Second Incursion

The Second Incursion is the return of fallen angels to earth after the Flood. It explains why Nephilim and their descendants appear in Canaan centuries after the Flood destroyed the first generation. Four points carry the case.

First, Genesis 6:4 says the Nephilim were on the earth “in those days; and also after that.” The Hebrew is wegam acharei ken, “and also afterward.” The same verse says that “when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men,” and the Hebrew verb there is in a form that can describe repeated action. The text itself allows for more than one occasion of contact.

Second, Numbers 13:33 places Nephilim descendants in Canaan. The spies report, “we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants.” The Anakim are tied to the Rephaim, who are tied to the giant clans that Israel met in the land (Deuteronomy 2:10-11, 20-21; Joshua 11:21-22). Og of Bashan is called the last of the Rephaim, and his bed was nine cubits long (Deuteronomy 3:11). Goliath of Gath and his kin come from the same region, where the Anakim remained after Joshua’s campaigns (1 Samuel 17:4; 2 Samuel 21:15-22; Joshua 11:22). Some interpreters treat the spies’ words as exaggeration, since Numbers 13:32 calls their report evil. The Anakim, Rephaim, and Og show that Scripture treats these peoples as real.

Third, the Nephilim did not come through the ark. Noah was tamim in his generations, and his line was unmixed (Genesis 6:9). Eight people entered the ark, and the LORD shut the door (Genesis 7:7, 13, 16). The Flood ended the first generation of the Nephilim. Any Nephilim after the Flood must have a new source.

Fourth, Jude 6 describes an original group of angels kept “in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.” Those angels are bound. Their binding leaves room for other angels to repeat the same sin. Nothing in Jude 6 or 2 Peter 2:4 says every fallen angel was imprisoned.

The second contact begins at Shinar. Genesis 10:8-10 says Nimrod “began to be a mighty one in the earth” and that the beginning of his kingdom was Babel in the land of Shinar. The Hebrew word for “mighty one” is gibbor, the singular of the word for the “mighty men” (gibborim) of Genesis 6:4. In Genesis 11:2-4 the people settle in the plain of Shinar and build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, to make themselves a name. Mesopotamian builders called Babylon Bab-ilim, “gate of the gods,” and named its great ziggurat Etemenanki, “House of the Foundation of Heaven and Earth.” A tower meant to reach heaven fits a site where heaven was being invited down.

The pattern has three stages. The first stage is contact through conversation. The second stage is unions between the angels and human women. The third stage is Nephilim children. Genesis 6:2-4 shows the same order in the first incursion: the sons of God saw, they took wives, and the Nephilim were born. The second incursion repeats it.

## My View

I believe a second group of fallen angels came to earth after the Flood. I believe their contact began at Shinar, in the region of Babel. I believe the Watchers who came down on Mount Hermon remain bound, and that these were other angels. I believe the Nephilim and the Anakim in Canaan descend from their unions with human women.