Who Were The Elohim, Sons of God, the Divine Council and Nephalim?
- God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
- How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
- I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;
- nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince. (Psalm 82.)
Jesus quotes from Psalm 82:6 to confirm his own status as a son of God, because if the divine council as described as gods/elohim, surely it should not be a stretch for Jesus also to be described as the unique Son of God. The only puzzling element is that Jesus mentions that word of God had come to these beings, possibly indicating that they were humans. But the word of God might just as easily have come to the angels. After all, the name Enoch means teacher, Enoch taught the people, having received the word from the Watchers, who in turn heard from God.
The original sons of God in the Bible were sometimes named elohim, and elohim, as Dr. Michael Heiser tells us, can refer to any high spiritual power, it does not refer necessarily to a specific God. These sons of God (Job 38:7) were also part of the divine council mentioned in Ps 82, Ps 89:7, Job 1:6. From these verses we can tell that there were, and probably still are, a council of high celestial beings with whom God almighty would discuss and delegate decisions about the world. Some of these may have been the Watchers mentioned in 1 Enoch and in Jubilees, or in Genesis 6 as the sons of God. From Jubilees we gather that Watchers were employed to guide humanity, and I suspect they guided nature to prevent negative mutations form occurring, and to guide breeding etc. But they overstepped their boundaries, teaching things they ought not, like sorcery and weapon making. And having somehow become men in appearance they managed to inseminate women with their seed. Their offspring were Nephalim, (literally “fallen ones”) were wiped out through Noah’s flood. The most well known fallen Watcher was called Azazel, to whom the scape-goat was sent when it was sent into the wilderness on the day of Atonement. All evil was banished to the desert, just as Azazel was.
Giants After the Flood
Yet Genesis 6:4 states that, “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that”, Part of the reason for wiping our Jericho, the Amorites and the Canaanites was to rid the world of giant DNA. Og the Amorite King, and Goliath, are two named examples of Rephaim or Anakim, and the people of Jericho were described as giants. Perhaps is possible that another type of angel manifested and committed the same acts after the flood. But my guess would be that rather than having intercourse, fallen angels merely altered the DNA of those women’s embryos, having appeared to them as an incubus and succubus figure. Perhaps some of the offspring of these giant Nephalim managed to escape the flood, assuming that the flood did not over the whole Earth. There are examples in the Bible of where the ‘whole earth’ refers to the known earth or to that extended region; Middle East; Mediterranean etc. For example when Nebuchadnezzar refers to himself as the King of the whole earth.
Much of the Old Testament concerns God’s intervention in our physical world in order to reverse the damage sown by the watchers, and the idolatrous doctrines of demons that enslave the soul, child sacrifice and temple prostitution that mocks God and his creation. The future church will join the Elohim council and will therefore judge the ordinary angels, and presumably the elohim/sons of God that fell. We will have the authority to do this because we have been saved out of an evil earth and an evil nature, while ordinary angels have never needed to overcome in this way.
Those into New Age or such like, prefer to think of themselves as mini divine beings. And yes were were created to be image bearers, but we are separated from God, and should not use our old authority as it will open us up to evil spirits. We can only safely use Jesus’ authority. We prefer not to think of ourselves as being morally bankrupt in need of a savior, and needing to take up our cross in order to follow Jesus. But in John 15 Jesus says, “without me you can do nothing”. After our old life is dead through water baptism we are in need of spiritual baptism.
Psalm 89:7 In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him.
Job 38:7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy…
Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.