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The 200 rebels realise the implications of their transgressions, for they agree to swear an oath to the effect that their leader Shemyaza would take the blame if the whole ill-fated venture went terribly wrong.
After their descent to the lowlands, the Watchers indulge in earthly delights with their chosen `wives', and through these unions are born giant offspring named as Nephilim, or Nefilim, a Hebrew word meaning `those who have fallen', which is rendered in Greek translations as gigantes, or `giants'.
Heavenly Secrets
In between taking advantage of our women, the 200 rebel angels spent their time imparting the heavenly secrets to those who had ears to listen. One of their number, a leader named Azazel, is said to have `taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals (of the earth) and the art of working them', indicating that the Watchers brought the use of metal to mankind. He also instructed them on how they could make `bracelets' and `ornaments' and showed them how to use `antimony', a white brittle metal employed in the arts and medicine.
To the women Azazel taught the art of `beautifying' the eyelids, and the use of `all kinds of costly stones' and `colouring tinctures', presupposing that the wearing of make-up and jewellery was unknown before this age. In addition to these crimes, Azazel stood accused of teaching women how to enjoy sexual pleasure and indulge in promiscuity - a blasphemy seen as `godlessness' in the eyes of the Hebrew story-tellers.
Other Watchers stood accused of revealing to mortal kind the knowledge of more scientific arts, such as astronomy, the knowledge of the clouds, or meteorology; the `signs of the earth', presumably geodesy and geography, as well as the `signs', or passage, of the celestial bodies, such as the sun and moon. Their leader, Shemyaza, is accredited with having taught `enchantments, and root-cuttings', a reference to the magical arts shunned upon by most orthodox Jews. One of their number, Pˆnˆm-e, taught `the bitter and the sweet', surely a reference to the use of herbs and spices in foods, while instructing men on the use of `ink and paper', implying that the Watchers introduced the earliest forms of writing. Far more disturbing is Kƒsdejƒ, who is said to have shown `the children of men all the wicked smitings of spirits and demons, and the smitings of the embryo in the womb, that it may pass away'. In other words he taught women how to abort babies.
These lines concerning the forbidden sciences handed to humanity by the rebel Watchers raises the whole fundamental question of why angels should have possessed any knowledge of such matters in the first place. Why should they have needed to work with metals, use charms, incantations and writing; beautify the body; employ the use of spices, and know now to abort an unborn child? None of these skills are what one might expect heavenly messengers of God to possess, not unless they were human in the first place.
In my opinion, this revelation of previously unknown knowledge and wisdom seems like the actions of a highly advanced race passing on some of its closely-guarded secrets to a less evolved culture still striving to understand the basic principles of life.
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