xxiv. 20 ; Jer. ; Jonah i. 5, etc.) ; and like El it is used as a superlative (Ps. lxviii. 16 ; lxv. to, etc.) Kings and Judges, as the vicegerents of Deity, or as possessing, a sort of representative majesty, are sometimes called E/ohinr (Ps. lxxxii. t, 6 ; Exod. xxi. 6 ; xxii. 8). Whether the term is used of angels may be made matter of question.
This is the rendering given to nsn.1.1.4 by the LXX., Vulg., Targ., Syr., etc., in Gen. iii. 5 ; Ps. 6 ; lxxxii. t, 6 ; xcvii. 7 ; and cxxxviii. ; but in the majority of these instances there can be httle doubt but that the translators were swayed by I mere dogmatical considerations in adopting that rendering ; they preferred it because they avoided thus the strongly anthropomorphic representation which a literal rendering would have preserved. In all these passages the proper signification of n+rbt, may be retained, and in some of them, such as Gcn. 5 ; Ps. lxxxii. 1, 6, this seems imperatively required. In Ps. viii. 6, also, the rendering angels ' seems excluded by the con sideration that the subject of the writer is the grace of God to man in giving him dominion over the works of his hands, in which respect there can be no comparison between man and the angels, of whom nothing of this sort is affirmed. In Ps. )(ova 7 the connection of the last clause with what precedes affords sufficient reason for our giving Elohim its proper rendering, as in the A. V. That the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews should have adopted the LXX. rendering in citing these two passages (ii. 7 ; i. 6), cannot be held as establishing- that rendering, for, as his argument is not affected by it, he was under 110 call to depart from the rendering given in the version from which he quotes. But though there be no clear evidence that Elohim is ever used in the sense of angels, it is sometimes used vaguely to describe unseen powers or superhuman beings that are not pro perly thought of as divine. Thus the witch of Endor saw `Elohim ascending out of the earth' (I Sam. xxviii. 13), meaning thereby some beings of an unearthly, superhuman character. So also in Zech. xii. 8 it is said, The house of David shall be as Elohim, as the angel of the Lord,' where, as the transition from Elohim to the angel of the Lord is a minori ad majus, we must regard the former as a vague designation of supernatural powers. Hengstenberg would explain Ps. viii. 6 in accordance with this ; but the legitimacy of this may be doubted.
In three instances the phrase n+r6t4.1 Bwey Erahhu, occurs ( Job i. 6; ii. ; xxxviii. 7), and in two instances (Gen. vi. 2, 4) "Nri .E'ney Elohim, occurs. We have also the equivalent phrase += in Hos. ii. (A. V. i. to). In the book of Job the phrase unquestionably describes the angels, who are called sons of God partly as immediately created by him (in which sense Adam is called the son of God,' Luke iii. 3S), partly as belonging to the spiritual world, and so appearing to be of the same essence as God, who is em phatically spirit as opposed to flesh (Is. xxxi. 3), and partly as characterised by that holiness which is the distinctive glory of God, and the communi cation of which to any of his creatures conveys to such an ethical affinity to Him. Of these ele ments the last is the most important, and hence, where it is possessed, divine sonship may be pre dicated of the possessor, though both the other ele ments are wanting. It is on this ground that the phrase may be used of men, as it is in the passage cited from Hosea, and frequently in the N. T. As used in the pa.ssages cited from Gcnesis, the phrase is confessedly difficult, and has called forth numerous explanations. Of these the greater part are purely conjectural, and need not occupy our attention. Our choice must lie between that which takes the phrase as denoting angels, and that which takes it as denoting men standing in some special relation to God.
The former of these is the older, and it is that which the usage of the phrase most readily suggests. It is favoured by the LXX., the text of which fluctuates between viol rof) -eol.7 and 6-y-yeNot ro0 -Ecri; (Aug. De Civ. Dei, xv. 23), Josephus (Antiq. 4. x), Philo (De Gigant. sub init.), the apocryphal book of Enoch, the Testament of the XII. Patri archs, the later Jewish lIagada, and the majority of the Christian Fathers from Justin to Lactantius. The incongruity however of the supposition, that angels could have carnal intercourse with women, is sci strong, that many have on this ground alone rejected the interpretation, some with strong ex pressions of contempt and indignation. Thus Theo doret speaks of it as 443p6vrvrov xai 6-yav 9).Xlecoy (Quest. in Genesin. sec. 47) ; Philastrius denounces it as a heresy ; and Rabbi Simeon b. Jochai pro nounces an anathema on all who adopt it (De litzsch, Genes. in loc.) The Reformers generally repudiated it as a mere fable, which is refuted by its own absurdity (Calvin, in itn-.); and the ma jority of more recent writers have followed in the same strain. Unfortunately, however, they have 32ot succeeded in giving us any tenable explanation in its place. If we turn to the hypothesis that the phrase sons of God here is used of men standing in some special relation to God, we are met at the threshhold by a difference of opinion as to the rela tion supposed. Some would class the phrase with those in which Elohim has the force of a superla tative [see above], and would render men of power,' or eminence,' the high-born, as con trasted with the common people, or men of great height' as contrasted with men of ordinary stature. But the confusion of thought here is suffi cient to condemn such an interpretation. When Elohim is used to express a superlative, it intimates that the quality expressed by the word to which it is appended exists in that particular instance in the highest degree. The phrase, for instance, Cedars of God,' means that the quality common to all cedars exists in these in the highest degree ; these are cedars of surpassing excellence. But plainly this is inapplicable in the case of words, the quality denoted by which does not admit of degrees ; and such is the case with the word 307Z. There are no degrees in sonship ; the male progeny of a rich man are no more his sons than the male progeny of a poor man are his ; a dwarf is as much the son of his father as a giant is of his. Besides, on this hypothesis, who were the daughters of men with whom these sons of God had intercourse ? The two designations are plainly in antithesis to each other. If therefore sons of God' mean powerful, great, or tall men ; daughters of men' must mean low-born, poor, dwarfish women. Why it should
