When Watchers Ruled the Nations: Pagan Gods at War with Israel’s God and the Spiritual World of the Bible

By Brian Godawa
When Watchers Ruled the Nations: Pagan Gods at War With Israel’s God and the Spiritual World of the Bible
1st Edition

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ISBN: 9798710862506 (hardcover)
SBN: 978-1-942858-82-9 (Paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-942858-81-2 (Ebook)

Scripture quotations taken from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001.

Table of Contents v

Get the Prequel to this book! iv

Introduction viii

Psalm 82

Get the First Novel of the Bestselling Biblical Fiction Series 3

Chapter 1: The Divine Council of the Gods 5

A Definition 5

Gods or Men? 5

Gods, Not Men 6

What Would Jesus Exegete? 12

Job 13

1 Kings 22 17

Chapter 2: The Allotment of the Nations 19

The Deuteronomy 32 Worldview 19

Are the Sons of God in Psalm 82 Evil? 21

The Sons of God Are Also Called Watchers 24

Host of Heaven 27

Shining Ones and Stars 29

Chapter 3: The Judgment of the Watchers 38

Like Men You Shall Die 38

The Judgment of Fire 41

Stoicheia: The Elemental Spirits 43

Chapter 4: The Inheritance of the Nations 45

The Foundations of the Earth are Shaken 45

The Inheritance of the Nations 48

New Testament Principalities and Powers 49

Triumphal Procession 52

Under His Feet 55

Arise, O God 56

Chapter 5: The End of the Age 59

Acts and the Inheritance of the Gentile Nations 60

The Last Days of the Old Covenant 63

All About the Narrative 67

Chapter 6: The Watchers Did Not Make You Do it 69

Supernatural Evil or Human Evil? 70

What the Devil is Going On Here? 73

Don’t Forget 73

The Already and the Not Yet 74

The Spiritual World of Moses and Egypt

Get the novel Moses that is based on the biblical research of this book 81

Chapter 1 The Story 82

Scripture and History 82

The Problem of Ancient Names 84

When was the Date of the Exodus? 85

Who were the Pharaohs of Moses’s life? 90

Why is the City of Ramesses Renamed Avaris? 93

The Number of Hebrews in the Exodus 96

Red Sea, Reed Sea, or Something Else? 100

What Was the Mysterious Exodus Route? 109

Where was Mount Sinai? 112

Chapter 2 The Characters 116

Moses 116

Zipporah and the Cushite Wife of Moses 131

Jannes and Jambres 139

Amalekite Giants 142

Chapter 3 The Spiritual World of Egypt 147

The Watchers 147

The Binding of Mastema 152

Host of Heaven 157

Egyptian Magic 168

The Egyptian Underworld 176

Chapter 4 The Gods of Egypt 180

Pharaoh 181

Ra the Sun God 190

Isis and Osiris 195

Horus and Set 197

Chapter 5 The Ten Plagues 206

Chapter 6 From Chaos to Creation 224

Leviathan, Chaos, and Creation 224

Genesis 1 Creation in its Egyptian Context 233

Temple as Creation 241

The Spiritual World of Jezebel and Elijah

Get the novel Jezebel that is based on the biblical research of this book 251

Chapter 1: The Characters 252

The Story First 252

Jezebel 253

Installation of the High Priestess 259

Elijah 260

Jehu 263

Athaliah 267

The Rechabites 269

Chapter 2: The Spiritual World of Israel 273

Monotheist or Polytheist? 273

The Priesthood 275

The People 277

The Watchers 280

1 Kings 22 285

Leviathan 286

Chapter 3: The Gods of Canaan 291

Baal 291

The Image of Baal 295

The Temple of Baal 295

Yahweh Versus Baal 297

Asherah 299

Astarte 303

Anat 305

Mot 308

Molech 312

The Archangels 314

Chapter 4: Cosmic Geography 318

Underworld Valleys 318

Sheol 323

Cosmic Mountains 327

Chapter 5: Cultic Practice 334

High Places 334

Standing Stones 336

Masks 338

Qedeshim 339

Sacred Marriage 341

Family Shrines 343

Cult of the Dead 345

Marzeah Feast 349

Rephaim 352

Child Sacrifice 359

The Spiritual World of Ancient China and the Bible

Get the Novel That is Based on the Biblical Research of This Booklet 373

Chapter 1: The Spiritual World of the Bible 374

The Gods of the Nations 374

Leviathan 379

Chapter 2: The Characters 383

The Story First 383

Xeneotas (Antiochus the Younger) 384

The Magi 385

Ch’in Shih Huang Di 387

Miscellaneous Factoids 390

Chapter 3: The Spiritual World of China 391

