Noah, the Ark and the Nephilim

An ice-breaker parlour game we played at a party a good few years ago was a variant of Twenty Questions. We all had a strip of paper sellotaped to our forehead, which everybody else could read. On it was a person’s name which we had to guess by asking our randomly allocated partner twenty questions. And, as it was a church do, we were all given names of Biblical characters.

An essential skill required for this game is co-operation between partners because the allocated names have to be familiar to both and, whilst I forget who I was supposed to be, the game is etched on my mind because my partner was a minister - in fact a missionary - of whom I had high expectations as the game began, something like this:

Q: Am I a man or a woman?

A: A man.

Q: An old man or a young man?

A: A young man.

Q: Am I in the Old Testament or the New Testament?

A: Old Testament.

Q: Before of after Psalms?

A: Before…

And so we continued, until all twenty questions were exhausted, when my friend ultimately admitted, “No! I’ve no idea”.

“Your name is Mephibosheth”, I announced.

I was a little disappointed because while there are certainly plenty of obscure names of little known characters in the Bible, Mephibosheth isn’t one of them. The lamed son of David’s belovè d friend Jonathan is mentioned some 15 times in 2 Samuel, and his story is well worthy of study. Had I my friend been a child or a new believer I would not even have expected Mephibosheth to feature in such a game, but as I say, he was a minister from whom I expected more - which is why Paul admonished his leaders in 1 Timothy 5:22a,

Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands…

And, of novices, he spoke in 1 Timothy 3:6,

He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil.

In other words: Do not ordain to ministry one who is young or unlearnèd in the faith. That doesn’t mean they cannot do anything or be given appropriate responsibility, but that they should be closely supervised as young disciples - irrespective of age.

But it wasn’t my friend’s failure to identify Mephibosheth that really disappointed me, but how he explained his failure. In fact, I’ll be honest when I say what he said next shocked me and even evoked some anger, as he uttered words that have stuck in my mind ever since:

“That’s not fair. I don’t do Bible Trivia.”

Bible Trivia - What’s that? Maybe you’ve never thought about it before, but God didn’t just fling the Bible together to fill up space, because in Matthew 12:36 Jesus says:

But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

Nor is my God a God of double standards, so it follows that he has not populated his own Scriptures with any idle words. One of the remarkable things about the Bible is how detailed so much of it is, and how much those small details so often matter. This is a principle we also see mentioned in Isaiah 28:9-10,

"To whom will he teach knowledge, and to whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, those taken from the breast?

 

For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little."

This is actually Isaiah being somewhat snide and scathing, and his derision is even more apparent in the original Hebrew where, ‘precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little’, is rendered in the form of monosyllabic babyish repetition:

Tsav latsav, Tsav latsav

Kav lakav, Kav lakav

Ze’eyr sham, ze’eyr sham.

The idea is that truth is delivered simply and repetitively throughout Scripture, although it is also widely distributed. We might paraphrase Isaiah by asking - ‘How simple does God have to make it for you?’

As I continually tell people - ‘God doesn’t hide things from us, he hides them for us’. Or, as Hebrews 11:6b puts it:

… for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

‘Diligently seek’ is a single verb in Greek - exzétousin - that can be comfortably rendered as ‘crave’, because God doesn’t do superficial, nor does he relate well to those who do. It’s not about egotism but about relationship, because God wants us to delight as much in him as he delights in us. That’s one reason why Jesus said in Luke 18:17,

Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.

This is not an admonition to be childish, but to be child-like. Or had you never noticed in the Bible how playful Jesus could be? You see, we look at our world through a fallen prism and equate being old with being aged. So, we tend to envisage God as being very, very old indeed, whereas he is simultaneously infinitely mature and eternally young.

You might like to think of Jesus as being thirty-three forever. And it was Jesus who told Philip in John 14:9:

Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?

Isaiah’s point was that the Bible is multi-dimensional and God’s truth is often distributed through it in bite-sized segments that are best understood when they are properly pieced together. It’s God’s way of hiding the truth in plain sight, just as Jesus would employ parables to conceal the truth from the casual dilettante.

