I am a curious guy—and when I hear “as in the days of Noah,” I want to know just what that means. I grew up singing about Noah in Sabbath School and hearing his story on “Your Story Hour,” but all I really knew was that people were really bad to the point that God needed to destroy them. The earth was weeping, if I recall—but there’s an 800–120 year gap in Scripture until we first hear of Noah that I had heard stories about as a kid. The antediluvians—and planes they had found in pyramids that could fly across a football field, stuff like that. But I really want to KNOW what the days of Noah were like. And I think it’s pretty important that you know this too, considering that when things get like that again—well… final hours and all that!

So that’s where the Book of Enoch comes in. Turns out it wasn’t just that things were “terrible”—there were giants called Nephilim that were the product of fallen angels “knowing,” in a biblical sense, human women. And they were really destructive. The canonical Bible gives us the framework, but Enoch fills in the shocking details about what made Noah’s days so uniquely evil that God had to start over with a flood.

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What Scripture Actually Tells Us

Let’s start with what we know for certain from the canonical Bible. Genesis 6:1–8 gives us the baseline: “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.”

The Bible mentions three key elements: (1) Sons of God taking human wives, (2) Nephilim giants as their offspring, and (3) total moral corruption. But it doesn’t give us details about what this actually looked like day-to-day. For that, we need to understand what first-century Jews knew about these events.

What Enoch Adds to the Picture

The Book of Enoch wasn’t canonical Scripture, but it was mainstream Jewish literature that provided the historical context many first-century readers would have known. When Jude quotes Enoch directly, he assumes his readers know these accounts.

According to Enoch, 200 angels called “Watchers” descended to Mount Hermon and took an oath to take human wives. Their giant offspring—the Nephilim—grew to enormous size and consumed everything in sight. When food ran out, they turned to cannibalism, eating both animals and humans. The violence wasn’t just human against human; it was supernatural corruption on a massive scale.

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man” (Matthew 24:37). If Enoch’s account is in view, Jesus was warning about more than moral decline.

The Complete Enoch Timeline: How It All Unfolded

Enoch outlines a sequence that explains how things went so catastrophically wrong—beginning with angelic rebellion and culminating in a near-extinction event for humanity.

Stage 1: The Watchers’ Descent

In Enoch 6–8, 200 angels descend to Mount Hermon under Semjaza, binding themselves with oaths and taking human wives—a direct crossing of God-ordained boundaries.

Stage 2: Forbidden Knowledge Transfer

The Watchers teach humanity knowledge that corrupts rather than blesses. Enoch 8 lists specific figures and their teachings (warfare, occult practices, astral lore).

Stage 3: The Giants’ Rampage

Enoch 7 describes insatiable appetites leading to violence against creation itself—culminating in cannibalism and bloodshed. “The earth cried out” under the weight of corruption.

Stage 4: Heaven’s Response

The archangels appeal to God (Enoch 9). The decree: bind the Watchers, end the giants, cleanse the earth by flood. Enoch 15 adds that the disembodied spirits of the giants become demons—an explanation for ongoing spiritual conflict.

What This Means for Us Today

When Jesus said “as in the days of Noah,” He wasn’t only warning about complacency. In the Enochic background many first-century readers knew, it implies blurred boundaries between the supernatural and natural, the resurfacing of forbidden knowledge, and a stark choice: align with God’s order or embrace the corruption.

The difference now? God seals His people first (Revelation 7:3). The righteous are protected through judgment and delivered into Christ’s kingdom.

Want to dive deeper into the Watchers’ story? Our detailed analysis “The Complete Enoch Account: Watchers, Giants, and the Corruption of Creation” (coming soon) will explore every aspect and its implications for prophecy.

Explore more prophetic patterns on PracticallyAdventist.com for biblical research that takes ancient texts seriously while keeping Scripture as the final authority.