The Word Changed in Verse Four

THE WORD CHANGED IN VERSE FOUR

Genesis 6:1 to 4

Part one of four

Before We Start

This has been a topic of great debate, and I am here to look carefully at the Scripture. These are my true and honest findings.

I want you to search the Scriptures with me and see if it sings. In Jesus' name.

Named Before Anything Happens

Men. Their daughters. And the sons of God.

Three named here, and a fourth coming in verse four. He tells you what each one is before he tells you what they did.

And he does not call the sons of God sons of men. He uses one phrase for the one and another for the other, in the same sentence.

The Sons of God, and What the Word Will and Will Not Settle

I looked the word up, so let me tell you what I found and what it does not give me.

The word behind God in that phrase is given in the lexicons as elohim. It occurs more than two thousand six hundred times in the Old Testament. It commonly means the one true God. It is also used of foreign gods like Dagon and Baal. And the lexicon says it might refer to judges, or to angels as gods, and gives Psalm 97:7 for that.

So the word itself will not settle this for me. It carries God, and it carries angels, and it carries judges. Something else has to decide. That is why I went to Job.

Where Else My King James Says Sons of God

Now before I go further, let me do something for anybody who is new in the Word.

Somebody will hand you a verse that says sons of God and tell you it settles Genesis 6. So I went looking for every place my King James uses that wording, and I want to show you what I found.

And here is the first thing to hold. Genesis and Job were written in Hebrew. Some of what I am about to show you was written in Hebrew too, and some of it was written in Greek. So I am not showing you one word turning up in different places. I am showing you where my English Bible says the same three words, and they are not all doing the same job. I am going to put them in three piles.

THE FIRST PILE. Believers, in the New Testament.

These are you and me. People who received Him. And every one of them is in the New Testament, written in Greek, long after Genesis was written and after the cross.

Whatever Genesis 6 is talking about, it is not talking about people who received Christ. Nobody had yet.

So that pile is out. Not because it is unimportant. Because it is not the same conversation. THE SECOND PILE. Israel.

That is God speaking about His people Israel. It is a beautiful verse and it is not our verse either.

And note this one is in Hebrew like Genesis, so the language is not what sets it apart. The lexicons give a different expression there. THE THIRD PILE. And this is the one.

Now look at what is happening in these.

They come and present themselves before the LORD. Satan comes among them. And in chapter 38 they are shouting while God is describing the founding of the earth.

Job does not stop and tell me what they are. He tells me where they were and what they were doing. Presenting themselves before the LORD, with Satan among them. Shouting while God laid the foundations.

That is what Job gives me, and I am going to leave it there.

And this is the pile Genesis 6 sits closest to, in my reading, because it is the same language and the same kind of scene.

AND I WILL TELL YOU WHAT ELSE IS OUT THERE

Somebody may bring you Psalm 29:1 or Psalm 89:6, where my King James says the mighty and the sons of the mighty.

The lexicons give the Hebrew there as a different expression from Genesis and Job. The word for sons is the same. It is the second half of the phrase that differs. Genesis and Job have sons of Elohim, and the psalm has sons of Elim.

So it is a near neighbour, not the same phrase. People bring it into this argument, and I am telling you it is there so nobody surprises you with it. I cannot settle which way it cuts.

And somebody may bring you Deuteronomy 32:8, where different old copies read differently, some saying sons of Israel and some saying sons of God. I am not able to weigh manuscripts and I am not going to pretend I can.

SO HERE IS WHERE I STAND

My King James puts those three words on believers, on Israel, and on whoever those are standing before the LORD in Job.

And of all of them, only the Job ones are the same Hebrew expression as Genesis 6.

The New Testament ones are in Greek altogether. Hosea is in Hebrew like Genesis, but the lexicons give a different expression there, sons of the living God. Near, and not the same. Genesis 6 does not stop and tell me which kind it means.

That I read it the way Job is using it is my reading, and Moses does not stop and tell me. Job is the book I get it from.

Verse Three, and Two Words to Watch

Two things here that I want you to keep in your hand for the next verse.

The word behind man in this verse is given as adam. The lexicon calls it mankind, a human being, the species. And it calls it the more dignified of the two words for man. And then God says of him, he also is flesh.

The dignified word, and then flesh.

Also hold the word behind always, or forever. The lexicons number it the same as a word coming up in the very next verse, and I will show you where.