Tower of Babel and the Tomb of Qin 391

The Dragon 393

Shang Di 395

Border Sacrifice 397

The Lesser Deities 398

Chapter 4: The Gospel in Chinese 401

Words as Pictures 401

Conclusion 404

Great Offers By Brian Godawa 406

About the Author 407

Introduction

This is the sequel to my best-selling book, When Giants Were Upon the Earth. In that book, I combined the appendices of the 8-novel series Chronicles of the Nephilim for those who wanted all the biblical research in one volume for study. It was such a hit, that I decided to do the same for my series Chronicles of the Watchers. The problem is that the appendices of the first three Watchers books grew to be so large that I had to separate them each into companion books. What you are reading here are those first three research books of the Watchers series, plus my important book, Psalm 82, that explains the concept of the Watchers and their biblical operations in more detail. Psalm 82 is an introduction for the entire Watchers series.

I beg forgiveness from the reader for the few paragraphs or sections repeated in some of the books in this box set. This was because each book had its own specific context but sometimes those contexts overlapped and required the same material to be explained. If I were to delete redundant passages in this box set from one of the books to eliminate the repetition, then the flow of thought in that book would be interrupted and incomplete.

So I left them in with the hope that the reader will find them helpful as review with new application for new sections.

Some sections that are repeated are: “Host of Heaven,” and “Shining Ones and Stars” in Psalm 82 and The Spiritual World of Moses and Egypt. Also, the section on the “Watchers” as a summary in each of the Spiritual World books tailored to each novel separately. Lastly, sections on Leviathan in each of the books. But be careful, I add some new information on Leviathan in The Spiritual World of Moses and Egypt that is not in the other books.

That’s what you get for buying a box set!

Chapter 1:
The Divine Council of the Gods

One of the most intriguing storylines of the Bible is that of Christ’s victory over the powers. When I discovered it, it changed my life. It inspired me to write a series of 14+ biblical novels—Chronicles of the Nephilim, Chronicles of the Apocalypse and Chronicles of the Watchers—that incarnate that story unlike anything done before.

A Definition

But what exactly is this messianic cosmic battle between Christ and the powers? And how does it affect us? It is sometimes called Christus Victor, and consists of the idea that mankind’s Fall in the Garden resulted in a sinfulness of humanity that was so entrenched against God it led to universal idolatry as embodied in the tower of Babel story (Gen 11). As a result of man’s incorrigible evil, God placed all of the nations and their lands under the authority of other spiritual powers, but kept one people and their land for his own: Israel. Those Gentile nations and their gods would be at war with the promised messianic seed of Israel. But in the fullness of time, Messiah would arrive, overcome those spiritual powers of the nations, and take back rule of the earth in the kingdom of God.

Gods or Men?

Psalm 82 is a doorway into the Christus Victor narrative because it summarizes the three-act structure of that messianic story of allotment, judgment and inheritance. Here is the full text of the Psalm in all its simple and concise glory:

Psalm 82:1–8

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

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless;
maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

They have neither knowledge nor understanding,
they walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;

nevertheless, like men you shall die,
and fall like any prince.”

Arise, O God, judge the earth;
for you shall inherit all the nations!

Much scholarly debate has occurred over the identity of these “gods” of the divine council. Are they human judges who merely represent divine justice, or are they actual divine beings?