Another quality of the Bible is its uncanny symmetry, which gradually emerges as it is diligently studied. The Bible begins with God and ends with God. Mankind’s history begins in a garden and ends in a garden. We find the tree of life in both Genesis and Revelation, and so on. The central event, on which all Scripture hangs, however, is the Cross - from which we derive the words crux and crucial. There’s even a saying concerning Jesus’ centrality to both the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible:

Christ is in the Old concealed,

And the New is but the Old revealed.

The job of a teacher is not merely to relay facts but to impart knowledge, and this is best achieved not just by teaching people how to learn, but how to think. Unfortunately, the approach that many unlearnèd individuals have towards the Bible is simply to pick it up, read a bit, decide they don’t understand it, and put it away again. That may sound like laziness, but before we blame them, consider that God does not hold them principally responsible, but blames a Church that has not provided the teachers necessary to disciple them. Or as Paul wrote in Romans 10:13-15,

For everyone, "whoever shall call on the name of the Lord will be saved." How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without preaching? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things!"

The Bible is not hard to understand but it does need to be taught - and then by someone who is attuned to God. When that happens, all heaven breaks loose and blind eyes are opened to possibilities never before imagined.

What you are about to read may astonish many who have never been taught it before, but I am always careful to corroborate what I say with scripture so that readers may check it out for themselves. Even those who consider themselves fairly conversant with the Bible may be surprised by the way that I link familiar scriptures in an unfamiliar way. But again, don’t sweat it, just check it -

Precept upon precept, precept upon precept

Line upon line, line upon line

Here a little, there a little.

In John 5:46-47, Jesus said:

For if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how shall you believe my words?

Yet, a surprisingly large number of people who call themselves Christians and trust in Jesus for their eternal salvation, choose to disregard this starkly unambiguous admonition.

Adam and Eve are metaphors; the Garden of Eden is a morality tale; Satan is a fiction, and the Flood never happened - or so they tell us.

But that is not what Jesus believed, nor what the apostles understood either.

Here is what Jesus said regarding Adam and Eve:

And he answered and said to them, “Have you not read that he who made them at the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause a man shall leave father and mother and shall cling to his wife, and the two of them shall be one flesh? Therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.” (Matthew 19:4-6)

Jesus does not question whether man was created, and even goes so far as to quote Adam.

And here is what he had to say about Jonah:

Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, “Master, we want to see a sign from you.”

 

But he answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign. And there shall be no sign given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the huge fish, so the Son of Man shall be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it, because they repented at the proclaiming of Jonah, and behold, One greater than Jonah is here.” (Matthew 12:38)

Again, Jesus does not argue whether Jonah was swallowed by a great fish - he draws comparison between that event and his own death, burial and resurrection.

And this was Jesus take on Noah and the Great Flood:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.

 

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

 

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

 

Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left.

 

Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:35-42)

And once again, Jesus does more than imply that the Flood happened, he likens it to his return at the End of the Age. Which context, incidentally, contradicts the Rapturology often associated with verses 40 and 41, because the way Jesus links them to the Flood makes clear that those who are ‘taken’ at his coming are an antitype or parallel of those swept away in the Flood. Far from being raptured, they are destroyed.

 

And what did the apostles think about it? The Bible does not leave us guessing. Rather, we need look no further than 2 Peter 2:1-6.

But false prophets were also among the people, as also false teachers will be among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, and denying the Master who has bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. And many will follow their destructive ways, by whom the way of truth will be evil spoken of. And by covetousness, with well-turned words, they will use you for gain, for whom judgment of old does not linger, and their destruction does not slumber.

 

For if God did not spare sinning angels, but delivered them to chains of darkness, thrust down into Tartarus, having been kept to judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah the eighth, a herald of righteousness, bringing a flood on a world of ungodly ones; and covering the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with ashes, he condemned them with an overthrow, setting an example to men intending to live ungodly.

And Peter re-visit’s the Flood in his next epistle, in 2 Peter 3:3-6.

First, knowing this, that there will come in the last days scoffers walking according to their own lusts and saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.”

