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LXX Genesis

Septuagint

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Chapter 6

1 And it happened when men began to be numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the [angels] of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose.⁠ 3 And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh,⁠ but their days shall be one hundred and twenty years. 4 Now the giants were upon the earth in those days;⁠ and after that when the sons of God used to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them,⁠ those were the giants of old, the men of renown. 5 And the Lord God, having seen that the wicked actions of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was intently brooding over evil continually, 6 then God laid it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and he pondered it deeply.⁠ 7 And God said, I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth, even man with cattle, and reptiles with flying creatures of the sky, for I am angry that I have made them.⁠ 8 But Noah found grace before the Lord God. 9 And these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man; being perfect in his generation, Noah was well-pleasing to God. 10 And Noah fathered three sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth. 11 But the earth was corrupted before God, and the earth was filled with iniquity. 12 And the Lord God saw the earth, and it was corrupted; because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. 13 And God said to Noah, A period of all men has come before me; because the earth has been filled with iniquity by them, and, look, I destroy them and the earth. 14 Make therefore for yourself an ark of square timber; you shall make the ark in compartments, and you shall pitch it within and without with pitch. 15 And thus you will make the ark; three hundred cubits the length of the ark, and fifty cubits the breadth, and thirty cubits the height of it. 16 You shall narrow the ark in making it, and in a cubit above you shall finish it, and the door of the ark you shall make on the side; with lower, second, and third stories you shall make it. 17 And look, I bring a flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven, and whatever things are upon the earth shall die. 18 And I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall enter into the ark, and your sons and your wife, and your sons' wives with you. 19 And of all cattle and of all reptiles and of all wild beasts, even of all flesh, you shall bring by pairs of all, into the ark, that you may feed them with yourself: male and female they shall be. 20 Of all winged birds after their kind, and of all cattle after their kind, and of all reptiles creeping upon the earth after their kind, pairs of all shall come in to you, male and female to be fed with you. 21 And you shall take to yourself of all kinds of food which you eat, and you shall gather them to yourself, and it shall be for you and them to eat. 22 And Noah did all things whatever the Lord God commanded him, so he did.

Texts in conversation

Compare LXX Genesis 6:2 and Jubilees 5:1

Septuagint · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

The Greek Septuagint translation of Genesis 6 follows an interpretation found in 1 Enoch and Jubilees that identifies the “sons of God” as divine beings, with the Septuagint calling them angels. This contrasts with later views that saw them as human.

Passages

LXX Genesis 6:2

Septuagint
1 And it happened when men began to be numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the [angels] of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose. 3 And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.
300–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in LXX Genesis

Jubilees 5:1

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 And when the human beings began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, the angels of God saw them in a certain year of this jubilee, that they were beautiful to look at; and they married whichever women they chose, and they bore them sons and they were giants. 2 And lawlessness increased on the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, alike men and cattle and wild animals and birds and everything that walks on the earth — all of them corrupted their ways and their proper order, and they began to devour each other, and lawlessness increased on the earth and everything all people imagined and thought (was) thus evil continually.
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

References

"... In common with other Second Temple sources, (Some of the details in Jubilees 5 are strikingly reminiscent of the flood account in 1 Enoch 10-11) Jubilees assumes that the proximate cause of the flood was the mating of the “sons of God” with the daughters of men in Genesis 6:1-4. These “sons of God” are, for Jubilees and other interpreters, the angels of the Lord. The offspring born of their union with humans were giants. The identification of these offspring, who are referred to as Nephilim in Genesis 6:4, as “giants” derives from an entirely separate biblical passage, Numbers 13:32-33, wherein some beings “of great stature” are also called Nephilim. Putting these two passages together, ancient interpreters understood the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 likewise to be of great stature, the giants who resulted from the mating of angels with humans ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 52.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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  • Why did the New English translation of the Septuagint change it back to “sons of god” instead of “angels of god”?

    zachary wilde, August 17, 2025

LXX Genesis 6:2 and Jubilees 5:1

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