I am convinced that they are Yahweh’s heavenly host of divine beings surrounding his throne, referred to by the technical term “Sons of God” or “Sons of the Most High”. Here’s why…

Gods, Not Men

First off, the Psalm itself uses the Hebrew word elohim, which is accurately translated as “gods.” As much as Christians have been conditioned to believe the Bible claims no other gods exist but Yahweh, this simply is not biblical. But don’t panic. Hear me out.

The most common Hebrew word translated in English as “God” or “gods” in the Bible is elohim. But God has many names in the text and each of them is used to describe different aspects of his person. El, often refers to God’s powerful preeminence; El Elyon (God Most High) indicates God as possessor of heaven and earth; Adonai means God as lord or master; and Yahweh is the covenantal name for the God of Israel as distinguished from any other deity.

Elohim in Hebrew is a plural word. It is used of both the singular being of the One God, as well as of a plurality of other beings who are not the singular One God. That is where some confusion comes into interpretation. Our modern Western English language does not translate the ancient Hebrew conceptual world very well at all. Here is a good example: In the biblical Hebrew, angels are sometimes called elohim (Psa 8:5; Heb 2:7), gods or idols of pagan nations are sometimes called elohim (Psa 138:1), supernatural beings of the divine council are sometimes called elohim (Psa 82:6), departed spirits of humans are sometimes called elohim (1Sam 28:13), and demons are sometimes called elohim (Deut 32:17). So what gives? How can all these different entities be called by the same word—and a word that is also used of the One God?

Scholar Michael S. Heiser has pointed out that the Hebrew word Elohim was more of a reference to a plane of existence than to a substance of being. In this way, Yahweh was Elohim, but no other elohim was Yahweh. Yahweh is incomparably THE Elohim of elohim (Deut. 10:17). We must stop imposing our categories of modern concepts onto the Bible, and try to interpret the text within the ancient Hebrew paradigm.

A common misunderstanding of Christians is that when the Bible refers to other gods it does not mean that the gods are real beings but merely beliefs in real beings that do not exist. For instance, when Deuteronomy 32:43 proclaims “rejoice with him, O heavens, bow down to him, all gods,” this is a poetic way of saying “what you believe are gods are not gods at all because Yahweh is the only God that exists.” What seems to support this interpretation is the fact that a few verses before this (v. 39), God says, “See now, that I, even I am he, and there is no god [elohim] beside me.”

Does this not clearly indicate that God is the only God [elohim] that really exists out of all the non-existent “gods” [elohim] that others believe in?

Not in its biblical context it doesn’t.

When the text is examined in its full context of the chapter and rest of the Bible we discover a very different notion about God and gods. The phrase “I am, and there is none beside me” was an ancient Biblical slogan of incomparability of sovereignty, not exclusivity of existence. It was a way of saying that a certain authority was the most powerful compared to all other authorities. It did not mean that there were no other authorities that existed.

We see this sloganeering in two distinct passages, one of the ruling power of Babylon claiming proudly in her heart, “I am, and there is no one beside me” (Isa. 47:8) and the other of the city of Nineveh boasting in her heart, “I am, and there is no one else” (Zeph. 2:15). The powers of Babylon and Nineveh are obviously not saying that there are no other powers or cities that exist other than them, because they had to conquer other cities and rule over them. “No other beside me” meant “no other equal in power or authority.” God is seated on his throne of authority and power and there is no one standing beside him on that throne, having equal status. All others are “below” him. In the same way, Yahweh uses that colloquial phrase, not to deny the existence of other gods, but to express his incomparable sovereignty over them.

The Hebrew word for “gods,” elohim, is plural but it is not polytheistic. Sometimes, it is a reference to created yet divine beings that we generically refer to as “angels.” They are also biblically referred to as “holy ones” (Deut 33:2-3; Heb 2:2), “host of heaven” (1 King 22:19-23), or “Sons of God” (Job 1:6; 38:7). These Sons of God or host of heaven are called elohim, or “gods” in Psalm 82 and elsewhere in the Bible.

Psalm 89 clarifies this “assembly of gods” as being divine, not human, because it is in the heavens, not on earth.

