21st Century Bible Hebrew -- Genesis 5:32-6:4, lords and N'filim

This is the part you have been waiting for me to work over but, if you have been paying attention, you suspect that it won’t come out the way you thought.

לב וַֽיְהִי־נֹ֕חַ בֶּן־חֲמֵ֥שׁ מֵא֖וֹת שָׁנָ֑ה וַיּ֣וֹלֶד נֹ֔חַ אֶת־שֵׁ֖ם אֶת־חָ֥ם וְאֶת־יָֽפֶת: 

ו  א וַֽיְהִי֙ כִּֽי־הֵחֵ֣ל הָֽאָדָ֔ם לָרֹ֖ב עַל־פְּנֵ֣י הָֽאֲדָמָ֑ה וּבָנ֖וֹת יֻלְּד֥וּ לָהֶֽם:

ב וַיִּרְא֤וּ בְנֵי־הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם כִּ֥י טֹבֹ֖ת הֵ֑נָּה וַיִּקְח֤וּ לָהֶם֙ נָשִׁ֔ים מִכֹּ֖ל אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּחָֽרוּ:

ג וַיֹּ֣אמֶר יְהֹוָ֗ה לֹֽא־יָד֨וֹן רוּחִ֤י בָֽאָדָם֙ לְעֹלָ֔ם בְּשַׁגָּ֖ם ה֣וּא בָשָׂ֑ר וְהָי֣וּ יָמָ֔יו מֵאָ֥ה וְעֶשְׂרִ֖ים שָׁנָֽה:

ד הַנְּפִלִ֞ים הָי֣וּ בָאָ֘רֶץ֘ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵם֒ וְגַ֣ם אַֽחֲרֵי־כֵ֗ן אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָבֹ֜אוּ בְּנֵ֤י הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶל־בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם וְיָֽלְד֖וּ לָהֶ֑ם הֵ֧מָּה הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר מֵֽעוֹלָ֖ם אַנְשֵׁ֥י הַשֵּֽׁם:

Noach must have been 500 years old; Noach sired Shem, Cham and Yefet.

It must have been the beginning of man increasing on the earth; that daughters were born to them.

The sons of lords looked at the daughters of men, because they were good; they took to them wives, of all whom they had chosen.

The Lord said My spirit won’t strive against man forever, in their erring, he is mortal; from now on his years will be 120.

The N’filim were on earth in those days -- and after that time -- when the sons of the lords went to the daughters of men, they bore to them -- those were the mightiest ever, famous men.

Here is why it reads differently from your father’s translation.

First, now you know about the va-y’hi…[narrative past] structure so you know that anything interrupting that is sort of a sidebar.

So the direct line goes from the va-y’hi clause to va-yiru, the narrative past that is the complement.

The yuldu of the daughters is our qual of the important consequences, which is that the b’ney elohim took brides from among them.

“Those among the lords” translates b’ney elohim.  Remember the b’ney brit of Avraham who joined him in following up the armies so as to get back Avraham’s nephew Lot. They were not biological sons of a covenant. They were partners in the covenant. Likewise b’ney ir means everybody who has a residence in a given city.

Second, these men were as mortal as Adam. I addressed that long ago. Torah never calls mortals “gods”, it calls them “lords”. Mosheh is told he will be a lord to Paro; Exodus 22:27 says “don’t curse a lord or a prince among your people.” Anybody who tells you b’ney elohim means sons of gods is committing a fallacy called sampling bias.

Verse 3 falls into two parts. The first part acknowledges human mortality; the second sets its limit at 120 years. What does that mean? Well, you know that the patriarchs lived longer than that (or you will when you read the rest of Torah). Let me suggest that the people whose lives are limited to 120 years are the ones who struggle against Gd, which the patriarchs did not, and hence they lived “to a good old age”.

Now, what are we going to do about the N’filim?  Well, in the interests of not committing sampling bias (again), look at Numbers 13, especially verses 22 and 33; Deuteronomy 2:11, 20-21; Deuteronomy 3:11, Deuteronomy 9:2, and Deuteronomy 14:33.

Numbers 13:33 says that ten of the Israelites in the reconnaissance team claimed they saw the N’filim there and felt like insects compared to them. This is an exaggeration as well as a personal perception, not a physical reality.

The urban legend then jumps to Numbers 13:22 which talks about Sheshai, Talmai, and Achiman, and Deuteronomy 1:28 which says that these three men were “sons of Anaq”, and the rest of the verses in Deuteronomy that call the Anaqim great and mighty. The urban legend assumes that “great” means they were giants. That isn’t true. It means that the kingdom of the Anaqim was famous and that they had the numbers and weapons to defend it, not necessarily that they were bigger than normal humans. Deuteronomy has a verb which has the same root as anaqim; it is used in context with giving animals and other goods to an eved when he has served out his exclusive services contract. Anaq means strength, not individual physical size.

Then the urban  legend jumps to verses in Deuteronomy about great and mighty nations, among whom are the R’faim, and to Deuteronomy 3:11 which says of Og king of Bashan, “last of the R’faim”, that his iron network “bed” was 9 cubits (13.5 feet) long. It assumes that a big bed means a giant man, and then they reason backwards that all the others were also giants.

The problem is that in old times a mitah, (bed), was often the only place in a house that could be used as a seat. Their houses had a floorspace about as big as one room in your house. Even those “shipping container” apartments that people live in now are bigger than a house in ancient times.

So everybody sat on the mitah at dinner time, kind of like in a Greek or Roman dining room. It had to be 9 feet long to have room for the king’s relatives. What’s more, when his council met, they sat on the mitah too. It was more like an Islamic diwan, the seat of justice, than the bed you sleep in. And the diwan gave its name to our “divan”, another word for sofa. Which is also derived from sofia, the seat of wisdom, the seat where judges sat to exercise their wisdom in a court case.

Urban legends, like gossip and fish stories, have a habit of exaggerating things. It gets more attention than the plain unvarnished truth.