Q: Are the giants in the Old Testament God’s creation or humanity’s children?  —Merilyn

A: “Giants” (the Nephilites) were first mentioned in Genesis 6:4. Various groups of giants were also mentioned as inhabiting the land of Canaan: the Anakites (Numbers 13:28, Deuteronomy 2:10, 9:2), the Emites (Deuteronomy 2:10), and the Rephaites or the Zamzummites (Deuteronomy 2:20)—their last king has a bed that was 13 feet by 6 feet (Deuteronomy 3:11). Some of the Philistines were descendants of giants (2 Samuel 21:16, 18, 20, 22), the most famous of which was Goliath, said to be over 9 feet tall (1 Samuel 17:4).

Genesis 6:2-4 seem to imply that the antediluvian (existed before the Flood) giant Nephilites were the offspring of the sexual union of the “sons of God” and  “woman” (“daughters of men” in the NIV). This passage is one of the most difficult and most debated passages in Scripture.

There are 3 major views explaining the origin of these antediluvian giant Nephilites: First, these giants were the product of an unholy sexual union between fallen angels (demons) and humans. Second, the Nephilites were the offspring of marriages between the godly line of Seth with the ungodly line of Cain. Third, they were the descendants of tyrannical human kings or rulers wanting to establish a dynasty and great name for themselves, were decadently polygamous, and ruthlessly evil and violent.

God did not create these giant Nephilites. Possibly, they were either the products of forbidden angelic sexual union and/or natural human procreation.

Also, a distinction must be made between the giants mentioned in Genesis 6:4, which was before the Flood, and the giants after the Flood. These later postdiluvian (existed after the Flood) giants were not the descendants of the antediluvian giants of Genesis 6:4, as only 8 people survived the Flood (Genesis 7:7, 1 Peter 3:20). The postdiluvian giants have to be the descendents of one of the sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth (Genesis 7:13).  —K.T. Sim

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