Psalm 89:5-7

Let the heavens praise your wonders, O Yahweh,
your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones!

For who in the skies can be compared to Yahweh?
Who among the gods is like Yahweh,

a God greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones,
and awesome above all who are around him?

In this text, we see that there is an assembly of gods/holy ones who surround Yahweh in the heavens. These are clearly not humans on earth. And humans are not assembled in the skies. The text explicitly calls the assembly of Yahweh’s holy ones “gods.” But it uses the hypothetical question of incomparability with Yahweh, “who among the gods is like Yahweh?” The implied answer is none of them.

But they are still called gods (elohim), not “as gods,” not “like gods,” but gods. Here are several other passages that reiterate this idea of gods as real spiritual divine beings.

Psalm 29:1

Ascribe to the Lord, O gods, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Psalm 58:1-2

Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods? Do you judge the children of man uprightly? No, in your hearts you devise wrongs; your hands deal out violence on earth.

Deuteronomy 32:43

“Rejoice with him, O heavens; bow down to him, all gods…”

Some may argue that these are verses that merely speak metaphorically of pagan gods bowing down to Yahweh in power because they do not actually exist. But as we have seen, the “gods” that these passages are talking about, are referring to the heavenly host, not necessarily pagan deities. These are real gods that have some actual relational interaction with Yahweh.

Notice that Psalm 58:1-2 is a restatement of the Psalm 82 notion of the gods who fail to judge the nations righteously. That is not a metaphor either, that is real relational interaction that Yahweh is claiming. He has given these gods some kind of authority over human beings. We will see exactly what kind of authority that is in the next chapter, but for now, suffice it to say these gods are described as real beings that Yahweh is interacting with.

So, there you have it. The Bible’s definition of “gods,” is not the same as our modern cultural religious definition of gods. The Bible itself says that there are gods, but they are not the same kind of deity as Yahweh. They are created gods. Yahweh is uncreated and the eternal creator of all other beings. This is something that makes evangelical Christians skittish, but something one must accept if one accepts the evangelical principle of Sola Scriptura. If the Bible says it, it’s true, regardless of where our preconceived biases may lean. Our fears are often expressions of our own lack of knowledge.

But there are some who argue that these “gods” are actually human judges who are called “gods” symbolically because they represent God in their identities as judges using God’s Law. They argue that Moses was told that he would “be as God” to both Pharaoh and Aaron because he spoke on God’s behalf (Ex 7:1; 4:16).

This cannot possibly be the case. First, there is a BIG difference between being called “gods” (elohim) and “being as God.” The first is identity; the second is analogy.

Secondly, as Psalm 82 declares, these elohim (gods) are in God’s divine council, which elsewhere is also described explicitly as a council of spiritual beings, not human beings (Job 1, 2; 1 King 22:19-23).

Thirdly, this assembly is “in the skies,” or heaven, not on earth where human judges would be.

Fourthly, their punishment of death “like any earthly prince” is made in ironic contrast to being divine (Psalm 82:6-7). That punishment would be a meaningless tautology if the “gods” were actually human. The text does not say they would die as men, but that they would die like men. This is a statement of simile, not identity; it suggests a different ontological nature between gods and men.

The basic argument for the “gods” being human judges seeks to make the term (and its equivalent, “Sons of God”) a symbolic analogy rather than an essential identity. They quote a verse like the following to justify this belief:

2 Chronicles 19:5-6

He appointed judges in the land in all the fortified cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, “Consider what you do, for you judge not for man but for the Lord. He is with you in giving judgment.”

This view claims that because the judges are given authority by God to make legal judgments, and those judgments are “for the Lord,” then judges could be considered gods in that they stand in the place of God, and he endorses their judgments. In this view, “gods” is a term of analogy, not identity.

But there are significant problems with this interpretation. The biggest one is that the text never calls those judges “gods.” That is imported by the bias of the one seeking to justify the claim. It is a smuggled premise that begs the question. They are, in fact, not called gods anywhere in the text; God is “with them” in their judgments, but that is not the same as being called gods. In contrast, the beings of the divine council are explicitly called gods.

