Isaiah 26:14: “They are dead, they shall not live, they are deceased, they shall not rise, therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memories to perish.”

Literally, this passage is referring to the tyrants who overthrew Israel. They are dead, deceased, do not live, are destroyed and even their memories perish. Unlike your standard horror movie after the hero slices and dices the monster and all but guarantees he is dead and gone, his little finger jumps up to poke the hero in the eye and the fight starts all over again. Well, in this case, the monsters are dead, dead, dead.

Obviously, that has not yet happened for Israel, so this is a prophetic statement. I am a little concerned about this idea that they will not rise again. The word used here for rise up is qum which is a word used for resurrection, or restore to oneself.  Now, my Baptist teaching tells me everyone who has ever lived will be resurrected one day, they will rise up for the last judgment and either enter heaven or hell.

So I decided to search the internet to see if I could find an answer to the question as to why some will not rise again or be resurrected. Boy did I open a can of worms.  I think I sometimes leave the reservation, I read some things that make be believe they left without their passports or visas. However, let me share one theory and in the process I would like to show you something of interest from the Hebrew.

One theory is that the word in the Hebrew for deceased is raphaim which in its Semitic root form is rapha’ which is the word for healing, restoration and cure. Traced to its origins was used to express the idea of quiet. This is where the word eventually got the idea of deceased as the dead express the ultimate in quiet. So here is my cornball theory: raphaim should be used to represent something other than deceased.  Raphaim is the Hebrew term for Rephaite from the Phoenician word RP’M. The Rephaites were the people who lived beyond Jordan and were celebrated for their gigantic size.  They were giants. More than that the word raphaim itself could also indicate that these people enjoyed near perfect health.

What my theory is saying is that these Raphaim were a new breed of man or were a genetically altered breed of man. There is a whole discussion on what science is trying to do today to genetically alter man and make him into some super human being. Even Hitler tried this over 75 years ago.  I recently heard such a discussion on local radio where a scientist was interviewed and talked about the future of genetics. Time magazine recently had a lead article on this. Now when Jesus said; “As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be at the time of the end, people were eating and drinking and giving in marriage” what was He talking about?  People always ate, drank and married and they always perverted this, so what is new?  The theory is that prior to the flood, science had advance as far and perhaps further than today and had actually achieved a genetic alteration of man forming the Raphaims and God had to send a flood to purge the human race of these creatures that were able to have sexual relationships of humans and caused reproduction that was not of God’s initial creation. If I step off the reservation even further this would suggest that these creatures were soulless like animals and thus God destroying them would be no more than destroying a perversion of His creation and there would be no souls condemned to eternal hell in this so called genocide.  Only our arrogance would suggest that our science is the most advanced in history.  After all people lived hundreds of years.  Suppose they had their De Vince’s, Einstein’s and Hawkins who lived hundreds of years.  Surely a scientific knowledge would have advanced to be highly technical. So the theory goes and that takes us back to Genesis 6 where the sons of God had sexual relationships with the daughters of men.  Maybe, and I say maybe these sons of God were really genetically altered beings who had no soul and thus, when they died they were dead which would bring us back to a possible answer to my original question as to how could they not be resurrected.  Without a soul, no chance.

Cute, but as far as I am concerned the whole theory may have a higher crap content than fertilizer. Still, that phrase, sons of God is interesting. Hebrew has very few adjectives.  What adjective it does have, it uses to exhaustion. One adjective is ben which is rendered son. It basically means to build upon, to be an extension of something and even the product of one’s work.  Even today when someone has a project that they exhaust themselves on they call it their child or son.  Elohim, gods, does not have to be a supernatural being. Human judges are called elohims. Someone of superior intelligence is sometimes referred to as an elohim. Maybe these brilliant scientist who genetically altered God’s creation were call elohims and their genetically altered creations were bens or sons.

No, I don’t buy into this wild eyed theory that in the last days there will be genetic engineered beings having sexual relationships with normal women and producing super human off springs, buttttttt! If these crazy people with this theory want to render the words sons of the gods (heb. beni ha Elohim) as the “product of genetic scientist,” I cannot say they are wrong from a Biblical standpoint when viewed through the original language.

That is the beauty of the Hebrew language, the possibilities of renderings are out there for your imagination or more accurately, for the Spirit of God to reveal truths you would never dream of.  I don’t buy, but if you do, I certainly cannot prove you wrong.