Cult of Divine Kings
The account of the bene
ha'elohim, "the sons of the gods," in Genesis 6:1ff. completes
the portrait of the dynasty of Cain begun in Genesis 4. A phrase that brings
out the connection of the two passages is "(from) upon the face of the
earth" found in both 4:14 and 6:1,7. The phrase is indicative of their
common concern with broad developments in human history. It is the story of the
city of man in general that is resumed in Genesis 6 in order to trace it to its
catastrophic conclusion in the deluge judgment.
This relationship between Genesis
4 and 6 is decisively proven by their common content. That Genesis 6 is once
more concerned with the theme of human kingship gone awry is independently
demonstrable. Our argument will not be circular, therefore, if we already make
use of the royal identity of "the sons of the gods" as we proceed to
describe the thematic unity of Genesis 4 and 6, even though this thematic
continuity is in turn being appealed to as constituting a powerful confirmation
of our interpretation of "the sons of the gods" as kings.
It is then to be observed that
Genesis 6 treats again of those same aspects of the royal court that are
mentioned in the Genesis 4 record of Lamech's reign: the royal marriages and
children, and the exploits for which the royal family and rule were famous.
Furthermore, it is precisely the sins of Lamech's court noted in Genesis 4 that
characterize the court and reign of "the sons of the gods" in Genesis
6. There is in both instances the same abuse of the divine ordinances of common
grace. In Genesis 6, the perversion of the ordinance of monogamous marriage
assumes the form of the royal harem: multiplying wives, these kings took
"all that they chose" (6:2). Again, in Genesis 6, the office for the
administration of justice is exploited as a tool for the acquisition of power
and the royal rule becomes a reign of terror as these mighty dynasts fill the
earth with violence (6:4,13). Most significantly, once again in Genesis 6 the
ultimate offense of the evil monarchs is a Lamech-like blasphemous boast of
deity. Whether Lamech was himself one of the deity-claimers of Genesis 6,
perhaps the most infamous of them all, or whether Genesis 6 describes in
summary fashion a further, final stage in development of the spirit of Lamech's
kingship, Genesis 4 and 6 are clearly of one piece. Their common theme is the
history of the city of man founded by Cain.
What is singled out in Genesis 6:1ff.
as the final, intolerable affront of human kingship against the Lord of heaven
is, as we have noted, the claim to deity made by the earthly rulers. This
astonishing claim came to expression in the titulature by which these mortal
kings named themselves, the divine self-designation, which the biblical author
then took over from their own blasphemous mouths to denote them: "the sons
of the gods." The final words of Genesis 6:1-4 underscore the fact that
the main target of the indictment of mankind in this passage is their lust for
a name, which had culminated in the assumption of the name of "gods"
by the royal house of the city of man. For the account concludes with a
reference to the members of the royal court as "the men of the name"
(v.4, literally). The ideology of divine kingship thus focused upon in Genesis
6 was widespread in the ancient world. According to traditions attested in
dynastic lists, divine figures were numbered among the rulers of the
city-kingdoms in the prediluvian world. Moreover, in the extra-biblical texts,
as in Genesis, kingship featuring "divine" figures served as a bridging
theme between creation and flood. (Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue:
Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and
Stock, 2006], 185-86)
In addition to the positive
evidence presented here for our interpretation of Genesis 6:1 ff., brief note
may be made of weaknesses in alternative views. Contradicting the
identification of the bene ha'elohim as nonterrestrial beings, whether
divine or demonic, is the exclusive attention paid to man, and to him as a
creature of flesh, in God's verdict on their sin (v. 3). For the traditional
view that the bene ha'elohim are Sethite men who sin by marrying ungodly
Cainite women, one difficulty is that the daughters of men in verses 1 and 2
are clearly women in general. A more serious problem is the inability of this
view to explain why the offspring of such religiously mixed marriages would be nephilim-gibborim
(v. 4), evidently characterized by physical might and military-political
dominance. For example, Nimrod, king of Babylon, belonged to the category of gibborim
(Gen 10:8-10). While problematic for the traditional view, these mighty princes
of Genesis 6:4 confirm our interpretation of their fathers, the bene
ha'elohim, as kings. (Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations
for a Covenantal Worldview [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2006], 186)
God's condemnation of "the
sons of the gods" mocked their claim to deity by confronting them with
their humanity in all its fallen propensities and its debilitation. With a
touch of ridicule, the contrast of the balancing phrases "the sons of the
gods" and "the daughters of men" sets over against each other
the kings' claim to be gods and their very human carnal desire for human women.
And the Lord's verdict directly contradicts their pretensions to divinity by
describing them as "man" in all the frailty of his nature as
"flesh" (v.3). In the context, in the sequel of judgment which this
divine verdict declared should overtake mankind at the end of 120 years (v.3b),
the term "flesh" is used repeatedly for mankind and in such a way as
to emphasize man's animal-like mortality. Man, in seeking to participate in the
status of immortal deity, succeeded only in getting reduced to the fate of the
mortal beasts (cf., e.g.,Gen 6:12,13,17,19). This striking motif of God's
mockery of the divine aspirations of human kings by the deflating reminder of
their mortality is found again elsewhere in the Bible as prophetic judgment
encounters the recurring phenomenon of the divine kingship ideology. Isaiah
tells the avowed heaven-scaling king of Babylon, who thought to make himself
like the Most High, that the depths of Sheol await him with derisive greetings
(Isa 14, especially w . 9 ff.). And the word of the Lord through Ezekiel meets
the assertion of the king of Tyre that he is a god with the prediction that his
boast of deity will be silenced in the face of death at the hands of violent
assailants (Ezek 28, especially v.9). It is characteristically in connection
with human kings that we find in Scripture this motif of God's derision of
self-deification by mortals, and this is then yet another confirmation of the
interpretation of "the sons of the gods" in Genesis 6 in terms of such
royal pretenders to deity among the rulers of the city of man. (Meredith G.
Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview [Eugene,
Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2006], 187-88)