 

For this is hidden from them by their willing it, that the heavens were of old, and the earth out of the water, and through water, being held together by the Word of God, through which the world that then was, being flooded by water, perished.

So, let’s just summarise all that:

In John 5:46-47, Jesus said that if we don‘t believe in the historicity of Genesis we won‘t believe the Gospel, while in 2 Peter 2:1-6 and 3:3-6, the apostle calls those who dismiss the Biblical Flood as false prophets, false teachers, heretics and scoffers.

I think we get the idea.

So, the idea that the Flood is a metaphor and Noah a myth is not a New Testament view. Indeed, it is contrary to Jesus’ own word on the matter. And that’s fine, if you’re a non-believer. There are nearly seven billion souls in this world, nearly five billion of whom either know nothing of the Bible or else think it’s a load of old rubbish. Fair comment. And my advice to the scoffers is - ‘Die and find out.’

But, among the two billion or so who call themselves Christians, there are many who remain sceptical of large portions of the Bible. To them I say, ‘On what ground does your faith stand?’ So, before they criticise my teaching, I would say: ‘Don’t hide behind me to call God a liar! - Go and tell him yourself, face to face.’

So, we have the full support of the New Testament - including the words of Jesus Christ - that Noah existed and the Biblical Flood happened , which takes us firmly back to Genesis Chapter 6. But who are these Nephilim? And what, if anything, do they have to do with us today?

We have already seen one answer to the second of those questions is given by Jesus himself who, in Matthew 24:37-39, said:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

A casual glance at that passage makes it sound as if Jesus was merely commenting on how mundane everyone's lives would be right up to the time of his return. And there is an aspect of that in what he said. But remember what I mentioned earlier about idle words and line upon line and precept upon precept?

There is more to Jesus’ words than just a passing reference to the mundane, because Jesus never said anything that he didn’t hear from the Father first (John 14:24), and he always chose his words most carefully. Notice that Jesus said: ‘ For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…’ Had you ever wondered why?

Because in Genesis 6:1-9 we read:

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. And it happened, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and when daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were good. And they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose.

 

And Yahweh said, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, in his erring; he is flesh. Yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.”

 

There were nephilim in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore to them, they were mighty men who existed of old, men of renown.

 

And Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

 

And Yahweh repented that he had made man on the earth, and he was angry to his heart.

 

And Yahweh said, “I will destroy man whom I have created, from the face of the earth, both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air. For I repent that I have made them.”

 

But Noah found grace in the eyes of Yahweh.

 

These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God.

This is a section of scripture that is often skirted over as quickly as possible ‘to get to the good bits’ and because many simply don’t like what it seems to imply - that fallen angels slept with human women…or, as verse 2 puts it ‘…they took wives for themselves from all whom they chose.’

Whoa-Whoa-Whoa! - Angles can’t have sex with people.

Who says so?

Well, didn‘t Jesus say just that, in Matthew 22:29-30?

Jesus answered and said to them, You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

Notice two things here: Jesus is alluding to people after the resurrection, and the angels of God in heaven, neither of which criteria fit’s the context of Genesis 6.

‘Sons of God’ is an Old Testament idiom that is sometimes applied to angels, but here it refers to fallen angels or demons - and not ‘the angels of God in heaven’. These are not holy angels, but unholy angels and thoroughly disobedient. To say that such angels could not have sex with human beings is like saying that men cannot rob banks. Why not? - Because it’s illegal? Since when did something being illegal make it impossible? - Or did you suppose that our prisons are populated with people who put their shoes on the wrong way?

But how can we say that they were fallen angels? - Because their offspring are called Nephilim, which means Fallen or Ruined Ones. And that’s why God mentions in verse 9 that ‘Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations.’

That Hebrew word ‘perfect’ is ‘tamiym’ which refers to much more than just moral integrity. It also speaks of physical purity and generational soundness. So, the implication is that among all the human beings on planet earth in those days, Noah and Noah’s line alone remained untainted by Nephilim infiltration of their bloodline. Which explains why Noah alone ‘found grace in the eyes of Yahweh’ - he and his family were all that was left of uninfected humanity.

God did not send the Flood to wipe out mankind, but an abominable race of hybrids and their compromised human hosts.

