Bible Study With Jairus - Numbers 13

Overcoming evil through faith.

Many Christians are familiar with the story of the twelve spies who explored the land of Canaan, the promised land that God had promised to give to the Israelites. Numbers 12 explains that ten of the spies gave a bad report. Caleb and Joshua, the last two spies, believed they could overcome their enemies and take the land. God was pleased with Caleb and Joshua. Forty years later, when the people of Israel finally entered the Promised Land, these two were the only spies that were allowed to inherit the land. The other ten evil spies died in the wilderness because of unbelief.

Numbers 13, however, introduces some themes that we don’t often hear about in church. For example, Numbers 13:33 gives a cryptic reference to some lesser known people, the Nephilim. This verse clearly states that the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim. Genesis 6:4 introduces us to the Nephilim: "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God come in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown." ESV

Christians disagree about the identity of the “sons of God" in this passage. Some believe they were evil spirits, that is, fallen angels. When they married the daughters of man, they gave birth to "Nephilim.” "Nephilim" means "giants" in the original text.

According to this interpretation, these people were a combination of evil spirits and man’s flesh. They precipitated the worldwide flood of Genesis 6 that wiped out all human beings except Noah's family. We know that Noah is a descendant of Adam, not the "Nephilim.” So shouldn’t all the "Nephilim" have been wiped out by the flood? How were there still "Nephilim" surviving in the Promised Land?

Some people say that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6:4 is a reference to the son of "Seth". We have no way of knowing this. Even if this interpretation were correct, these so-called "Nephilim" should have all been wiped out in the flood. All human beings should be the descendants of Noah. Therefore, it seems logically impossible for the "Nephilim" in the Promised Land to be the descendants of the "Nephilim" in Genesis 6.

Did the evil spirits unite with humans to produce giants a second time? We have no way of knowing this, either. If so, it provides an extreme example of what evil spirits can do to humans. We do know that evil spirits can indeed control and possess people. The story of the Lord Jesus casting out demons, as well as countless stories about casting out demons in modern churches, tell us that evil spirits can indeed possess people. No matter how the "Nephilim" came into being here, they were obviously possessed by or united with evil spirits.
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