be morally wrong for such to intermarry, or why a race differing from other men should spring from the intercourse of such does not appear, and seems to us inexplicable. Others resort to the ethical im port of the phrase, sons of God,' and suppose that the parties so designated by Moses belonged to the pious race the descendants of Seth. This ex planation is as old as the Clementines : Homines justi qui angelorum vixerant vitam' (Recognition's, 29), is found in many of the later Fathers, from Ephraem to Chrysostom, is followed by Luther, Calvin, and their associates and followers, and may be viewed as the favourite explanation of evan gelical commentators. There is much in its favour. There can be no doubt that the phrase tons of God' may be used of men m an ethical sense ; there can be no doubt that the Cainites and the Sethites had before this time formed two sepa rate communities, between which the primary dis tinction was a moral and religious one ; and the course of the narrative is not opposed to the sup position that the general degeneracy of the race which brought on the flood was the result of an intermingling of the two communities by marriage. But though the phrase may have an ethical mean ing, and may in this sense be used of men, there wants evidence of its ever being so used in the 0 T. (excepting of Israel as a nation, a case not in point here) ; and besides, on this hypothesis, what are we to niake of the phrase daughters of men,' as applied to the women with whom these pious Sethites intermarried ? We cannot without the greatest violence take biN71, Ha-Adanz, here as designating a special portion of the human race, when the very same word is used in the preceding verse to designate the race as such ; nor can we, on any just grounds, take the word Adam without any qualifying adjunct as meaning wicked men. Besides, what reason is there for supposing that the union of men who worshipped God with women who did not, would specially tend to the procreation of a progeny marked by unwonted strength or size (D41=) ? This has led many' to adopt the oldest interpretation as the only one exe getically tenable. Now, stran,ge as it may appear to us, that such a thing as the historian is thus un derstood to affirm should have happened, we should be slow to assert that it is impossible, and therefore incredible. That created spirits are not pure spirits, but to some degree partake of a material substance, is one of the common-places of theology ; that such spirits can act on our bodies must also be believed from the testimony of Scripture ; and that beings of angelic nature are liable to be en snared by sinful passion is involved in the belief that the fallen angels were once among the hosts of the heavenly world. We are not, therefore, in cir cumstances to affirm that it is in the nature of things impossible that in some of these lustful passions may have been engendered by the beauty of women, and that they may have been able to assume forms in which these passions could be gratified. Still, in the face of the general state ments of Scripture concerning angels, and espe cially of such a statement as that of our Lord recorded Matt. xxii. 3o, it must be felt that a strong degree of improbability attaches to this hypothesis; and that we are entitled to demand some decisive authority from Scripture before we can receive it. Such authority, it has been supposed, is supplied by what St. Jude says in the 7th verse of his epistle,t where, after referring to the angels who kept not their first estate, he proceeds to say, ths 265o,aa Kai 1-71,uoN)a Kat at rep/ airras ir6Xets rbv SgoLov 76. 71-01, TO6TOLS eizzropPEticracrat, K. T. X. Here the apostle is understood to mean that the crime by which the angels referred to fell was that of fornication, like that of which the inhabitants of these cities were guilty. This, however, is a most uncertain exege sis ; for, in the first place, whatever was the offence of the B'ney Ha-Elohim, of whom Moses writes, it was not, certainly, after the same Manner with that of the inhabitants of the cities of the plain ; there is no reason to believe it was 7r oppcla of any sort, most assuredly it was not of that unnatural sort which drew down on these cities the special wrath and vengeance of heaven.* Then, secondly, the tmin of the apostle's thought here is unfavourable to this acceptation of his words. He has in view the re proving of two evils, the one that of proud insub ordination, the other that of lascivious indulgence ; and he illustrates by examples the evil of both. In illustration of that of the fanner, he adduces first the case of the rebellious Israelites who fell in the wilderness, and secondly, the case of the rebel angels who fell from heaven ; and here his illustra tion of the first of the two sins terminates. With verse 7th begins his illustration of the evil of the second of these sins, and the case he adduces is the memorable one of Sodom and Gomorrha and the cities around them. Following out the train of thought in this way we are naturally led to connect verse 7th, not with what precedes, but with what follows, the Ws introducin,g the protasis and the legoicos of verse 8th the apodosis of one complete statement. In this case the Tarrots of verse 7th does not refer to dryeXot as its antecedent, but to .73630/La Kai r&colike, or rather, by enallage, to the inhabitants of these cities ; and the proper render ing is : As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities around them, which after the like manner with them gave themselves to fornication . . . are set forth as an example . . . likewise, also, these filthy dreamers,' etc. As to the difficulty arising from the use of the masculine TO75701.5, in reference to Sodom and Gornorrha, which, as 7rAces, must be held to be feminine, that need not deter us. Beza, long ago, dissipated that by the remark, neque nos offendere debet generis muta tio, urbium enim nomine incolas comprehendit.' With this explanation of the passage in Jude vanishes the only shadow of Scriptural support which has ever been adduced for the hypothesis that the B'ney Ha-Elohim of Moses were angels— an hypothesis in itself to the last degree improb able, and which Havernick does not stigmatise too strongly when he places it among the silliest whims of the Alexandrian Gnostics and Cabbalistic Rab bins' (Introd. to the Pent. , p. it 1). It is,' says Bunsen, 'in itself disagreeable, and being mytho logico-physical, is thoroughly unbiblical' werk, v. 51).