That killed all the Nephilim, didn't it?

Wrong. It destroyed all flesh which had the breath of life in it. Every mortal air-breathing creature was thoroughly wiped out by a flood that covered the earth for over a year. The problem is that the Nephilim were a breed of creatures spawned from evil spirits. And what happened to them? - We read the answer already, in 2 Peter 2:4,

For if God did not spare sinning angels, but thrust them down into Tartarus, and delivered them into chains of darkness, being reserved to judgment.

This is the only mention of Tartarus in the whole Bible, and refers to place of dreadful spiritual darkness - Hades’ High Security Wing if you will - in which the fallen angels who had sexual relations with human women before the Flood remain in chains to this day.

So, that was the end of the Nephilim, then?

Would it were that simple, but it isn’t. Check back to a disturbing little clause in Genesis 6:4...

‘There were Nephilim in the earth in those days. And also after that…’

Somehow the Nephilim survived the Flood. But how? Because the Flood only destroyed mortal flesh and the Nephilim were spirit offspring, something about which Jesus tells us quite a bit and quite clearly in the New Testament.

And when he had come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, two demon-possessed ones met him, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one might pass by that way. And behold, they cried out, saying, “What have we to do with you, Jesus, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?”

 

And there was a good way off from them a herd of many swine, feeding. And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, allow us to go away into the herd of swine.”

 

And he said to them, “Go!” And when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea and perished in the waters. (Matthew 8:28-32)

When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none. Then he said, ‘I will return into my house from where I came out.’ And when he has come, he finds it empty, swept, and decorated. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and live there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so it also shall be to this evil generation. (Matthew 12:43-45)

And a certain man was there, who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying, and knowing that he had spent much time, he said to him, “Do you desire to be made whole?”

 

The infirm man answered him, “Sir, when the water is troubled, I have no one to put me into the pool. But while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

 

Jesus says to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made whole and took up his bed and walked. And it was a Sabbath on that day. Therefore the Jews said to him who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath. It is not lawful for you to take up the bed.”

 

He answered them, “He who made me whole said to me, ‘Take up your bed and walk.’”

 

Then they asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk?’” And he did not know him who had cured him, for Jesus had moved away, a crowd being in the place.

 

Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “Behold, you are made whole. Sin no more lest a worse thing come to you.”(John 5:5-14)

The Lord Jesus Christ is the absolute authority on matters of Scripture and he was absolutely unambiguous in insisting that evil spirits are both portable and transferable. Whether they leave a host body after being cast out, or because their host has died, they immediately look for a new host to demonise - which is the proper translation of the Greek daimonizomai which is often rendered as ‘possessed’.

However, I mention this as a general principle only, and not to suggest for a moment that all demonised people are Nephiyl, which would be ludicrous. Demonised people will occasionally come or be brought to churches to be delivered of their tormentor(s) but a Nephiyl never will, because the spirit is native and not acquired. It is integral to their being. They don’t have a Nephiyl, they are a Nephiyl, although how that comes about is unclear. And it is probably just as well that it is obscure, because there are enough weirdos in this world without people queuing up to dabble in this kind of darkness.

The flesh of the Nephilim perished in the Flood, but their disembodied spirits survived until they could find new hosts among the burgeoning population of new human beings. And that’s why Genesis 6:4 says, ‘There were Nephilim in the earth in those days. And also after that…’

 

One conjecture is that Nephilim are the true source from which evolved the myths of ancient gods - like Zeus and Odin and Thor, and of demigods such as Hercules. That squares well with Scripture, which describes them as ‘mighty men of old, men of renown’. But where did they go?

Well, one place they went to was the land of Canaan because the Israelites often encountered them there, albeit by different names, such as the Rephaim and Anakim, although the Nephilim are specifically mentioned again in Numbers 13:33,

And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, of the giants. And we were in our own sight like grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

Each time the word giants appears in that verse it is a translation of nephilim, and although many sceptics over the years have dismissed the idea that these were the same Nephelim as are mentioned in Genesis, or even that they were really giants at all, we have already seen why there is no scriptural objection to their being the spiritual offspring of the antediluvian Nephilim. Nor should there be any doubt that they were giants, because we have the subsequent example of Goliath of Gath and his extended family.