Even in today’s legal system, we do the same thing as described in 2 Chronicles. When we stand in a court of law presided over by a judge and pledge to tell the truth before God, we are claiming that God resides behind the judge and court in their pursuit of justice. But we are not pledging to the judge as a “god,” or even as God’s representative; we are pledging to the actual God who stands transcendently behind the court. Yes, the judge has God’s authority to make his judgments (Rom 13:1-2), but we do not call him a god in his representation. Our pledge is to the God who is actually and truly behind the judge, not to the judge as if he were in place of God.

The significance of the term “gods” being used of the beings in the divine council is a reference to their divine identity, not their representational authority.

Another problem with this human interpretation of “gods” is projection, or what I like to call “hermeneutical imperialism.” Hermeneutics is the science and art of interpreting a text; that is, interpreters do not interpret the text within the context of the original writers and readers, but rather within their own modern context, which results in projecting their own cultural bias onto the text instead of discovering the cultural bias within the text.

If we want to understand how the ancient Jews understood the terms they used, we should look at how they themselves interpreted the texts. If one uses only Scripture to interpret Scripture without its cultural context, then one is not actually using Scripture to interpret Scripture, but conforming Scripture to one’s own cultural bias and preconceived ideas.

When we look at the ancient Jewish understanding of Psalm 82, we see the gods as divine beings, not human.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, an ancient Jewish document labeled 11QMelchizedek reveals that they understood the gods of Psalm 82 to be satanic spirits to whom God allotted the nations.

11QMelchizedek 2.10-16

As for that which he said, How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah (Psalms 82:2), its interpretation concerns Satan and the spirits of his lot who rebelled by turning away from the precepts of God to…And Melchizedek will avenge the vengeance of the judgements of God…and he will drag them from the hand of Satan and from the hand of all the spirits of his lot. And all the ‘gods of Justice’ will come to his aid to attend to the destruction of Satan.

Now, there were certainly a variety of theological viewpoints in Judaism, but this text does illustrate the dominant divine interpretation of that ancient context.

Here is another text from a well-known noncanonical Jewish text that interprets the Sons of God in Deuteronomy 32:8-10 as also being angels or territorial spirits spoken of in Psalm 82.

Jubilees 15:31-32

[There are] many nations and many people, and they all belong to him, but over all of them he caused spirits to rule so that they might lead them astray from following him. But over Israel he did not cause any angel or spirit to rule because he alone is their ruler and he will protect them.

This passage from Jubilees is actually an interpretation of Deuteronomy 32:8-10 that I will explore in the next chapter. But the point here is that the Sons of God in Deuteronomy were considered to be the same divine spirits who ruled over and judged the nations in Psalm 82. They were decidedly not human judges.

But there is another ancient interpreter of Psalm 82 that settles the argument over the divine identity of the gods/Sons of God. And that exegetical expert is none other than the Son of God.

What Would Jesus Exegete?

My personal view is that if the Bible says it, then we should say it. I am fine with using the term “divine beings” if it makes you feel more comfortable, but the bottom line is that the Sons of God who surround Yahweh’s heavenly throne as his host are divine. The Bible calls them gods.

Jesus, God in the flesh, used this very Psalm to justify his claims to deity in John 10:31-39. So if Jesus’s own exegesis of Psalm 82 results in ascribing divinity to the gods, then we need to agree with the author and finisher of our faith.

First, let’s look at the context. Jesus says to the Jews listening to him, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). He did not mean “one in purpose,” but rather “one in essence or identity.” We know this because the Jews respond by picking up stones to stone Jesus (v. 31). They understood him as engaging in blasphemy and accused him, “because you, being a man, make yourself God” (v. 33). So Jesus answers by appealing to Psalm 82.

John 10:34–36

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

Some say that those “gods” in Psalm 82 are simply human judges who represent God. But Jesus is clearly claiming actual deity with his term Son of God, not mere representation. He did not claim to be a representative human judge like other Israelite judges. That would have been a denial of his deity, degrading him to the level of human judges.

