Genesis 6:4
Now giants were upon the earth in those days. For after the sons of God went in to the daughters of men, and they brought forth children, these are the mighty men of old, men of renown.
The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Gigantes autem erant super terram in diebus illis : postquam enim ingressi sunt filii Dei ad filias hominum, illæque genuerunt, isti sunt potentes a sæculo viri famosi.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- οἱ δὲ γίγαντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἐν ⸂⸆⸃ ταῖς ἡμέραις ἐκείναις, καὶ μετ᾽ ἐκεῖνο ὡς ἂν εἰσεπορεύοντο οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ θεοῦ πρὸς τὰς θυγατέρας τῶν ἀνθρώπων, καὶ ἐγεννῶσαν ἑαυτοῖς· ἐκεῖνοι ἦσαν οἱ γίγαντες οἱ ἀπ᾽ αἰῶνος, οἱ ἄνθρωποι οἱ ὀνομαστοί.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- הַנְּפִלִ֞ים הָי֣וּ בָאָרֶץ֮ בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵם֒ וְגַ֣ם אַֽחֲרֵי כֵ֗ן אֲשֶׁ֨ר יָבֹ֜אוּ בְּנֵ֤י הָֽאֱלֹהִים֙ אֶל בְּנ֣וֹת הָֽאָדָ֔ם וְיָלְד֖וּ לָהֶ֑ם הֵ֧מָּה הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים אֲשֶׁ֥ר מֵעוֹלָ֖ם אַנְשֵׁ֥י הַשֵּֽׁם
Haydock's commentary
Giants. It is likely the generality of men before the flood were of a gigantic stature, in comparison with what men now are. But these here spoken of, are called giants, as being not only tall in stature, but violent and savage in their dispositions, and mere monsters of cruelty and lust. (Challoner)
Yet we need not imagine, that they were such as the poets describe, tearing up mountains, and hurling them against heaven. Being offspring of men, who had lived hitherto with great temperance, but now gave full scope to their passions, and the love of the fair daughters whom they chose, we need not wonder that they should be amazingly strong and violent. Nephilim, rushing on, as Ag.[Aquila?] translates. That there have been giants of an unusual size, all historians testify. Og, Goliah, &c. are mentioned in Scripture, and the sons of Enac are represented as much above the common size, as the Hebrews were greater than grasshoppers, Numbers xiii. 34. If we should suppose they were four or five times our size, would that be more wonderful than that they should live nine or ten times as long as we do? See St. Augustine, City of God xv. 9, 23; Calmet's Dissert. &c. Delrio affirms, that in 1572 he saw at Rouen, a native of Piedmont, above nine feet high. (Haydock)
Of old. The corruption of morals had commenced many ages ago, and some of the sons of Seth had given way to their lusts; so that we are not to suppose, that these giants were all born within a hundred years of the flood, as some might suppose from their being mentioned here, after specifying the age of Noe, chap. v. 31. (Haydock)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
How then can we banish it? Whatever things we say from Scripture, you will say, are for the purpose of threatening. But with respect to future things this indeed might be said, but not so concerning things that have happened, and have had an end. You have heard of the deluge. And were those things also said by way of threat? Did they not actually happen? Those men too said many such things, and for a hundred years while the ark was building, and the wood was being wrought, and the righteous man was calling aloud, there was no one who believed. But because they did not believe the threat in words, they suffered the punishment in very deed. And this will be our fate too, if we shall not have believed. On this account it is that He compares His coming with the days of Noah, because as some disbelieved in that deluge, so will they in the deluge of hell. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Paul, an Old Man of Concordia
1. The shortness of man’s life is the punishment for man’s sin; and the fact that even on the very threshold of the light death constantly overtakes the new-born child proves that the times are continually sinking into deeper depravity. For when the first tiller of paradise had been entangled by the serpent in his snaky coils, and had been forced in consequence to migrate earthwards, although his deathless state was changed for a mortal one, yet the sentence of man’s curse was put off for nine hundred years, or even more, a period so long that it may be called a second immortality. Afterwards sin gradually grew more and more virulent, till the ungodliness of the giants brought in its train the shipwreck of the whole world. Then when the world had been cleansed by the baptism, if I may so call it, of the deluge, human life was contracted to a short span. …