Giants: Rephaim, Zamzummim, Emim, Amorite, Anakim, Nephilim, Zuzim

It appears that the giants were called by many names, sometimes by the name of the lands they occupied, and other times by their reputation.  So, let’s take a closer look at the giants of old.  For the most part, the references are from Young’s Literal Translation as the generic translation of the King James loses some of the connotations regarding these giants. (Young’s Literal Translation is choppy because it is a direct word-for-word translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts.)

In Genesis 14, about 400 years after the flood, God speaks of battles between some of the kings in the area which Abram and Lot were living.  During one of these battles, Lot and his family are taken captive.  We find,

Gen. 14:5, “And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings who [are] with him, and they smite the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim,” 

The Rephaim and the Emim were giants (tall people) that were occupying the lands after the flood.  As the Zuzim are named with these two tribes, it is probably safe to say that these were also a tribe of giant people.  At the very least they were known to be wicked people.

But, we see here that the giants were again in the land.  That means that Noah or his sons carried the DNA for these tall people, or they would not again be in the land after the flood.

In speaking to Abram in Gen. chap. 15 of the blessings he would have and of the land promised to his descendants through Isaac, the Israelite, God named the people who then occupied that territory.  He told Abram that the iniquity of the Amorite was not yet complete in Gen. 15:16.  So, we can know that the Amorite were a wicked people.

Gen 15:18-21, ” ¹⁸ In that day hath Jehovah made with Abram a covenant, saying, `To thy seed I have given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Phrat,  ¹⁹ with the Kenite, and the Kenizzite, and the Kadmonite,  ²⁰ and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Rephaim,  ²¹ and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Girgashite, and the Jebusite.’”

The other tribes listed with the Amorite were included in the area which was promised to Abram’s descendants through Isaac, and are therefore classed with the Amorite as also being wicked people.  All of the people of these lands were wicked and evil.

In Deu. chap. 1, Moses recalled the events that led the Israelite to spend forty years in the wilderness because the spies that had been sent into the land reported in fear of the giants.  They did not trust in God to lead them.

Deu 1:28, “ whither are we going up? our brethren have melted our heart, saying, A people greater and taller than we, cities great and fenced to heaven, and also sons of Anakim – we have seen there.”

Num. 13:22, “And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

The children of Anak were the Anakim, and they had lived in Hebron.

Num. 13:28-32,

²⁸ only, surely the people which is dwelling in the land [is] strong; and the cities are fenced, very great; and also children of Anak we have seen there.

²⁹ Amalek is dwelling in the land of the south, and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite is dwelling in the hill country, and the Canaanite is dwelling by the sea, and by the side of the Jordan.’

³⁰ And Caleb stilleth the people concerning Moses, and saith, `Let us certainly go up — and we have possessed it; for we are thoroughly able for it.’

³¹ And the men who have gone up with him said, `We are not able to go up against the people, for it [is] stronger than we;’

³² and they bring out an evil account of the land which they have spied unto the sons of Israel, saying, `The land into which we passed over to spy it, is a land eating up its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in its midst [are] men of stature;

It appears from this report that all of the people of the land of Canaan and Hebron may have been very tall people, or giants.  It may be that certain of them had more stature than others because of the reputation their names are given.

When the forty years of wandering in the wilderness were coming to an end, the Israelite passed through other lands on their way to Canaan.  God told them not to bother certain lands that he had promised to both Esau and Lot. God told them not to disturb Moab, as he had promised the land of Ar to Lot, and relates that that land had been formerly occupied by the Emim.

Deu. 2:10-11, ” The Emim formerly have dwelt in it, a people great, and numerous, and tall, as the Anakim;  ¹¹ Rephaim they are reckoned, they also, as the Anakim; and the Moabites call them Emim.”

The Emim were compared to the Anakim (the sons of Anak), a  great, numerous, and tall people.  So, the Emim, or Rephaim, and Anakim were tribes of very tall people, viewed as giants by the rest of mankind.  People are men and women and children of the species of man.

Again speaking of the land which God gave to Lot -

Deu. 2::20-21, “A land of Rephaim it is reckoned, even it; Rephaim dwelt in it formerly, and the Ammonites call them Zamzummim;  ²¹ a people great, and numerous, and tall, as the Anakim, and Jehovah destroyeth them before them, and they dispossess them, and dwell in their stead,”

So, the Rephaim were called Zamzummim by the Ammonite, and Emim by the Moabite.

After battling the Amorite, and defeating King Sihon, the Israelite turned to the land of King Og of Bashan, and all his kingdom of Argob.

Deu 3:11, “for only Og king of Bashan had been left of the remnant of the Rephaim; lo, his bedstead [is] a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the sons of Ammon? nine cubits its length, and four cubits its breadth, by the cubit of a man.”

Og was one of the Rephaim. A common or short cubit was about 18 inches, by the length of an average man’s fingertips to his elbow.  The long cubit was 20 -22 inches.  So, if Og’s bed was 9 cubits long x 4 cubits wide, then Og had to be able to fit within that length and width.  If we use the short or common cubit of 18 inches, then at a minimum, Og had to be somewhere under 13.5 feet tall in order to lie down on his bed.  If we use the long measure, then Og could have been as tall as 16 feet.

Og was the last of the Rephaim, the same giants whom the Ammonite called the Zamzummim, and whom the Moabite called the Emim.  They were as tall as another tribe of giants, the sons of Anak called the Anakim.   Deu. 4:46-47 says that Og was one of the two kings of the Amorite who were dispossessed, the other being king Sihon.

The Rephaim – known also as Zamzummim, and Emim – were of the Amorite.  Amos 2:9 describes the Amorite’s height as being “above the cedars” and they were as strong “as the oaks”.

In His instructions to the Israelite in Deu. chap. 9 to cross over the Jordan, God told them that He was giving these lands to them because of the promises to their fathers – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – and because of the wickedness of the people of the lands; not for their righteousness, but because of the wickedness of these people.   Their entry into the “promised land” was a simultaneous judgment upon the wicked people of those lands.

Deu 9:2-, “a people great and tall, sons of Anakim, whom thou — thou hast known, (and thou — thou hast heard: Who doth station himself before sons of Anak?)  ³ and thou hast known to-day, that Jehovah thy God [is] He who is passing over before thee — a fire consuming; He doth destroy them, and He doth humble them before thee, and thou hast dispossessed them, and destroyed them hastily, as Jehovah hath spoken to thee.”

No one stood against the sons of Anak, the tall and great people known as the Anakim.  But, with God going before them, the Israelite did.

The forested land and the valley of the Rephaim was given to one half of the tribe of Manasseh, and was on the northern edge or border of the lands of Israel.  (Deu 3:13; Josh. 12:4; 13:12; 15:8; Josh 17:15)

Josh. 11:21-22, “ And Joshua cometh at that time, and cutteth off the Anakim from the hill-country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, even from all the hill-country of Judah, and from all the hill-country of Israel; with their cities hath Joshua devoted them.  ²² There hath not been left Anakim in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, were they left.”

The Anakim, sons of Anak, had inhabited the hill country.   We find in Joshua chap. 14 that Caleb asked Joshua for that hill country where Caleb had destroyed the Anakim, and dispossessed them.  The land was also known as Hebron.

Josh. 14:13-15, “ And Joshua blesseth him, and giveth Hebron to Caleb son of Jephunneh for an inheritance,  ¹⁴ therefore hath Hebron been to Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenezzite for an inheritance unto this day, because that he was fully after Jehovah, God of Israel;  ¹⁵ and the name of Hebron formerly [is] Kirjath-Arba (he [is] the great man among the Anakim); and the land hath rest from war.”

The giants were men, a great and tall people who were wicked in the sight of God.

The valley of the Rephaim was well known, and was the site of some of the battles David fought with the Philistines.  (2 Sam. 5:22; 23:13; 1 Chron. 11:15; 14:9)  The King James calls it the valley of the giants in Josh. 15:8; 18:16 where Young’s has Rephaim.

Job, answering the charge of Bildad challenges him in chap. 26:

Job 26:5, “The Rephaim are formed, Beneath the waters, also their inhabitants.”

The Vulgate translates this as “Behold the giants, and those who dwell with them, groan from under the waters.”  The Septuagint has it, “Are not the giants formed from under the waters, and their neighbors?”  The Chaldee has it, “Can the trembling giants be regenerated, when they and their hosts are under the water?”  And, the King James as, “Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.”

The meaning is clearly of the state of the dead, and was referring to the wicked giants who were drowned in the great flood of Noah’s day.  They were dead and gone.  The association is therefore made: valley of the giants; same as the valley of the Rephaim; and, therefore understood as the valley of the dead.

In Psa. 88, the sons of Korah had been praying for the Lord to help them with their afflictions and were asking if He would wait until they were dead before He responded to their petitions.

Psa. 88:10, “ To the dead dost Thou do wonders? Do Rephaim rise? do they thank Thee? Selah.”

Psa 88:5 speaks of the dead as having been cut off by the Lord, meaning that they had no children or descendants left in the land of the living.  Cut off means no issue, no children.  The Rephaim were dispossessed by Moses, and cut off by the Lord when the tribes of Israel moved into their lands. (Josh. 13:12)  The Rephaim were finished, wiped out at that time, but the land was still frequently called by their name for many generations.  It was famous as “the valley of the Rephaim.”

Young’s translation of Prov 2:18 remembers the Rephaim. In speaking of a wicked woman who had forsaken God to walk in paths inclined to death, “For her house hath inclined unto death, And unto Rephaim her paths.”  The reference is to a dead people who perished because of their wickedness.

Prov. 9:18 speaks of the dead that resided in the depths of hell as the guests of a foolish woman’s house, and refers to them as the Rephaim.  “And he hath not known that Rephaim [are] there, In deep places of Sheol her invited ones!”

