1There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job. That man was blameless and upright, and one who feared God, and turned away from evil. 2There were born to him seven sons and three daughters. 3His possessions also were seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred female donkeys, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the children of the east. 4His sons went and held a feast in the house of each one on his birthday; and they sent and called for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them. 5It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts.” Job did so continually.
6Now on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, Satan also came among them. 7Yahweh said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”
8Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is no one like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil.”
9Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10Haven’t you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. 11But stretch out your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”
12Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t stretch out your hand.”
So Satan went out from the presence of Yahweh. 13It fell on a day when his sons and his daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 14that a messenger came to Job, and said, “The oxen were plowing, and the donkeys feeding beside them, 15and the Sabeans attacked, and took them away. Yes, they have killed the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
16While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The fire of God has fallen from the sky, and has burned up the sheep and the servants, and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
17While he was still speaking, another also came and said, “The Chaldeans made three bands, and swept down on the camels, and have taken them away, yes, and killed the servants with the edge of the sword; and I alone have escaped to tell you.”
18While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, 19and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.”
20Then Job arose, and tore his robe, and shaved his head, and fell down on the ground, and worshiped. 21He said, “Naked I came out of my mother’s womb, and naked will I return there. Yahweh gave, and Yahweh has taken away. Blessed be Yahweh’s name.” 22In all this, Job didn’t sin, nor charge God with wrongdoing.
"The oldest, and likely the most widely held, interpretation is that the “sons of God” are fallen angels (demons). This was the interpretation most favored in ancient Judaism and the early church (cf. 1 Pet. 3:19, 20; 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6). The phrase “sons of God” is clearly used elsewhere of angelic hosts in God’s heavenly court (cf. Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). Moreover, the narrator seems to contrast “man” and “the daughters of man” with the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1, 2."
"This position is not without difficulties, however, the most substantial of which is the idea of fallen angels having physical relations with women. Scripture gives instances of angels engaging in human activities such as eating (Gen. 18:1, 2, 8; 19:1, 5), but surely sexual intercourse is a step beyond! Jesus makes a similar point in Matthew 22:30: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” William F. Cook, Who Are the Sons of God in Genesis 6? Some of these church fathers were Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Commodianus. Douglas et al. 2011, p. 1384
Most early church fathers in the first three centuries believed that the sons of God were angels who had unnatural sex with women and bore children. This perspective changed with St. Augustine of Hippo, who argued in the City of God that the sons of God were descendants of Seth.
The argument that Jesus taught that angels in heaven did not marry has no impact on the Genesis 6 passage since the angels in Gen 6, as accepted by Jude and Peter, were not unfallen angels in heaven but evil angels who were part of the fallen angels, or unfallen angels involved in human activity before the flood, who also fell. The ability to have sex and bear children appears to be a major argument against the "angel" view, but one must remember that angels in Gen 18 came in human form, along with Yahweh, ate food and drank, and had their feet washed. Moreover, in the New Testament, angels always appear in a male human form." See my article, Will We Eat and Drink in the Coming Kingdom of God? An Interpretation with Origen, Cerinthus, the Church Fathers, and the Literal Interpretation of the Scriptures on the Nature of the Millennial Kingdom.
6. And the angels who kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness the judgment of the great day.
The strongest text that associates the sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4 is the Book of Enoch (6:11), referenced by the writer Jude in 1:6: "When the son of men had multiplied, in those days, beautiful and comely daughters were born to them. 2/ And the watchers, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another, "Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men, and let us beget children for ourselves."[1]
The ancients had many traditions of deities cast out from heaven. See notes on Genesis xi. 8. Jove, deceived by the goddess Ate, is represented by Homer as having cast her forth, forbidding her return to Olympus with an oath.
"From his ambrosial head, where perch'd she sat,
He snatched the fiery goddess of debate,
The dread, the irrevocable oath he swore,
The immortal seats should ne'er behold her more;
And whirl'd her headlong down, for ever driven
From bright Olympus and the starry heaven." Il 1. xix. v. 126
Jove declares that any deity who interferes in the strife between the Greeks and
Trojans—
"Far, oh far, from steep Olympus thrown,
Low in the dark Tartarean gulph shall groan,
With burning chains fixed to the brazen floors,
And lock'd by Hell's inexorable doors.''-Hom. ll, 1. xix v. v.3.
" With enduring chains
He bound Prometheus, train'd in shifting wiles,
With galling shackles fixing him aloft."-Hes. Theog. v. 521.
[1] George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress Press), p. 23.