Who are the Nephilim?

The Nephilim (giants) were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown (Genesis 6:4).

Everybody’s talking about the Epstein files— 3.5 million pages, 300 names—and everybody’s asking the same question. How did this go on for so long? Perhaps a better question is, “why does this KEEP happening?” Because it’s not new, it’s ancient. Before any government file ever got declassified, the Bible already told us the grim tale. “And it came to pass, when human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took any of them they chose” (Genesis 6:1-2). The sons of God, bene ha’elohim, the same phrase used in Job to describe angelic beings before God’s throne, saw the daughters of men. They saw them. They wanted them. They took them. Took doesn’t mean courted. It doesn’t mean married with consent. The Hebrew word carries force. They took them, all which they chose! Powerful beings with access to anyone they wanted. Nobody could stop them, nobody could say no. The daughters of men gave birth to giants. Every giant had a mother. Human. Not angelic. She carried the weight, and no one knows what it did to her.‍ ‍And the system around them, the world before the flood, was so corrupt that it just kept on debauching until God himself intervened (X@ The Biblical Man).

Context:  What did the original audience know and understand?

Regardless of a given reader’s beliefs, the authors of Scripture believed that God, angels, demons, the spirits of the dead, and other spiritual realities were real. Psalm 96:5 bluntly states, “All the gods of the nations are demons.” No nation is excluded. Spiritual warfare is real; it is the substrate of the Biblical text. It is writ large in the Great Flood, and every culture bears witness to this cataclysmic event. There are also near-universal traditions of gods who came down, taught forbidden knowledge, produced demonic giants, resulting in warfare against them. The Greeks called this war “gigantomachy.” In Greek stories, the giants were children of Gaea, the earth, brought forth to take revenge for the Titans after their imprisonment in Tartarus. Celtic stories describe the malformed Fomorians, who were part human and part faerie. Giants likewise feature prominently in Germanic and Old Norse stories as well as in the memory of Southeast Asian and even Mezzo-American cultures. In every case, these giants were monstrous and wicked beings who needed to be defeated by the most recent tier of gods and human beings, often working in tandem. Israel understood the gods of the nations (here) to be created spiritual beings in rebellion to God, and they knew the gods spawned wicked progeny. Second Temple (516 BC- AD 70) Jewish literature such as 1 Enoch and the Book of the Giants, discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, preserve the ancient Babylonian traditions which formed the background for the genealogies and narratives of Genesis 4-6. 

Until very recently, the Mesopotamian backstory to Genesis 6:1-4 was unknown to all but a handful of scholars. This means that what follows will not be found in the writings of any modern denominational founder (Calvin, Luther, Wesley, etc), nor any commentary on Genesis (to date), nor on the lips of any favorite preacher or Bible teacher. Without the knowledge of this backstory, interpreters fail to interpret Genesis 6:1-4 in its own context. Insisting on nonsupernaturalist interpretations, like the Sethite hypothesis (here), where the sons of God are merely men from the line of Seth, violates the passage’s original intent and meaning (Dr Michael S Heiser).

Satanic interference in human history begins very early in the book of Genesis and cannot be quarantined to one chapter. Genesis 3:15 speaks of the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. This is not nursery talk. This is war language. It introduces a conflict that moves through bloodlines, rebellion, corruption, and redemptive promise. By the time you reach Genesis 6, the corruption is out in the open. Satan is not passive, he is active. The seed-war language becomes a breeding program in Genesis 6, designed to corrupt the human bloodline thereby ensuring Messiah could never be born (X@ PaulsCorner-VerseQuest).

