To find out who the Fallen Angels are that defiled the daughters of man and themselves, what they taught humankind and what their punishment is, we have to turn to the first book of Enoch.

The bible sometimes calls the Sons of God “Watchers”. There are good Watchers in the bible, holy ones that are loyal to God, as we see in the book of Daniel (Dan 3:13 and Dan 3:32). In the first book of Enoch, also called “The Book of the Watchers”, we find the evil Watchers, those that fell away from God by trespassing the boundaries of heaven and earth.

1 Enoch 1:4: “And everyone shall be afraid, and the Watchers will quiver” (footnote on “Watchers”: lit. “diligent guards” [Watchers are fallen angels], quoted here and in the following from James H. Charlesworth (ed.): The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

According to 1 Enoch 6-8, those Watchers, 200 by number, plot together to choose wives from among the fair daughters of man, and to have children with them. The Watchers bind each other to this sin by a curse. They are completely aware of the fact that this is a great sin from the very beginning (1 Enoch 6:3), and Semyaz, their leader, doesn’t want to be responsible for it all alone. And so after binding each other to the evil deed by a curse, they go down to earth, take wives, lie with them, and teach them all kinds of things that mankind is not supposed to be taught – they teach magical medicine, incantations, the cutting of roots and about plants, astrology and the knowledge of the signs, seeing the stars and the course of the moon, and the deception of man.

But the worst thing taught is what Azazel has to teach: His teaching revolves around the art of making swords and knives, shields and breastplates, plus, interestingly enough, everything about outward adornment and cosmetics: bracelets and decoration, beautifying and shadowing of the eyelids, precious stones, all coloring tinctures, and alchemy, and these are classified as “all forms of oppression” (1 Enoch 9:6). The art of war and the art of seduction by outward adornment are lumped together here as forms of oppression… and then we wonder why in the New Testament, costly array is connected to whoredom while godly women are warned explicitly not to adorn themselves outwardly (1 Pe 3:3-4), to name just one example ?

So all these skills, arts and crafts, even if called “eternal secrets” (1 Enoch 9:6), are corrupted, they are called “every kind of sin” (1 Enoch 9:9) and “rejected mysteries” (1 Enoch 16:3), since those were the only mysteries the fallen angels were privy to according to 1 Enoch 16:3. Mind you, it doesn’t say that this knowledge, in parts magical, is just a fraud. The Watchers teach mankind these things which are as real as any other knowledge, but this knowledge is not meant for mankind. Mankind is susceptible to wanting to be like God. Therefore, divine knowledge corrupts the human heart, just like in the garden of Eden when Eve was tempted and gave in to the promise of the Nachash to become like God, and know good from evil (Gen 3). In 1 Enoch 16:3, it states plainly what this kind of knowledge breeds:

“Those ones (the rejected mysteries) you have broadcast to the women in the hardness of your hearts and by those mysteries the women and men multiply evil deeds upon the earth.” (In 1 Enoch 16:3)

In the meantime, the women who married those fallen angels have given birth to giants who are oppressing the people and the land, eating all their produce and when the people don’t want to feed them anymore, they eat the people and drink blood and turn against each other, too.

For all these things that the Watchers brought upon the earth, teachings and evil offspring alike, they are punished: They will never have peace (1 Enoch 16:3), and will be killed on Judgment Day, since their transgression cost them their immortality, basically (1 Enoch 10). Their offspring will roam the earth as evil spirits on the earth (1 Enoch 15:9), they will cause great sorrow and fight against the people (1 Enoch 15:11-12). How this all is linked to the curse against the Nachash in Gen 3, we will explain in a different post. For the moment, just keep in mind that there is and has always been war between the Fallen Sons of God and their seed, and the woman and her seed, the godly people, and the great and final battle that will settle all accounts will be fought in the end times according to biblical prophesy.

Among all those Watchers that are punished, Azazel is the one that is counted most guilty, in fact, it says that all the guilt should be on his head (1 Enoch 10:8). This explains why the Hebrew word for “scapegoat” as used in the respective verses in Leviticus 16 is “Azazel” (Lev 16:8,10 and 26). A scapegoat, in short, is sent into the desert, bearing all the sins of the Israelites. According to Enoch, Azazel is bound hand and foot and thrown into a hole into the desert, covered with rocks and stones, and will be released only at Armageddon, to meet his final fate (1 Enoch 10:4-5).

As for the people that have been defiled and corrupted by the Watchers and their knowledge, God sends the great deluge to destroy them all except Noah and his family (1 Enoch 10:1-3). But since the spirits of the nephilim are not killed by the flood, they breed again afterwards, and will continue to do so, roam the earth and defile and corrupt those that are not among the elect until the final battle, where the loyal Sons of God and the Fallen Sons of God, and with them the elect and the sinners, will fight it out. The outcome of the battle is known already though, to the Antichrist as well as to all of us, by God’s word, and when all accounts are settled, Christ will reign for a thousand years of peace.

“And the earth will be cleansed from all pollution and from all sin and from all plague, and from all suffering; and it shall not happen again that I shall send these upon the earth from generation to generation and forever. And in those days I shall open the storerooms of blessing which are in the heavens, so that I shall send them down upon the earth, over the work and the toil of the children of man. And peace and truth shall become partners together in all the days of the world, and in all the generations of the world.” (1 Enoch 10:22-11:2)