That would contradict the very point he was making at the start by saying “I and the Father are one” in essence or identity. He would be claiming that he is no different from human judges who represent God and that “Son of God” is a term of representation, not identity or essence. Shame on trinitarians for even considering such a contradiction.

If Jesus had intended his reference to the sons of God to represent nothing more than mere human judges, then he would have been ascribing to his own sonship no more authority or divinity than that held by human judges. He would have been denying deity, not arguing for it. His claim to be the Son of God would be stripped of its divine essence. That would be worse than nonsense; it would be blasphemous nonsense.

I think it’s clear that Jesus was claiming to be divine in this passage. He was defining Sons of God as actual divine beings, not representative human judges. And his point in quoting Psalm 82 was to prove to them that his own claim to divinity was not blasphemous because they already accepted some beings other than Yahweh as having divinity. Jesus was not merely one of those divine Sons of God, he was THE uniquely begotten Son of God, God in the flesh.

Job

This heavenly assembly of gods is not an anomaly. It shows up in many places throughout the Bible that indicate a clear context of spiritual beings who engage in council with Yahweh and carry out his judgments. A heavenly legal courtroom.

Job 1:6 and 2:1 describe an apparently regular occurrence of “Sons of God” (bene ha elohim in Hebrew) presenting themselves before Yahweh, along with the satan as legal adversary in that heavenly court.

Job 1:6-7, 12

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it”… And the Lord said to the satan, “Behold, all that [Job] has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So the satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

The satan operates as a spiritual prosecutor in God’s heavenly court seeking indictment of righteous Job by accusing him of self-interest in serving God. God then allows him to carry out a task in order to test Job. But it is important to note that this is not an earthly court with humans, but a heavenly court in God’s presence.

These sons of God are not human judges, but God’s heavenly host. And this is confirmed later in Job, lest there be any doubt. God chastises Job from the whirlwind and he asks him, “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?… when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4–7).

Yahweh himself states that the Sons of God were present at the creation of the heavens and earth, shouting for joy (Job 38:7) long before human judges were created.

These Sons of God also show up in Psalm 82 as “Sons of the Most High.”

Psalm 82:6

I said, “You are gods,
sons of the Most High, all of you;

“Sons of the Most High” is a synonym for “Sons of God.” “Most High” in Hebrew is El Elyon, another name of Yahweh. God has many names: Elohim, Yahweh, El Elyon, El Shaddai and so forth. So the gods around him have several names: gods, heavenly host, holy ones, Sons of God and Sons of the Most High. Sons of the Most High in Psalm 82 is interchangeable with Sons of God.

Sons of God/Most High is not a mere metaphor, as in “we are all children of God,” but rather it is a technical term used only of this special class of being. Though some argue that Israel is called the son of God, this is simply not true. The passage they quote says, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos 11:1). Yes, in this case “son” is used of Israel as a metaphor, but it is not the term “son of God” or “sons of God”. That is a very important distinction, because when Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, the Jews were offended by this as a claim of deity (John 10:36). This would not be the case if “Son(s) of God” were a mere metaphor like the word “son” that Hosea uses. There are many presidents in America, but there is only one President of the United States. The technical term “sons of God/Most High” is highly specific, not a generic metaphor like “son”.

These are the same Sons of God that left their heavenly habitation and came to earth and mated with the human daughters of men.

Genesis 6:1–2

1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.

This passage is also a highly debated one. Many interpreters also argue that these Sons of God in Genesis 6 are humans from the lineage of Seth or despotic god-kings.

Space does not permit a full defense here of the supernatural nature of the Sons of God in Genesis 6 (see my book When Giants Were Upon the Earth for a fully developed argument). But I will make the point that both New Testament inspired authors Peter and Jude considered those Sons of God in Genesis 6 to be divine angels.

Jude 6–7 (NASB95)

And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh…

2 Peter 2:4–5

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly…

Peter places this angelic sin at the time of the Flood. The only possible biblical reference to this sin is the wicked behavior of the Sons of God in Genesis 6 marrying women by force.

