Genesis 6, verses 4 and 5, There were giants in the earth

 

Genesis 6:4 ¶  There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. 5  And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

The resultant offspring of these sons of God and human women were giants, famous as heroes in myth and legend. The mythologies of the world have brought us stories of these great men of renown with various names and in various forms. The phrase and also after that shows that this was an ongoing problem even after the Flood. I will not go into the many websites about and books written on findings of giant remains in graves and tombs as it is difficult to distinguish fact from fancy and outright fraud. Sticking with the Bible account, though, we have many references that would render some of the modern stories about archaeological finds understandable and believable. Here are a few examples of the many references to giants with the measurement given so that we see these were not just National Basketball Association (NBA) style large men.

Deuteronomy 3:11  For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man. [that is between

13 ½ to 18 feet long depending on the actual length of a cubit]

1Samuel 17:4  And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span. [Goliath was between around 9 feet plus and 12 feet tall]

Other references to show that there were places where such giants were common are;

Numbers 13:33  And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Deuteronomy 2:10  The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; 11  Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.

Deuteronomy 3:13  And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh; all the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was called the land of giants.

Joshua 15:8  And the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward:

God saw that the pre-Flood people were extremely wicked and we can see in this passage by way of similar phrasing with word substitution that evil here is synonymous with wickedness. The definition of a word is based on the context, particularly the word evil.

In the following verse evil means intent on doing harm, malicious;

Genesis 37:33  And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

Here it is disaster and calamity, the opposite of peace as darkness is the opposite of light;

Isaiah 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Here it is the trouble we face from day to day;

Matthew 6:34  Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

Here is the damage to a Christian’s faith that comes from greed;

1Timothy 6:10  For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

It is then impossible to rationally think of evil as always meaning the same thing. Just was we say, “I love pizza,” we say, “I love my mother.” Certainly, the context makes love mean two different things in these phrases. Use your brain.

In this context the pre-Flood world was wicked and man’s thoughts matched his deeds, as being evil. Mankind is hopelessly degenerate and only a simpleton believes we are basically good and would do right if only given the chance or if poverty and economic inequality were eliminated.

Jeremiah 17:9  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

The Founding Fathers of the United States were students of The (so-called) Enlightenment and believed that people were basically good and that the best way to keep evil from happening as each man pursued his own self-interest was to pit opposing forces against each other as a sort of check. One belief of the early republic was “vox populi vox dei” or the “voice of the people is the voice of God.” This was something that politicians, such as Abraham Lincoln, believed, that God’s will was done by the electorate as they voted for someone or something.

This rubbish thinking has been the source of a great many “evils” in our history from racial slavery and the oppression of minorities to the wholesale theft of Native American land all the way to the modern welfare/warfare state so beloved by both Democrats and Republicans.

People are not basically good. They are basically evil, at their core, and desperately need the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, Christ even speaks of His own disciples;

Luke 11:13  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?