Verse Four, and the Word Changes

Now here is what I found, and it is the reason I am writing this study at all.

The word behind men in men of renown is not the same word as verse three.

Verse three uses adam. This one is given as enosh. And the lexicon says of it, properly a mortal, and thus differing from the more dignified adam. It says the word may come from a root meaning to be weak, or sick. So read the sentence again with that in your hand.

Mighty men. Men of renown. And underneath them, a word the lexicon calls mortal, and sets against the more dignified one used a verse earlier.

That is what the lexicon gives. What I hear in it I will tell you further down, and I will tell you it is mine. Moses does not stop and explain the change. But he changed it.

And I Have to Be Fair About That Word

I am not going to hand you something the lexicon itself qualifies.

The same entry says that the plural of enosh serves as the plural of the ordinary word for man, and occurs that way throughout the Old Testament.

So the plural can be ordinary. The frailty sits strongest in the singular.

That means I cannot stand here and tell you the change of word proves anything by itself. What I can tell you is that Moses had two words available, used one in verse three and the other in verse four, and did not tell me why.

I am telling you what he did. What I make of it I will say plainly, and it is mine.

One More Thing I Noticed

Now go back to what I asked you to hold.

Verse three, in my King James, says God's Spirit shall not ALWAYS strive with man. Verse four says these were mighty men which were OF OLD.

Two different English words. And the lexicons give both of them the same Hebrew number.

That is all I am saying about it. The English does not put the two side by side, and I am not going to make a phrase out of a number. I saw the same word underneath two verses in a row, and I am telling you I saw it.

The Giants Are a Separate Group, and I Want a Line Drawn There

This is where I think people mix things up, so let me draw the line clearly.

The order of that verse runs. 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.

The giants are already on the earth before the sentence turns to the sons of God. They are not introduced as something produced. They are described as already there.

Then the sons of God come in. Then children are born. And the verse says THE SAME became mighty men.

Now I read that THE SAME as pointing back to the children. I want to be honest that the sentence does not stop and say so, and men who read the Hebrew do not all take it the same way. That is my reading of the sequence.

So here is how I am reading this verse, and I am telling you it is a reading. I am looking at four groups on this page, not three.

Men. Their daughters. The sons of God. And the giants, already in the earth.

Moses does not tell me the giants are the sons of God. He does not tell me the sons of God made them. And he does not tell me where they came from at all.

I am not going to fill that in. He introduces them with no beginning, and I am going to let them stand there with no beginning.

The word behind giants in the King James is given as Nephilim, and my study Bible notes it is often connected to a root meaning to fall, so take it as background.

And note the other half of what he says. AND ALSO AFTER THAT.

Moses does not tell me when they began, and he does not tell me when they ended. He tells me they were there in those days, and after.

And the word turns up again much later, in the mouths of the men Moses sent to spy out the land.

That is the spies talking, and Moses records what they said. I am not going to turn their report into something more than a report. But the word is there, in their mouths, long after Genesis 6.

So What Do I Actually Have

Let me count it out plainly, because this is a passage people build a great deal on.

What the text gives me:

Men, and daughters born to them. The sons of God, whoever they are. Giants in the earth in those days, and after. A taking of wives, whomever they chose. God saying His Spirit will not always strive with man, for he also is flesh. A hundred and twenty years. Children born of that union. And a sentence saying THE SAME became mighty men, men of renown, with the mortal word underneath.

What the text does not give me:

It does not define the sons of God. It does not say where the giants came from. It does not say the giants came from the union. It does not tell me why the word changed in verse four. And it does not say what any of them were thinking.

What I bring:

Job, for how the same Hebrew phrase is used elsewhere. My reading that the giants and the sons of God are two separate groups, which makes four on this page and not three. My reading that THE SAME points back to the children. And my reading that the change of word is Moses telling me something about what came out of that union.

The Heart

Here is what I hold, and it is mine.

They were called mighty and they were called renowned, and the word underneath them is the one the lexicon calls mortal.

And what I hear in that, and I am telling you it is what I hear, is that whatever else came out of that crossing, what it produced was men. Famous ones. Mortal ones.

The lexicon does not prove that to me. It is what I hear when I put the two verses beside each other.

And that is where I am going to stop, because the next verse turns the whole thing toward God looking at man, and that is the other half of this study.