Genesis 6:1–10

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose… The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Some try to deny the negative connotations of the behavior of the sons of God in this passage. I deal with that more extensively in When Giants Were Upon the Earth. But for now, let me make the point that the dominant view in the ancient Jewish mindset (including the New Testament) was that the Sons of God were angels who sinfully defied the heavenly/earthly boundaries.

Both Peter and Jude speak of the sin of the angels in the same context as Sodom and Gomorrah. Jude calls them angels who “indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh.” “Strange flesh” cannot mean homosexuality in this passage, because the Greek words are heteros sarx (different flesh). Homosexuality would be same flesh (homo sarx). The “strange flesh” here must be a difference of flesh between angels and humans. The sin of Sodom, linked to the sin of the angels in Noah’s time, was not men desiring sex with men so much as it was humans desiring sex with angels (Genesis 6 all over again).

The Sodom story was not merely known in Second Temple Judaism as an example of homosexuality, but was linked with Genesis 6 as an example of humans trying to have sinful sex with angels who had a heavenly flesh different from human flesh.

Testament of Naphtali 3:4-5

…so that you do not become like Sodom, which departed from the order of nature. Likewise the Watchers departed from nature’s order; the Lord pronounced a curse on them at the Flood.

Jubilees 10:1, 5

The polluted demons began to lead astray the children of Noah’s sons and to lead them to folly and to destroy them… [Noah prayed,] ”And Thou knowest how Thy Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day: and as for these spirits which are living, imprison them and hold them fast in the place of condemnation.”

Though The Testament of Naphtali and the book of Jubilees are not Scripture, they were highly regarded Jewish writings that expressed the dominant ancient Jewish view, which was echoed in the first century by the Jewish historian Josephus, who wrote of Genesis 6 that “many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good.”

If New Testament apostolic authority exegetes the sin of Genesis to be that of divine angelic beings, in accord with the ancient Jewish worldview, then I think we are biblically safe to agree with them.

1 Kings 22

My personal favorite Sons of God passage is the story of wicked king Ahab asking for the prophet Micaiah’s advice on attacking Ramoth-Gilead. Micaiah describes a scenario so obviously supernatural and spiritual that little explanation is required. Though the beings in the council here are not described as “gods” like elsewhere, they are described as the “host of heaven,” which we have already shown the Bible defines as divine beings or gods (Jer 19:13; Deut 4:19; 17:3; 29:26; 2 Chron 33:3-5; Acts 7:42-43).

1 Kings 22:19–23

And Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-Gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’ Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.”

The fascinating thing about this vision is that we get a glimpse into the actual process of counseling that God takes from his heavenly host. We see them suggest different things, and then God chooses one and empowers the spirit to accomplish his task.

It’s all rather scandalous to a modern Christian mind that prefers a nice, simple and uncomplicated spiritual world where God sits on his throne and declares the end from the beginning without anyone’s input. But biblical facts are the facts. God uses a bureaucracy of intermediary divine agents, called gods, Sons of God, heavenly host, or holy ones, with whom he interacts and engages counsel.

Or as the Psalm we’ve been looking at from the very start puts it:

Psalm 82:1

God has taken his place in the divine council;
in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:

There are plenty of other passages that describe the divine council of heavenly beings around Yahweh who counsel with him and carry out his decisions with duly delegated legal responsibility (Deut 32:43 LXX; Zech 2:13-3:7; Jer 23:18-22).

And there are other passages where the divine council is not mentioned, but scholars explain that the plural grammar of the speech and activity imply the heavenly court motif of God addressing the council (Gen 1:26; 11:3, 4, 7; Isa 6:8; 40:1; 41:21-23). It is so prevalent throughout the Bible that one can only deny it to one’s theological detriment.

You can read more about this theological paradigm of the Sons of God in my book When Giants Were Upon the Earth. And you can read a story of how this divine council plays out in history in my novel series Chronicles of the Nephilim, Chronicles of the Apocalypse and Chronicles of the Watchers

In the next chapter, I will explain the allotment of the nations at Babel and how it begins this storyline of the rise and fall of the Watchers and their inheritance of the nations.