Anakim

The Anakim are the giant clan of the Canaanite hill-country whose stature becomes the test case for Israel's faith at the threshold of the land. They cluster around Hebron and the southern highlands, are accounted with the older Rephaim, and frame two consecutive generations of Israelite response: the spies who shrank from them at Kadesh, and Caleb and Joshua who finally drove them out.

A Race Of Giants

The first sustained look at the Anakim comes through the eyes of the twelve spies. Their report concedes the land's fertility but fixes on its inhabitants: "Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified, [and] very great: and moreover we saw the sons of Anak there" (Nu 13:28). What follows reads less as reconnaissance than as a folk memory: "And there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight" (Nu 13:33). The tradition reaches back to Gen 6:4, where the Nephilim are "the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown."

The contagion of fear is preserved verbatim in Moses' retelling a generation later: "Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our heart to melt, saying, The people are greater and more numerous than we; the cities are great and fortified up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakim there" (De 1:28). At Kadesh, the spies' counter-conclusion to Caleb's faith was concrete and procedural — "We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we" (Nu 13:31) — and it widened into open slander: the land "is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature" (Nu 13:32).

When the next generation is being prepared for the crossing, the Anakim are named again as the obstacle that has not gone away: "a people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, whom you know, and of whom you have heard it said, Who can stand before the sons of Anak?" (De 9:2).

Anakim, Rephaim, And Emim

Israel's tradition slots the Anakim into a wider taxonomy of giant peoples. The Emim are sized against them directly: "The Emim dwelt in it previously, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim" (De 2:10), and the relationship is then made explicit — "these also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim" (De 2:11). The Ammonite parallel runs the same way: "That also is accounted a land of Rephaim: Rephaim dwelt in it previously; but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim" (De 2:20).

Og of Bashan stands as the sole survivor of that older line — "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; look, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron... Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits the width of it, after the cubit of a man" (De 3:11). The earliest mention of the Rephaim as a people is the war of Genesis 14, where Chedorlaomer "struck the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim" (Ge 14:5). The Valley of Rephaim near Jerusalem (Jos 15:8 territory; cf. Jos 18:16) and the forested Rephaite country in the Ephraim hills (Jos 17:15) preserve the same memory in toponyms long after the peoples themselves have been displaced.

Hebron And The Three Sons Of Anak

The Anakim concentrate at Hebron. The spies' route brings the point home: "And they went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the sons of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)" (Nu 13:22). The city's earlier name keeps the connection in plain sight: "And to Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a portion among the sons of Judah, according to the [Speech] of Yahweh to Joshua, even Kiriath-arba, [which Arba was] the father of Anak (the same is Hebron)" (Jos 15:13). And after the conquest: "Now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba, which was great among man of Anakim. And the land had rest from war" (Jos 14:15).

This is the same Hebron Abraham knew — "And Sarah died in Kiriath-arba (the same is Hebron), in the land of Canaan. And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her" (Ge 23:2) — which makes the Anakite occupation the obstacle standing across patriarchal ground.

Defeated By Joshua

The Joshua narrative resolves what the spies could not face. "And Joshua came at that time, and cut off the Anakim from the hill-country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill-country of Judah, and from all the hill-country of Israel: Joshua completely destroyed them with their cities" (Jos 11:21). The summary is then qualified with geographic precision: "There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, did some remain" (Jos 11:22). The Philistine coast keeps a remnant — and the later giants of David's wars come from exactly those cities. Goliath is "of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span" (1Sa 17:4); Ishbibenob "was of the sons of the giant" (2Sa 21:16); the six-fingered, six-toed warrior at Gath "also was born to the giant" (2Sa 21:20).

Defeated By Caleb

The decisive Anakite engagement is Caleb's own. He had been the minority-report spy from the start — "And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it" (Nu 13:30) — pleading with the congregation, "Only don't rebel against [the Speech of] Yahweh, neither be⁺ afraid of the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defense is removed from over them, and [the Speech of] Yahweh is with us: don't fear them" (Nu 14:9). For that, Yahweh promised him the very ground he had walked: "except Caleb the son of Jephunneh: he will see it; and to him I will give the land that he has trodden on, and to his sons, because he has wholly followed Yahweh" (De 1:36).

Forty-five years later, at eighty-five, Caleb claims the promise by naming the obstacle: "Now therefore give me this hill-country, of which Yahweh spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and cities great and fortified: it may be that [the Speech of] Yahweh will be with me, and I will drive them out, as Yahweh spoke" (Jos 14:12). Joshua "blessed him; and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh for an inheritance" (Jos 14:13), and "Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day; because he wholly followed Yahweh, the God of Israel" (Jos 14:14).

The Anakite garrison falls by name: "And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak: Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak" (Jos 15:14). The Judges summary preserves the same outcome from Caleb's side: "And they gave Hebron to Caleb, as Moses had spoken: and he drove out from there the three sons of Anak" (Jud 1:20).

Sirach's praise of the ancestors keeps the Kadesh moment in view: Moses and Caleb "did an act of piety in the days of Moses... In standing firm when the congregation broke loose, To turn away wrath from the assembly, And to cause the evil report to cease" (Sir 46:7). For Caleb in particular, Yahweh "gave strength to Caleb, And to old age it stood by him, To cause him to tread upon the high places of the land" (Sir 46:9) — the Anakite hill-country, taken at last.