What does 'men of renown' mean in Genesis 6, and why does it matter?
The Hebrew phrase anshei ha-shem (men of the name, H582 + H8034) appears in only two OT verses: Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 16:2. Both usages are followed by catastrophic judgment. The phrase sits inside a three-verse name-arc running through Genesis 4:26, 6:4, and 11:4 — name received, name seized, name manufactured.
"Men of renown" is the English translation of anshei ha-shem — "men of the name" — and the Hebrew phrase itself is rarer than most readers realize.
Genesis 6:4 ends with a description of the offspring of the sons of God:
"They are the gibborim (H1368, mighty ones) who are me-olam (from of old, H5769), anshei ha-shem (men of the name — i.e., men of renown, H582 + H8034)." — Gen 6:4 (MT)
Anshei ha-shem is a construct chain: anshei (men of, H582) + ha-shem (the name, H8034). The phrase occurs in only two verses in the entire Old Testament: Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 16:2.
Here is Numbers 16:2, the opening of Korah's revolt:
"And they rose up before Moses — men from the sons of Israel, two hundred fifty, leaders of the congregation, summoned to the assembly, anshei shem (men of the name/renown)." — Num 16:2 (MT)
Two hundred fifty prominent men rise against Moses' authority. The earth opens and swallows them alive (Num 16:31-33). The construct that marks them as notable in Genesis 6 returns here to mark men who have made themselves notable against the man YHWH named. The Flood drowns the anshei ha-shem of Genesis 6; the earth opens beneath the anshei shem of Numbers 16. One unique construct, two uses, two geological judgments.
The three-verse name-arc
What makes the Genesis 6:4 phrase particularly sharp is its position inside a three-step arc on the Hebrew word shem (name, H8034) across the primeval history.
The first occurrence comes at Genesis 4:26, just after the birth of Seth's son Enosh:
"At that time it was begun (huchal, H2490 Hophal — the passive: 'it was begun') to call on the name of YHWH (be-shem YHWH)." — Gen 4:26 (MT)
The name is received. Humanity invokes God's name. The direction is upward — creature reaching toward Creator.
Then Genesis 6:1 opens with hechel ha-adam — "humankind began" (H2490 Hiphil, the active form of the same root). By Genesis 6:4 the offspring of the boundary-crossing are anshei ha-shem — men of the name. But the name is now theirs, not YHWH's. The direction has reversed. The name is seized, accumulated as reputation, fame, glory. No YHWH in the construct.
By Genesis 11:4 the project becomes explicit:
"Come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make for ourselves a name (na'aseh-lanu shem)..." — Gen 11:4 (MT)
The name is now manufactured. The Babel builders construct it deliberately, with a verb of making. The same noun, three stages: received from YHWH (Gen 4:26), seized as personal renown (Gen 6:4), manufactured by collective ambition (Gen 11:4).
Shem and Shem
Hebrew narrative is attentive to sound. The consonants of shem (ש-מ) — the word these antediluvian gibborim take to themselves — are the same consonants as the name Shem (H8035), Noah's eldest son, who first appears at Genesis 5:32 and carries the messianic line through the Flood and into Abraham (Gen 11:10-26). The name the antediluvians grasp for is the name YHWH will preserve through the man who bears it.
The Nimrod connection
Genesis 10:8 introduces the first post-Flood gibbor with the same vocabulary as Genesis 6:4:
"And Cush fathered Nimrod; he began (hechel, H2490 Hiphil) to be a gibbor (H1368) on the earth." — Gen 10:8 (MT)
H2490 + H1368 — the precise pairing from Genesis 6:4 — reappears in the man who founds Babel (Gen 10:10). The first post-Flood gibbor is built, lexically, from the same parts as the gibborim before the Flood. He founds the city whose builders will then say "let us make for ourselves a name." The arc from Genesis 6 to Genesis 11 runs on a short chain of recurring vocabulary.
What "renown" carries
Anshei ha-shem is not simply a neutral description of famous warriors. In the two places it appears, it marks a generation that has made itself great — and in both cases, YHWH's response is categorical. The article does not call this a typology in the technical sense. It calls it what it is: the same construct, twice, attached to the same trajectory. Reputation seized against God's order does not hold.
The full study traces the H2490 + H1368 Nimrod connection and the complete three-verse name-arc in The Nephilim: What Genesis 6:1-4 Actually Says.
What does 'sons of God' mean in Genesis 6 — and does the Hebrew settle the debate?
The Hebrew construct bene ha-elohim (sons of God with the definite article) appears in only four OT verses: Gen 6:2, Gen 6:4, Job 1:6, and Job 2:1. In every uncontested use outside Gen 6, it names heavenly beings standing before YHWH. The lexical evidence runs in one direction.
Did angels really have children with humans? What does the New Testament say?
Jude 1:6, 2 Peter 2:4-5, and 1 Peter 3:19-20 all presuppose the Genesis 6 angelic-descent reading. Jude quotes 1 Enoch directly and describes angels who abandoned their proper dwelling. Second Peter uses the word tartaroo — cast into Tartarus — a term that appears nowhere else in the Greek Bible and is drawn straight from the mythology of imprisoned gigantes.
What were the Nephilim in Genesis 6?
The Hebrew noun nephilim (H5303) appears in only three places across two verses in the entire Old Testament: Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33. The text does not gloss it. What the LXX does with it — translating it as gigantes (giants) — shapes how every subsequent reader hears the word.
Why does the LXX call the Nephilim 'giants'?
The Greek translators chose gigantes (G1095) to render both nephilim and gibborim in Genesis 6:4. That single word choice loaded the passage with the framework of Greek mythology and became the bridge through which 1 Enoch and the New Testament received it.