea of corruption aligns with the concept of idolatry, as we see in 2 Kings 23, where the “Mount of Corruption” is associated with the idolatrous worship of false gods. King Josiah’s reforms sought to rid the land of these corrupting influences, specifically the worship of gods like Ashtoreth, Chemosh, and Milcom. The mountain was named for the corrupt practices of idol worship that had taken root there.
Why would God flood the world over men like these?
Again, the key is found in Genesis 6:11-12, where Moses writes:
“Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”
Where else does Moses talk about corruption? In several places, but notably in Exodus 32:7-8, which reads:
“And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have quickly turned aside from the way I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it, sacrificing to it and saying, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”’”
How did the people corrupt themselves during the Exodus? By engaging in false worship of false gods. The term “corrupt” is used similarly in Deuteronomy 4:16, 25; 9:12; 31:29; and 32:5. In Genesis 6, the world is said to have “corrupted its way” because everyone had forsaken the means of being made clean before God—namely, proper worship and sacrifice. What was the issue with Cain? Precisely this: proper worship and sacrifice (Gen 4:1-7).
In a similar manner, the corruption in Genesis 6 isn't merely about sin in general but is tied to the idea that humanity had corrupted the way of proper worship, turning away from the true God and embracing idolatry and violence. The pre-flood world was thus "full of corruption" because it had abandoned the pure worship and order God had established, just as the Mount of Corruption in 2 Kings was so named because it was marred by idolatrous worship.
God will cleanse the world of false worship.
In v. 7, he says, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
But just as Adam found grace in God’s eyes, so does Noah.
And Noah is a keeper of “the way.”
In chapter 7, we see that, according to God’s command, he brings seven pairs of some animals to offer sacrifices. In Hebrews 11:7, we learn that Noah was also a preacher of righteousness. Note also that Noah’s first act after the earth was cleansed was to make sacrifices to God. Genesis 8:20-22 says:
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.’
God destroyed the world by flood because of widespread apostasy, not because of genetic corruption. After receiving proper worship and burnt offerings, God vowed never to flood the world again. Genesis 6 is ultimately about proper worship and sacrifice—just as all of Genesis 1-11 is.
Alright, I know that I have not dealt with v. 3-4 yet. But I will quickly.
3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”
This doesn’t refer to the lifespan because we see several people live longer than that post-flood, and the average lifespan is closer to 75. God is giving the countdown to the flood of judgment. They have a 120 year to repent while Noah preaches and builds an ark.
4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
Much confusion comes from this passage due to sloppy reading.
For example, people tend to conclude that there are two groups in this passage but there are three groups:
Group 1 is the Nephilim, who are giants of some sort. They were in the land before and after the advent of the second group. Moses is using the Nephilim as a time-marker—more on that in a second.
Group 2 consists of the sons of God and the daughters of men, who intermarry and produce the third group.
Group 3 is the children of these marriages, who become mighty men of renown.
The main point to realize here is that Group 1 is not Group 3. They are clearly distinct in a plain reading of the passage.
So, who are these Nephilim, who existed both before and after the flood? The word Nephilim means "fallen ones" (hence why some believe this refers to fallen angels) or "to fall upon," as in to attack. In some translations, it’s rendered as “giants,” which fits with the only other mention of the word in Numbers 13 and helps us understand its purpose in Genesis.
Once again, Moses wrote both Numbers and Genesis. In Numbers 13, we find the story of the spies preparing to enter the promised land of Canaan. They return with a disturbing report: “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
Based on the best archaeological evidence, the average Israelite man was about 5'5". The exact height of these “giants” is disputed, with some estimates around 9 feet—and some even taller. True giants are not unheard of even in modern times; Robert Wadlow, for example, grew to just under 9 feet in 1918. One of our own church members is 6’7”. He’s a gentle giant and a wonderful man, but he dwarfs me, and I’m 6’1”. Facing someone his size would be intimidating, so people in the upper six-foot range would have seemed incredibly imposing to these shorter Israelites.
That said, these cowardly spies likely exaggerated the size of the giants—they didn’t literally look like grasshoppers beside them. Humans are generally hundreds of times taller than grasshoppers, depending on the species and the person’s height. These giants weren’t over 50 feet tall—they were simply larger than normal, powerful, and intimidating. This was likely true of the antediluvian age as well.
The appearance of the Nephilim both before the flood and during the conquest of Canaan makes sense in this context. Scripture describes Canaan, the promised land, as being made unclean by the evil practices of its inhabitants. Leviticus 18:24-25 states:
“Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants.”
Not only the people, but the land itself had been made unclean—a situation similar to the pre-flood world, which was corrupted by humanity’s sinfulness.
Another parallel is that God tells Abraham his descendants will inherit Canaan, but not yet, because “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” The Amorites were one of the Canaanite tribes, and this phrase suggests that their sin had not yet reached the level that warranted judgment.
This concept of “the fullness of sin” indicates a tipping point where the corruption of the Amorites—through practices like idolatry, child sacrifice, and other immoral acts—became so great that God would use Israel as an instrument of judgment. This should remind us of the 120 years God granted to the pre-flood world, giving it time to repent. Similarly, God was patient with the idolaters in Canaan.
In a sense, the conquest of Canaan by Israel was a flood of judgment, meant to cleanse the land of its corruption. God would purify the land by having Israel conquer and drive out its inhabitants.
I believe Moses mentions the Nephilim in Genesis 6 to communicate two things:
Just how corrupt the pre-flood world had become—an apostate world filled with violent, false-god-worshiping giants, showing the justice of God’s judgment.
Just how worthy of judgment the land of Canaan had become—also an apostate world filled with violent, false-god-worshiping giants, deserving a flood of God’s judgment.
In this way, the Nephilim serve as a kind of time marker, signaling the depth of sin and corruption in these societies and underscoring the righteousness of God’s judgment in purging them from the land.
Moses connects the righteousness of God’s judgment in the flood of the antediluvian world with the righteousness of God’s judgment in the Israelite conquest of Canaan.
In other words, Genesis 6, in part, prepares Israel for the conquest of the land. It’s as if Moses is saying: 'Canaan is just like the world before the flood. It is full of evil idolaters—like Cain and Nimrod after him—and a particularly wicked group called the Nephilim. God was right to destroy them through the flood, and He is right to destroy them now by sending us to flood the land and conquer it.'
We’ve got to land this, so let me tie this together.
2 Peter 3 reminds us that “the world that then existed was deluged (flooded) with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.”
A final day of judgment is coming. That exact amount of years is left to him. But one day, they will be complete. Until then, our job is to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the world with Christians, not to become like the world. Cling to God. Know that he will deliver you not because you are perfect and sinless but rather because you have been made clean by the blood of Jesus and, like Noah, are an object of grace. Let’s pray.
Let’s pray.
P.S. What about Jude 1 and 2 Peter 2? Read here. What about the “sons of God” in Job? Read here. What about giants? Read here and scroll down.