They Saw, and They Took

In Eden, the woman sees that the tree is good for food and desirable. Then she takes its fruit. In Genesis 6, the sons of God see that the women are beautiful. Then they take wives, choosing whom they wish.

The rhythm is familiar: seeing, finding something desirable, taking it. The later episode may be asking us to hear Eden again. Desire becomes the reason for action, and the people who desire become the people who decide.

The last phrase matters. They choose whom they wish. Genesis gives us their view of the women and their freedom to select. It tells us nothing about what the women wanted. The attention stays with those who see and take.

That emphasis makes the scene troubling even before we decide who the sons of God are. The marriages appear on the way toward the account of human wickedness and the Flood. Read in that setting, the sequence suggests desire reaching beyond its proper limits.

The words alone cannot tell us that every union was forced. Taking a wife is also ordinary biblical language for marriage, and seeing and taking are common verbs. The connection to Eden rests on the pattern as a whole and on its place in the story.

What emerges is a moral connection rather than a complete explanation of the event. Genesis may be showing us the same movement again: something is desirable, so it is taken. If the actors are heavenly beings, the crossing reaches between heaven and earth. If they are powerful humans, the scene concerns the abuse of power. Either way, their desire occupies the foreground, while the women remain unheard.