increase and fill the earth.’”4 (Jubilees 10:1–3)
This passage is about demons that lead people astray, that blind and kill. They lead people to sin, they blind them from the truth, and they kill them. They don’t personally kill people, but lead them to sin and its wages: death. They are evil demons that have nothing good in store for Noah and his family. Here is an image of the forces of darkness that is much closer to home. This is more like what we are used to, and very different to what we saw in the Old Testament.
The passage above is a part of Jubilees. This book was written about 200 BCE, probably by a priest or another theologically trained person. Jubilees fantasizes about what Moses saw when he was on Sinai for forty days (Exodus 24:18). In fifty chapters Moses writes down everything that the angel told him. Every single detail of history, from the very beginning at creation, all the way up to Moses’s time. In Jubilees thousands of years of history are written down by Moses on mount Sinai. This is obviously not how Jubilees came to be, but it is a nice piece of fiction that fits into biblical history.
Noah
After a while the angel starts to tell Moses about Noah. Noah has survived the flood and wants to get on with his new life on a clean earth. But all is not going according to plan. Demons are being irritating. They are messing things up for Noah and his family. They can’t go a day without some demon or other coming along and pestering them. Finally it’s the last straw, and the children come to complain to Noah.
Noah, the patriarch, is the person who has to pray to God. So he gets down on his knees. He reminisces about the time of the flood, and about how God’s mercy saved him and his children from death. Then he asks for more mercy. He does not want the evil spirits to master his children. These spirits are clearly very dangerous, for if they lead his children astray, the children will be lost. Noah’s prayer does not stop there. He continues:
And you know that which your Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, did in my days and also these spirits who are alive. Shut them up and take them to the place of judgment. And do not let them cause corruption among the sons of your servant, O my God, because they are cruel and were created to destroy. And let them not rule over the spirits of the living because you alone know their judgment, and do not let them have power over the children of the righteous henceforth and forever. (Jubilees 10:4–6)
Apparently Noah knows a lot about these spirits. He knows where they came from and he knows what their power is. The demons are children of something Noah calls “your Watchers.” These Watchers were, if we can judge by Noah’s tone, not the nicest people around. They must be very important: why else would Noah bring them up? So who, or what, are these Watchers?
The Watchers
The Watchers are often discussed in extrabiblical books. The birthplace of all these discussions is an obscure passage in Genesis. Out of nowhere, the book talks about sons of God who see that the daughters of humanity are beautiful and marry them (Genesis 6:2). These sons of God have children with human women, and “the Nephilim were on the earth in those days” (Genesis 6:4). And the children of the sons of God and humanity are “the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown” (Genesis 6:4). In the very next verse, Genesis starts to discuss how incredibly evil humanity was, and then comes the flood. These Nephilim are only found in one other Bible verse, which calls the people in the promised land “Nephilim,” or, as most translations read, “giants” (Numbers 13:33).
It should be quite apparent that this is not the easiest passage from the Bible to interpret. For centuries people have been interpreting it in different ways. Who are these sons of God? Are the Nephilim the fruit of the marriage between the sons of God and humankind? What does the word Nephilim even mean? Are they giants? What is the link between these four verses and the flood? All of these questions led to a huge, fantastical discussion outside of the Bible. You could find almost any interpretation, but the most common one goes something like this.
In Noah’s time there were many angels on earth. They had been sent by God to watch over humanity. The angel with the flaming sword from Eden was the first of thousands. It was a great army, with angelic generals, but one angel was the supreme commander. This angel has many names such as Azazel, Semyaz, and Satanael.
These angels roamed the earth, amongst humanity. No problem there, were it not that women are so pretty. Some authors say that the women seduced the angels on purpose, using makeup and perfume. Others say that it was the angels who initiated the romance. Whatever the explanation, angels and women end up in bed together. This generally leads to offspring.
So, what does the child of an angel and a woman look like? Well, it can’t be normal. Angels are beings of spirit, women are beings of flesh and blood. The offspring of this union must be very special. How? Well, it must be a giant! It’s an angel-human hybrid, huge and impressive with supernatural powers: a hero. But, this was clearly not God’s intention. Angels can’t marry people, people marry people. Angels don’t marry at all (Matthew 22:30). These are incredible sins against God’s natural order. They are sins against God. These supernatural offspring must then be very evil. They were born out of sin, so they must be sinful. And if this is happening all around, clearly all of humanity was evil. Everyone, that is, except Noah—so God sent the flood, but Noah was saved.
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