Watchers, Nephilim, and other Bizarre Bible Stuff

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: people who think the Bible is boring have never read the Bible. 

Yeah, I know there are those pesky laws and chronologies. But then there’s other stuff like giants and behemoths, dragons and sea monsters, huge angelic beings covered in wings and eyes, secret gardens, talking donkeys (not to mention snakes), nine hundred-year-old people, rivers turning to blood, demons infecting humans, angels everywhere… it’s like Stephen King meets Lord of the Rings. 

Growing up Catholic, I never knew any of this. For most Christians, the only supernatural beings in the Bible are God, Satan, Jesus (some of the time), and a few angels. Pastors tend to skip over passages like this one:

'When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. ' Genesis 6:1-4

No wonder pastors skip this one. I mean, what on earth (or not on earth) is going on here?

My own journey into the supernatural world of the Bible started when my kids were becoming obsessed with movies about witches, vampires, zombies, demigods, etc. The popularity of these stories told me there was a genuine interest in the supernatural among this age group. I also noticed that God—the author of the Supernatural—was missing from all of them. God has been written out of his own story.

The FORLORN series is my attempt to tell a story based upon the real supernatural world, the one created by God. Yes, it’s fiction, so I took liberties, but I tried to keep the supernatural aspects as accurate as possible.

Here is a brief look at the main supernatural creatures that populate my books.

WATCHERS – This is a term for a specific type of divine being. There are many types of divine beings in the Bible, including angels (messengers), seraphim, cherubim (throne guardians), and the members of the divine council or elohim (see Psalm 82). 

The term “Watcher” appears only in the Book of Daniel in the Bible but is used extensively in the Book of Enoch, a non-canonical book found among the Dead Sea Scrolls and quoted by both Peter and Jude.

Genesis 6 refers to these beings as “sons of God.” In an attempt to explain away the idea that angels could take human women as wives, some commentators have tried to say that these sons of God were not divine beings at all but merely sons of Seth, the “good” son of Adam and Eve. But “sons of God” is often used in the Old Testament to refer to divine beings or angels, so this explanation doesn’t hold water. 

According to Enoch, God punished the Watchers for their transgression with eternal imprisonment in the Abyss, a place of darkness and fire deep in the earth. 

How did angels actually mate with humans? I have no idea. But let’s not forget that the Holy Spirit produced Jesus in Mary’s womb. We also know that angels show up in human form quite often in the Bible—most people don’t even know they are angels at all. They can do many human things like eating and talking, so why not other human functions? Just saying.

The Watcher who figures most prominently in my books, Azazel, was one of the rebellion’s leaders. Azazel was known for his knowledge of weaponry and iron-crafting, which he passed on to the humans. There’s also a curious story about him in Leviticus.

'“Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. Then he shall take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and use it as a sin offering, but the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. ' Leviticus 16:6-10

I don’t know if this Azazel and the Azazel of the Watchers are one and the same. In any case, Azazel became associated with goats and probably morphed somewhere along the line to the Baphomet of pagan fame. 

GUARDIAN ANGELS - Guardian angels are not explicitly mentioned in the Bible. However, they are alluded to, like when Peter came knocking on Mark’s door, and everyone in the house thought it must be “his angel.” The term angel means “messenger,” but they are also called “ministering spirits.” And Jesus himself indicates that children, at least, have specific angels assigned to them, as Ariel is assigned to Grace in my books: 

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.” Matthew 18:10

NEPHILIM – The Nephilim are the result of the Watchers mating with humans. Nephilim means “giant,” so we assume they were giant beings, half-human, half-angel.  

The Nephilim seemed to have started well, as “mighty men,” or heroes, what we would think of today as superheroes. But they went bad. Really bad. Genesis 6 does not give much detail, but more detail is provided in Enoch, which suggests that the corruption of the Nephilim of the whole world led to the Great Flood. Unfortunately, the Flood didn’t wipe them out entirely because they were still around, or at least their descendants, the Rephaim, during the conquest. These giants scared the Israelites so badly they refused to go into the Promised Land. (Numbers 13:33).  King Og of Bashan, conquered by Moses, is perhaps the most famous of the Rephaim—the Bible even mentions the size of his bed.

The giants were not dispelled from the land until Joshua and Caleb finally drove them out. (Joshua 15:14)  Several tribes of giants are named in the Bible, including the Zuzim, the Zamzummin, the Emim, the Ammonites, and the Anakim, of which Goliath is probably a descendent. 

Why weren’t the Nephilim wiped out in the Flood? Good question! Scholars have different theories. Read BEFORE: Jared’s Story if you want to know my thoughts on the subject and how I make a case for my character Jared being of the line of Nephilim. 

If you are interested in learning more about the supernatural world of the Bible, I would recommend The Unseen Realm by Michael Heiser. He has a shorter version of that book called Supernatural. 

And don’t forget to read the whole Forlorn series before the fourth installment, Forbidden, comes out in March 2022! 

Gina Detwiler is the author of the YA Supernatural series Forlorn and the co-author of the middle-grade fantasy series The Prince Warriors with Priscilla Shirer. She’s also written The Ultimate Bible Character Guide for LifeWay.