The Watchers

Who Were the Watchers in the Bible? The Watchers were angels. The Bible uses the word only in Daniel 4, and the Book of Enoch uses it as the name of a whole class of heavenly beings. Some Watchers kept their posts. The ones this post follows left heaven, took human wives, and fathered the Nephilim. The Oldest Text to Use the Name The oldest surviving text to use Watcher as a name is the Book of Enoch. Its first major section is titled the Book of Watchers, so the word heads the whole account. Enoch writes that his works were “with the watchers and with the holy ones” (1 Enoch 12:2). Later in the same book, Enoch is sent to the fallen Watchers, angels who left their assigned place in heaven and took up residence among men. Enoch names a specific category of being. These beings are distinct from humanity and distinct from the angels who stayed at their post. The name describes what they were doing. They were watching. The text does not say whether watching was their task before they rebelled. It does show that something that began as observation ended in transgression, and the name stayed with them. Daniel’s Watcher Daniel records Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a great tree. In it, “a watcher and an holy one came down from heaven” (Daniel 4:13, KJV). Daniel uses the term again in verse 17. He never defines it. The word appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, and Daniel treats it as a term his readers already knew. That tells you the word was in circulation before Daniel wrote. Enoch supplies that circulation. Whether Daniel had a written copy of Enoch or inherited the same oral tradition, the result is the same. By Daniel’s time, watcher was a recognized category of heavenly being. Not Every Watcher Fell Daniel’s watcher descends from heaven, delivers judgment, and returns. Nothing in the passage suggests rebellion. Daniel calls him holy in the same breath. The word names a class of being. It does not mean fallen angel. Scripture and the tradition around it recognize Watchers who stayed at their post and Watchers who did not. Three Names for One Group Genesis 6 does not use the word Watcher. It says “sons of God,” bene ha’Elohim. Jude says angels who “kept not their first estate.” Enoch says Watchers. The Watchers Fallen treats these as three vocabularies for the same beings. Enoch ties them directly to their offspring: “And now the giants, who have been begotten from body and flesh, will be called evil spirits on earth, and their dwelling-places will be upon the earth. Evil spirits proceed from their bodies; because they are created from above, their beginning and first basis being from the holy watchers.” (1 Enoch 15:8-9) The structure is consistent across the texts. A class of heavenly beings descends. Some of them cross a boundary. The crossing produces hybrid offspring, and the offspring leave consequences that outlast the Flood. Keep Reading Read the story: The Watchers’ War, Book One of the Watchers’ Series, follows pilot Caleb Lee and Dr. Elena Vasquez as the non-human intelligences behind the cover-up come into the open. Go deeper: The Watchers Fallen: They Were Not Supposed to Walk Among Us, by CK Quarterman. Keywords: who were the Watchers in the Bible, Watchers, Book of Enoch, Daniel 4, fallen angels, sons of God, Nephilim, Genesis 6