Just before Noah’s flood, the Bible interjects a rather bizarre 120-year restriction on the human lifespan- one that doesn’t even actually seem to go into effect at the time that it’s given.
Genesis 6:3 (note that this is the New Living Translation) – Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.”
Why was this limit placed on mankind? And why wasn’t this restriction immediately followed going forward?
A World Gone Crazy
Let’s start with understanding the context of this verse. We aren’t given much information about the pre-flood world, but we are told one messed-up detail: spiritual beings known as the Sons of God- whose jobs were to assist God in ruling the world- became infatuated with human women and manifested in physical form to marry and copulate with them.
Genesis 6:1-2 (NLT) – 1 Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. 2 The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives.
It’s understandable that this will raise more questions than it answers, and this website will certainly tackle some of those in future articles. The story continues by describing (1) a limitation placed on mankind in response to this in verse 3, and (2) the offspring that this Sons of God/human combination produced.
A restriction on the lifespan to 120 years?
Genesis 6:3-4 (NLT) – 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years.”
4 In those days, and for some time after, giant Nephilites lived on the earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes and famous warriors of ancient times.
The Nephilim (or Nephilites) create havoc on the world, filling it with violence and bloodshed. They corrupt the bloodline of mankind. This speaks to why Noah was chosen to restart humanity. He and his family had an untainted bloodline (see Genesis 6:9 in the NKJV).
At first glance, verse 3 appears a little out-of-place. Why was this 120-year-restriction placed on humanity as a response to this incursion?
A likely mistranslation from the New Living Translation (NLT)
In reality, this is almost certainly a mistranslation of the idea present in the original Hebrew. Instead, it was probably 120 years prior to the flood that this incursion by the Sons of God took place. At this point, God put a countdown to the flood of 120 years. This idea is plainer in more literal translations of the Bible, such as the NKVJ:
Genesis 6:1-3 (NKJV) – Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 2 that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.
3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.”
This is a very different rendering of verse 3, but much more accurate to the original Hebrew.
Why is the New Living Translation (NLT) so different? Because the NLT is more of a thought-for-thought translation rather than a literal translation. While it’s very readable, often the ideas from the original languages are drastically paraphrased. This is to put them in a more readable English. But in the case of Genesis 6:3, the NLT was almost certainly conveying the wrong idea.
the Bible demonstrates no limit on lifespans to 120 years
God did not give mankind a 120-year-lifespan-limit here. We can prove it from the Bible. Abraham lived to 175. His father, Terah, lived 205 years. Noah’s son Shem lived 600 years. Jacob lived 125. And in II Chronicles 24:15, Jehoida the Priest lived to 130 years old. So clearly, there wasn’t a 120-year hard limit, although we do see lifespans diminish in the post-flood world.
From the time of this rebellion of the Sons of God, mankind was given 120 years until it would be given a reset with the worldwide flood. As for the Sons of God themselves, they have been locked away in the deepest dungeons of hell. They will be held there until judgment day (II Peter 2:4, Jude 6).
We’ve recorded multiple episodes about the Sons of God and the Nephilim they produced. We recommend starting here on the Weird Stuff in the Bible podcast:
