Who are the Watchers?

Watchers/Watcher Angels are mentioned 3 times, all in Daniel.

Daniel 4:13 — 13 “I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold, a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven.

Daniel 4:17 — 17 The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.’

Daniel 4:23 — 23 And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven periods of time pass over him,’

The context of these verses is that King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream. In it, he sees a tree, it grows to become strong, reaching to heaven with abundant fruit, food for all. Beasts came and found shade, birds lived in the branches, and everything ate from it. A watcher, a holy one, comes and proclaims: chop down the tree and lop off its branches, strip off its leaves, and scatter its fruit…. But leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze…. Let him be wet with the dew of heaven. Let his portion be with the beasts in the grass of the earth. Let his mind be changed from a man’s, and let a beast’s mind be given to him; and let seven periods of time pass over him. The sentence is by decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will and sets over it the lowliest of men. Daniel interprets the dream that Nebuchadnezzar is going to lose his power, and his mind, and will wander around like the beasts of the field. Because it is from the watchers, it is a decree of the Most High.

According to this passage, a watcher is a holy one, supernatural celestial beings with the authority to speak for God.

A greater bit of information is given in the non-canonical Book of Enoch. This is a book that is not believed to be inspired by God (as the Jews did not consider it a part of Canon, God’s Word), yet they highly respected it. It gives insight into what the Jews believed about the spiritual realm. We must be careful when reading non-canonical books though, for they are not the inspired words of God, and are not held as firm Truth. 

According to the Book of Enoch, they are either fallen angels or holy angels. They are called watchers because they take interest in human affairs, “watching” them. Sometimes they even interfere with or even control situations that people are involved in. Enoch says that the watchers are the angels in Genesis 6, the sons of God (ESV) that took the daughters of men, who then gave birth to the Nephilim, half angel, half human, who were the giants of old. After the giants died out, their evil spirits (because they were half angel) went out and are the evil spiritual forces that are now at work in the world. In Enoch 8, we are told that there were 200 in all that took part in this act of rebellion and defilement. The Book of Enoch is a pronouncement of judgement against the fallen angels. In part 2 of the Book of Enoch, these fallen angels are given a specific name, Grigori, a name/term never used in the Bible. This term came as a transliteration of the Greek word for watcher that was used in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament).

Genesis 6 has caused a lot of questions from people, because the Bible glosses over the statement about the sons of God and the daughters of men. There are differing views as to what this means, and a lot of speculation. That’s the important thing, this is speculation. The Bible is not clear on this topic, and therefore we do not allow it to take our focus away from the Truth that we do know, as well as divide us over non-essential things. What we know from Genesis 6 is that mankind became so corrupt that God sent a flood to wipe out everything, but there was grace as Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. As we see the world continually be corrupt, we can know that for those who are in Christ Jesus, we have found favor in the eyes of the Lord, because He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).