And a champion named Goliath came out of the Philistines camp; he was from Gath. His height was six cubits and a span. (1 Samuel 17:4)

A cubit was about 18 inches, so Goliath was well over nine feet tall. And We see other members of his family mentioned in 2 Samuel 21:15-22.

And again the Philistines warred with Israel. And David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines. And David became faint. And Ishbi-benob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels of bronze in weight. And he being girded with a new sword thought to kill David. But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid, and struck the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David swore to him, saying, You shall not go out to battle with us any more, so that you do not put out the light of Israel.

And it happened after this there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was of the sons of the giant.

And there was again a battle with the Philistines in Gob, where Elhanan of Bethlehem, the son of Jaare-oregim, killed one of Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.

And there was yet again a battle in Gath. And there was a man of stature who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number. And he also was born to the giant. And when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimeah, the brother of David, killed him.

These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.

And an overlapping account also appears in 1 Chronicles 20:4-8.

And it happened after this, that there arose war at Gezer with the Philistines. Then Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Sippai, of the children of the giant. And they were humbled.

And there was war again with the Philistines. And Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, whose spear was like a weavers' beam.

And again there was a battle in Gath, and a man of stature was there, and his fingers and toes were twenty-four, six on each hand and six on each foot. And he also had been born son of the giant. But he cursed Israel, and Jonathan the son of Shimea, David's brother, killed him. These were born to the giant in Gath. And they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.

An interesting observation here that provides a clue as to the extreme stature of Goliath and his relatives is that they had a condition today's clinicians would describe as hyperdactyly or polydactyly - with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.

It would appear that the extreme height of those possessed by a nephiyl spirit was due to genetic modification.

Everyone knows how David the shepherd boy slew Goliath with a slingshot...don’t they? Well, he didn’t. Read the actual account in 1 Samuel 17:50-51 and you quickly discover a different story.

So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and struck the Philistine and killed him. There was no sword in the hand of David.

Then David ran and stood over the Philistine and took his sword and drew it out of its sheath and killed him and cut off his head with it. When the Philistines saw that their champion was dead, they fled.

Yes, David ‘struck the Philistine and killed him’ - but the stone had only stunned him; the actual blow that killed Goliath was struck when David severed his head with Goliath’s own sword.

Goliath’s decapitation was necessary for a number of reasons -

David had promised it:

Then David said to the Philistine, "You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of Yahweh of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

This day Yahweh will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head.

And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that Yahweh saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is Yahweh's, and he will give you into our hand." (1 Samuel 17:45-47)

And David kept his word. God delivered Goliath into his hands and David took his head.

It was also necessary because of Goliath’s boasts:

And when the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was but a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance. And the Philistine said to David, "Am I a dog, that you come to me with sticks?" And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. The Philistine said to David, "Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field." (1 Samuel 17:42-44)

Goliath had sealed his own fate the moment he ‘cursed David by his gods’, because now Yahweh had to respond, wile would entail the removal of Goliath’s head. This is because the head represents rulership and the power of the tongue. By removing Goliath’s head, David was effectively silencing Goliath’s gods and removing the authority of the Philistines’ champion.

A more recent example of this occurred about twenty-five years ago, when I was a young police officer in Glasgow, when a Triad War hit the city. A Chinese Triad is similar to a Tong - an underground criminal organisation - and Glasgow had two main Triads at that time.

One day a murder investigation began into the death of a Chinese businessman. In Chinese he was a Fu San Shu, or White Paper Fan Man, a Triad accountant and money launderer. When he was found, his head was nearly completely severed from his body in a symbolic decapitation. This was a ceremonial killing which said - ‘We have removed your head man, by removing his head’.

The other reason for Goliath's decapitation was curiously prophetic, because verse 54 tells us something quite bizarre:

And David took the head of the Philistine and brought it to Jerusalem, but he put his armour in his tent.

