Most of us learned to read the Bible in roughly the same way. We were handed a passage, given some context, perhaps a concordance, maybe a commentary. We learned the stories – Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, the Tower of Babel, the birth of Jesus. We understood the overarching narrative: sin, redemption, restoration.
But what if there’s a layer running beneath all of that – a cosmic backdrop involving supernatural beings, ancient rebellions, and territorial warfare – that the original Jewish audience understood instinctively, and that we, somewhere along the way, largely lost?
That’s the door that the late Dr. Michael Heiser spent his scholarly career prying open.
The Glory of Concealment
Proverbs 25:2 says: “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.”
I think about this verse a lot when I encounter scholars who’ve clearly done the hard work of searching – not just reading, but digging. Digging into ancient languages, second-temple Jewish literature, Dead Sea Scrolls, Mesopotamian tablets, and the kind of textual layers that don’t show up in a Sunday school lesson.
Michael Heiser was that kind of scholar. A PhD in Hebrew Bible and Semitic Languages, he spent decades working on questions most theologians politely sidestep. His book Reversing Hermon is one result of that searching.
What Heiser Is Actually Arguing
The book’s premise sounds almost sensational at first: that the sin of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6 – the Watchers who took human wives and produced the Nephilim – forms a kind of dark theological backstory that runs all the way through the New Testament. And that Jesus’ mission, death, resurrection, and ultimate triumph are told in deliberate contrast to this rebellion.
Reversing Hermon. Mount Hermon, in ancient Jewish tradition, was the location where the Watchers descended. The name itself, in Hebrew, carries the meaning of a curse, a devoted thing, a cherem, something set apart for destruction.
Heiser draws on the book of 1 Enoch and other Second Temple Jewish texts, documents that the original audiences of the New Testament would have known and referenced. He argues, carefully and with considerable documentation, that New Testament authors (including Peter and Jude, and quite possibly Paul) were consciously engaging with this tradition. The Enochic backstory, he contends, isn’t fringe material. It’s the assumed context.
Why I’m Writing About This Now
I’ll be honest with you. I’m not a Hebrew scholar. I’m not going to tell you that I can independently verify every conclusion in this book. What I can tell you is that Heiser was not a sensationalist. He was not trying to be edgy or sell conspiracy. He was trying to be accurate – to say, with evidence, what the text actually says in its own world.
And I’ll tell you something else: I listened to this book, and something happened to my reading of the New Testament afterward. Passages I’d read dozens of times started to feel three-dimensional. References I’d always found slightly puzzling – why does Peter mention “the spirits in prison”? what exactly did Christ proclaim to them? – suddenly had a coherent framework around them.
That’s not nothing. That’s, actually, quite a lot.
What Does This Have to Do With Right Now?
If you’re a regular reader of Eagerly Waiting, you already know I believe we’re living in unusual times. Hebrews 9:28 – the verse this site is named for – speaks of Jesus appearing “a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” We are that generation. We’re watching prophecy take shape in real time.
Part of living in this moment well is understanding the whole story – not just the redemption chapter, but the rebellion it reversed. Heiser’s work will help you see the war that began long before Calvary and was decisively won there. It makes the victory larger, not smaller.
It also makes the opposition make more sense. Most believers know spiritual warfare is real, but it can feel puzzling. Why does evil seem so organized? Why does it operate through whole nations, cultures, and systems, not just individual bad actors? Heiser’s research points to a biblical answer: according to Scripture, rebellious supernatural beings were assigned to nations and territories. Evil feels institutional because, in a very real sense, it is. Heiser gives believers the biblical vocabulary for something many of us were already sensing but couldn’t quite name.
A Few Cautions and an Honest Recommendation
I want to be fair. Some of Heiser’s conclusions are more speculative than others, and he’d be the first to tell you so. He was careful to distinguish between “this is clearly in the text” and “this is a reasonable inference.” The book is dense in places. It rewards slow reading.
Also, the book of 1 Enoch is not Scripture. Heiser knows this. His argument isn’t that it should be. It’s that the New Testament authors were aware of it and sometimes engaged with its ideas, as any author might reference the intellectual world of their time.
With those qualifications noted: if you are someone who believes you’re living in the days the Bible describes, and you want to understand the full scope of what Christ defeated and what He is returning to complete, this book is worth your time.
The matter is there to be searched out. Proverbs says that’s actually an honorable thing to do.
Michael Heiser passed away in February 2023. His work continues through the NAKED BIBLE podcast archives, his website, and books like “The Unseen Realm”, “Demons”, “Angels”, and “Reversing Hermon”. He searched the matter. We’re the beneficiaries.
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If you’re planning to read Reversing Hermon, but you haven’t yet read The Unseen Realm, I think you will find it helpful to save Reversing Hermon and read The Unseen Realm first. Here’s a link to my blog about the latter: The Unseen Realm, The Book You’ve Been Looking For!
Here are links to my blog indexes, so please click one and keep reading!
My Books, Workbooks, and Fun Books
Knowing the Unknowable One
Opening the Treasure Chest
Walking Heart-to-Heart with God
Walking Heart-to-Heart with Each Other
Fighting the Good Fight of Faith
Christian Mysteries: Why I Love Them!
List of Some Nonfiction Books You Don’t Want to Miss
Index of Assorted Topics