Rephaim is found in Young’s Literal Translation in several other places and refers to the dead, or likens wicked people to their dead state, which was the result of their wicked ways.  The meaning is clear.  God considers anyone compared to the Rephaim as being dead.  (See Prov. 21:16, Is. 14:9; 17:5; 26:14; 26:19)

Young’s translated the word “Nephilim”  in only one place, and that was in Numbers 13:33.  In that verse it is a clear reference to giants.  Moses sent the spies into the land of Canaan to bring back a report, and they gave an account of the Nephilim, sons of Anak.

Num 13: 33, “and there we saw the Nephilim, sons of Anak, of the Nephilim; and we are in our own eyes as grasshoppers; and so we were in their eyes.’”

The name “Nephilim” was of the same people called the “Anakim”, sons of Anak.  Young’s only has it this one time.  He did not use it in Gen 6:4; where the King James has “giants”, Young’s has “fallen ones.”  The best reasoning for this difference is that the word “nephilim” is from the root word “nephal,” meaning he fell.

Nephilim is the transliteration of Strong’s Heb 5303, “נְפִילִים” ; and Strong’s concordance has “Or nphil {nef-eel’}; from naphal; properly, a feller, i.e. A bully or tyrant — giant.”  Source: Biblehub

The giants had become bullies and wicked people most probably because their height and strength gave them advantage over others, which they then used for selfish, evil purposes.  Remember that saying – absolute power corrupts absolutely ?  They used their power and strength for evil, and became fallen ones – fallen from grace.  The fallen ones were (and still are) those people who became wicked children of wrath (Eph. 2:3) and children of disobedience (Eph. 5:6).

The context of the scriptures in Gen 6 governed the translation.  Numbers 13:33 was discussing a tribe of giant people called by two names, Nephilim and Anakim.  Genesis 6 was discussing the fallen state and wickedness of all mankind.   Young’s translation stayed with the context of the scriptures in Gen 6 and did not limit the wicked people to just the giants.  All of the people had become wicked, and had fallen away from God.

Gen. 6:3, “ And Jehovah saith, `My Spirit doth not strive in man – to the age; in their erring they [are] flesh:’ and his days have been an hundred and twenty years.”

God’s spirit was not going to strive, or fight against the spirit of wicked men for much longer.  He gave them 120 years to repent.

Romans 8:13-14, “for if according to the flesh ye do live, ye are about to die; and if, by the Spirit, the deeds of the body ye put to death, ye shall live;  ¹⁴ for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God;

We have a clear definition of sons of God in Romans chapter 8.  They are the ones who follow after and are led by God’s spirit.

Genesis chap. 5 presented the lineage of those led by the spirit of God, the faithful line of Adam and his son, Seth through the faithful Noah and his sons.  These were led by the spirit of God, and were therefore the Sons of God called in Gen 6.

There is no other acceptable conclusion than that the sons of God in Gen 6:2 were the faithful men of God who unwisely chose women of the unfaithful, and wicked men who lived according to the flesh.

To argue otherwise, that the sons of God in Gen 6:2, and 6:4 were fallen angels is to say that sons of God are not led by the spirit of God.  This is a contradiction of the scriptures!  They cannot be fallen angels, led by lusts of the flesh, and at the same time be sons of God led by the spirit of God!

Genesis chap 6 was not discussing fallen angels, but fallen, wicked, earth-born men.  Wicked men, wicked mankind is the subject matter of Genesis 6. The King James should not have used the word “giants” in Gen 6:4, and the NIV should not have used the transliterated word “Nephilim.”

The NIV and other English translations which use “Nephilim” in Gen. 6:4 are not translating it.  They should have translated it as fallen mankind so that we would have the full connotation of that word as sinful, earth-born wicked men and women!  The correct translation is Young’s as “the fallen ones.”

The so-called Book of Enoch is a fabrication.  It contradicts God’s word, and cannot be relied upon for any information.  You might as well be discussing Jack and the Beanstalk, or Paul Bunyan and mining these fairy tales for secrets in God’s word.  It is the same thing as delving into the Book of Enoch.  The Book of Enoch is a fairy tale.

God used a smaller, weaker people (the Israelite) to overcome a stronger, and much taller people – the wicked giants – and thereby showed His power, and proof of existence to all of the people of those lands.  It was a testimony of His existence to all people.

The DNA for tall or giant people is still carried throughout the blood line of mankind.  Goliath, at 6 cubits and a span, was about 9-1/2 ft tall. (1 Sam. 17:4)  We have people today who are sometimes 7 feet tall.  We see it occur now and then in each generation.

See other posts at ShreddingTheVeil including “Nephilim…Fallen Ones?”, Nephilim…Reprise: And The Sons of God”, and “The Book of Enoch – Fable or Truth”.  All bold emphasis is mine.

(Expanded and edited May 2018.)