Watchers

Who were the Watchers in the Bible?

There are two references to the term “Watchers” in the Bible, Daniel 4:13 and Daniel 4:17. However Second Temple Jewish writings extensively record the activity of the Watchers, the “fallen sons of God”, in particular in the Book of the Watchers (the first 36 chapters of 1 Enoch).

Once we realise that Watchers are called “sons of God” in the Bible, we can start to understand at a deeper level the story of life before the Great Flood mentioned in many ancient cultures where they decided to leave their spiritual realm existence and mate with human women, producing demagogues and learning all sorts of ways to destroy life on earth. This tranche of Watchers were assigned into the pit of Tartarus, the lowest level within Hades, and are still there to this day. Their offspring are evil spirits are still free to wander the earth and which afflict humankind, encouraging suffering and life limiting behaviours, as they did in ancient times.

A second tranche of Watchers descended at the division of the earth by Yahweh in Genesis 10:25. These were assigned to look after the other nations apart from Israel, who were Yahweh’s particular group to look after as recorded in Deuteronomy 32:8,9. However, rather than point their nations to the worship of Yahweh, the Watchers chose to accept worship of themselves, which is where the Tower of Babel (a ziggurat with a temple “of the heavenly hosts” at the top) comes in. These were judged (recorded in Psalms 82 & 89) and cast to earth, where they descended upon Mount Hermon. These gods of the nations were thus the original Watchers in the Bible.

The remaining story of the Bible is the reconciliation of humankind with the Eternal One, the spiritual war between the fallen Watchers (the heavenly “children of God”), their “bastard” offspring spirits and other forces of darkness, against the life giving power of Jesus Christ through the earthly “children of God”.

Explore the Watchers in our articles below.