Who are the Nephilim? Genesis 6:1-4 describes the progeny produced at the culmination of this spiritual rebellion as Nephilim (Hebrew/Aramaic) or Gigantes (Greek)— giants, who are both human and divine, and exceedingly wicked. They are the hybrid offspring of fallen angels and human women, they became mighty men, men of renown, giants, demigods of every ancient culture’s memory. The Genesis account is abbreviated, because the details were well known in antiquity, detailed in ritual texts of the surrounding nations: Egyptian texts, Ugaritic texts from Canaan, and Sumerian texts from Mesopotamia. In Babylonian tradition the apkallu are parallel beings to the fallen sons of God (here). Membership in one of these Nephilim (giant) clans was not determined by DNA or ethnic features, but by ritual practice that debased God’s image bearers through gross sexual sacraments, idolatry, human sacrifice (predominantly children), blood consumption and cannibalism. In this matrix, every sacrifice, every year, was a bullish-year for the blood demons (1 Corinthians 10:20). The demon-gods ferociously sought the destruction of humanity and the members of the clan were active participants in spiritual and demonic oppression and depravity. Giant is not necessarily a description of physical size, it is a manifestation of a spiritual condition, despotic rulers bent on demon worship and destruction. The tribe of Israel was given specific instructions by God to completely destroy seven giant clans: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites (Deuteronomy 20: 10-18). Another clan was added (Exodus 17:8-16), the Amalekites. Israel was strictly forbidden to pursue total war against anyone else, which included other descendants of Abraham who also inherited promised land. Before Israel arrived in Canaan, the other Abrahamic tribes had already driven the giant clans from their respective territories. These tribes are listed in the land as the Moabites, the Ammonites, the Edomites, and the Caphtorim (Deuteronomy 2). Along with these tribes, God used Israel as the agent of judgment to eliminate those responsible for demonic tyranny and gross wickedness, which polluted the land and accumulated countless victims whose blood cried out for justice. For the sake of these clans’ past and future victims, they could not be allowed to continue. Their cup of iniquity was overflowing. “In their proper context, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua do not describe a ‘holy war’ or genocide directed at a particular ethnicity of human beings, rather it is a war waged by God against his spiritual enemies, demonic powers that had come to dominate the region of Canaan and the Transjordan. God used Israel as the agent of judgment just as he would later use Assyria and Babylon to bring judgment upon Israel and Judah for their wickedness” (Stephen de Young). The conquest that began with Joshua was completed with David. The last of the giants were driven out from hiding among the Philistines in Gaza, Gath, and Ashdod (2 Samuel 21:15-22). God did not call for the elimination of the Philistines because they were not wholesale guilty of the ritual acts and wickedness of the giants. For further study on Amalek and Caphtor see Did God command genocide?

What was Og’s bed? Goliath may have been the most famous giant in Israel’s history. But Og, the king of Bashan, was the most notorious. Every giant was the product of idolatry and sexual immorality in the extreme. Deuteronomy 3:11 identifies Og as the last of the Rephaim, a giant with a gigantic iron bed. It is not just the size of the bed that is suggestive of Og being one of the Nephilim, but also that his bed matches the dimensions and description of a ritual bed found in excavations of the ziggurat at Etemenanki, which was used for pagan sexual rituals. By mentioning the bed, Deuteronomy is indicating that Og was the product of demonic fornication. The bed figures prominently in pagan festal cycles. The king, as the high priest of the religion, would ritually embody the god. This was accomplished through sacrifices, blood-drinking, anointing, and the likely wearing of a mask. He would then engage in ritual intercourse with a temple slave or a temple prostitute on the bed, consummating the relationship between the god and the people, thereby bringing fertility for the crops and fields. If a child was conceived out of this ritual, the child would be two-thirds divine (the king and the god) and one-third human (the temple prostitute). The Sumerian Kings List claims Gilgamesh, of the Epic of Gilgamesh, is two-thirds divine, one-third human. The Book of the Giants identifies Gilgamesh as one of the Nephilim. Babylonian records suggest Hammurabi, famous for his Code of Hammurabi, was also two-thirds divine, one-third human. When a giant/Nephilim died his body was buried, his demonic spirit joined the dark miasma of principalities and powers that continues to plague humanity (Ephesians 6:12).

Historical and Theological Progression:

If the deeds of Epstein and his associates had occurred two millennia ago in the Roman Empire, there would have been little need to withhold such evil transactions from full public view. Historian Tom Holland documents how in ancient Rome, “Sex was nothing if not an exercise of power. … In Rome, men no more hesitated to use slaves and prostitutes to relieve themselves of their sexual needs than they did to use the side of the road as a toilet.” Glen Scrivener adds that “our modern concept of sexual abuse would be nonsensical to a freeborn Roman man since he considered that he held an unquestioned right to the bodies of lower-status women, children, prostitutes and slaves.” Into this perverse world came Messiah, and, with him, the original Sexual Revolution that liberated women, restrained male lust, and protected the young. What if Jesus had never been born? What if the demonic realm won the seed-war? The very idea is intolerable. The seed of the woman, the incarnation of Christ, is a poetic pivot. Like a dancer on a single toe, or a storyteller shifting from tragedy to hope, the pivot is a necessary, purposeful turn. It allows us to reverse our gaze, to repent, to rewrite the final lines of our own story.

