Who Are the Sons of God?

The mystery in Genesis 6 begins with a name. Who are the sons of God who take human women as wives? The answer changes the story. If they are human beings, the episode concerns corruption within human society. If they are heavenly beings, it describes a more disturbing crossing between heaven and earth.

One place to start is the Book of Job. At the beginning of Job, the sons of God present themselves before the Lord. Satan appears among them. The setting is a heavenly gathering, with God presiding and others standing before him. It gives the expression a clear celestial setting.

Later, God asks Job where he was when the earth's foundations were laid. The morning stars sang together, and the sons of God rejoiced. Here they belong to the scene of creation itself. They cannot be descendants of Seth or members of a later royal family. They are already there when the human world is being made.

These passages give us a strong reason to hear heavenly beings when we encounter the same expression in Genesis. The Hebrew phrase, bene ha-elohim, need not stay in Hebrew to make the point. What matters is who bears the name elsewhere in the Bible.

Related language appears in the Psalms, where heavenly beings gather around the Lord. The images differ in detail, but the setting is familiar: God rules, and a heavenly assembly stands before him. Calling its members sons does not make them equal to God. It describes their relationship to him.

The Bible also calls human beings God's children. Israel receives that language, and a phrase can take on a different meaning in a different story. We therefore still have to read Genesis in its own setting. But the scenes in Job give the heavenly interpretation a strong starting point. They put the possibility in the biblical text itself, before we turn to later stories about fallen angels.

That brings us to the other half of the encounter. Genesis calls the women daughters of humanity. Does it mean all human women, or one particular family line?