Jerusalem was not yet an Israelite city at that time, but was still occupied by the Jebusites, so I suspect that David stuck Goliath’s head on a pole. However, in time even Goliath’s head would have rotted and decayed away, leaving only his skull, which according to some Rabbinical traditions David eventually buried outside the city at a sight called ‘The Hill of Goliath’ - which in both Hebrew and Aramaic sounds quite similar to the ‘Hill of the Skull’.

It was a pun, if you will. But one that would be long remembered when, a thousand years later, a young carpenter from Nazareth hung there in a cross. His name was Yeshua Ben Yosef, and the hill was still called Gol-Goliath - or Golgotha, which in Greek is Kranion or what, when later be translated into Latin, would become known as Calvary - the place where the Son of David crushed the head of the father of all Nephilim - Satan.

Noah means ‘Rest’, and Noah’s Ark was not a ship, it was a sanctuary. It was also a type of Jesus, within which all who entered into it were saved, which also makes it a type of the Church, which is Christ’s Body.

Noah did not shut himself in, but he and his family were sealed in by God (Genesis 7:16) - representing our baptism into Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. And, as the earth split open, spilling out the fountains of the great deep, it rained for forty days and forty nights (Genesis 7:17) - the number of trial. The Flood prevailed for a hundred and fifty days before beginning to subside (Genesis 7:24).

And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. (Genesis 8:4)

Ararat means the curse is reversed, but it would still be another five months - the number of grace - before the waters totally subsided and Noah removed the cover from the Ark (Genesis 8:13), and another month beyond that before he and his family would venture out and onto dry land (Genesis 8:16).

Furthermore, the seventeenth day of the seventh month refers to what is usually called the seventeenth day of the first month, because there are two Hebrew distinct calendars: One beginning in Nisan (which falls around March-April) and Tishri (around September-October). This means that the Ark came to rest on Ararat three days after what would one day become known as Passover - and the day that Jesus was crucified - which made the seventeenth day of the seventh month in the days of Noah the same day that we call Resurrection Sunday, the day Jesus appeared to his disciples after he rose from the dead.

Just a coincidence?

Of course it is…Or at least it would be if the Bible had been written three weeks ago by some geek with a supercomputer, a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew calendar, and a rare gift of hindsight.

I let those who refuse to believe clutch at whatever straw they will. But if the Bible is true, then maybe we should pay some attention to the next question.

As we have seen Noah’s Ark is a type of Jesus and his Church. And Jesus said that his return would share certain characteristics with the time of Noah’s Flood. One of those characteristics would be that people would be that people would be ‘marrying and giving in marriage’ which, as we have also seen, seems to link End Time events to the activities of the Nephilim.

We also know that although the Nephilim were destroyed in their flesh by the Noachan Flood, they nevertheless survived as evil spirits capable of possessing - and even in some instances, genetically altering - human beings.

So, are the Nephilim still among us?

Of course they are. Where did you suppose evils spirits might go, prior to their judgement? Apart from a select few who were imprisoned in Tartarus five thousand years ago for causing all the problems that gave rise to the Flood, there are as many demons on the earth today as there were then.

So, where are they?

I don’t know. But I suspect that the Antichrist is one of them - maybe he even has six fingers on his hands and six toes on his feet, which might be one reason why the number of his name is ‘666’.

But I do know that they are highly placed and have enormous influence. They are also extremely evil and utterly irredeemable because, as much as they might look like the rest of us, they are not men as we are.

I doubt if we will ever see any nine-foot Nephilim today, but I would expect to find them seated in boardrooms as giants of industry and media moguls. But I wouldn’t waste my time in vain speculation or in Nephilim-hunting conspiracy theories because God knows who they are and he has their end in sight - which is good enough for me.

But when you think Nephilim, think Antichrist, and look at who is scoffing at God, persecuting Christians, or reviling Israel, then you will at least recognise where their influence extends - because that was another characteristic of the days before the Flood:

And Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. (Genesis 6:5)

As I said at the beginning, the Bible has a divine symmetry, but believers are blessed in having direct access to the mind of the One who knows how that symmetry plays out. And he hasn’t hidden his secrets from us, but hidden them for us. How many more secrets has he yet to reveal?

Time will tell. And I believe that time will be soon.