The encounter between Mary and the angel Gabriel is a moment of profound, quiet splendor, often described as the intersection of time and eternity. In the stillness of a Nazareth evening, the divine broke through the human, turning a humble, young woman into the vessel of salvation. The angel Gabriel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). The Greek word for overshadow is episkiasei, which describes a bright, glorious cloud. It is used with reference to the cloud of transfiguration of Jesus (Mt 17:5; Mk 9:7; Lk 9:34) and also the shekinah glory of God (Ex 24:15-16; 40:34-38; 1 Ki 8:10). Mary was not taken by force; she was favored by God. She trusted and responded, “May it be to me as you have said” (Luke 1:38). She willingly carried the weight of glory in her womb, the Word made flesh, the Son of God. There are parallels between Mary, the ark of the new covenant, and the ark of the old covenant. She was, in effect, the new temple and holy-of-holies, the place where God dwelt. In the fullness of time God sent his son, a hidden mystery that he destined for our glory before time began. None of the cosmic forces of darkness understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2: 7-8). The gospel of Jesus Christ is, in essence, an assault on the kingdom of the demons. With his final breath, “it is finished”, their fate was sealed. For three days and nights, Jesus proclaimed the gospel in the heart of the earth, first to the fallen sons of God, who abandoned their proper dwelling, enchained since the Great Flood, whose offspring were the Nephilim (Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4), and second, to the Old Testament saints who waited for Messiah (Hebrews 11:13). They had not heard of a cross. They had heard of a covenant. They trusted the God who made it, though they died without receiving what was promised. Three days later Jesus came up out of the earth. Resurrected. Victorious. When he ascended on high, he took the faithful saints with him (Ephesians 4:8). In the fullness of time, all who trust in him will join them— victorious.

Conclusion: The DOJ has been sitting on the Epstein files for years. The system knew and the system protected them. The most powerful people on earth were trafficking human beings. Not for money, money was the mechanism not the motive. It was for access, for power, for control over human bodies. The same motive as Genesis 6. Powerful beings who saw, who wanted, and who took. And the corrupt system around them ran for decades without intervention. Here’s what the news cycle will never tell you. This isn’t politics. This isn’t a conspiracy theory. This is Ephesians 6:12. Rulers of the darkness of this world. Spiritual wickedness in high places. Not a metaphor. Not poetry. An intelligence briefing from the Apostle Paul about the actual power structure operating behind human institutions. The principalities in Genesis 6 used fallen angels to corrupt human bodies. The principalities behind Epstein used billionaires and politicians to traffic human bodies. Same target. Same method. Same enemy. Different century. In Genesis 6, they took whoever they wanted. In 2026, the files prove they took whoever they wanted. In Genesis 6, the corruption went so deep that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually. In 2026, 3.5 million pages document a network so embedded in power that it touched royalty, government, finance, entertainment, and academia simultaneously. It’s always the same. Powerful entities operating above the law, using human bodies and human systems as tools, protected by institutions that exist to serve them. That’s not just a political observation, it’s Biblical. (Psalm 2:2). It’s a network, it’s coordinated, and it’s against God and his image-bearers. The same enemy who launched a breeding program in Genesis 6 to prevent the Messiah is still running operations in 2026 to prevent you from seeing him clearly (X@ The Biblical Man).

Sources: The Unseen Realm, Michael S Heiser; Demons, Michael S Heiser; God is a Man of War, Stephen De Young; Reversing Hermon, Michael S Heiser; Lord of Spirits, Andrew Stephen Damick, The Religion of the Apostles, Stephen De Young; https://www.catholic365.com/article/58612/the-religious-symbolism-of-epsteins-temple.html Epstein’s Island; https://wng.org/opinions/jeffrey-epsteins-descent-to-pagan-rome-1772343207 Biola university; Love Thy Body, Nancy Pearcey; Arise, O God, Andrew Stephen Damick