Giants

The umbrella collects the figures of unusual stature who appear at the edges of Israel's history — from the antediluvian Nephilim to the Philistine champions David and his men cut down. Several distinct names group under it: Nephilim, Anakim, Emim, Rephaim, Zamzummim, and the named warriors Og of Bashan, Goliath of Gath, and Ishbi-benob.

The Antediluvian Nephilim

The first appearance is set before the flood: "The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God entered the daughters of man, and they bore [children] to them: the same were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown" (Gen 6:4). The same name reappears in the spies' report from Canaan, where the link to that older race is made explicit: "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" (Num 13:33).

The Anakim

The Anakim are the towering people the spies dread on the southern hill-country approach: "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" (Num 13:28). Their reputation feeds the panic at Kadesh: "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" (Deut 1:28). On the eve of the conquest the same fear is named again: "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?" (Deut 9:2).

The conquest narratives report the Anakim being driven from the land. Joshua clears them from the southern hill-country: "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" (Josh 11:21). Hebron itself is identified by its Anakim association: "Now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba, which was great among man of Anakim. And the land had rest from war" (Josh 14:15). Caleb takes Hebron from the line in particular: "And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak: Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak" (Josh 15:14).

The Emim, Rephaim, and Zamzummim

The territories east of the Jordan carry their own names for the same kind of population, and the text supplies the synonymies. Of the Moabite plateau: "(The Emim dwelt in it previously, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakim" (Deut 2:10). They are classed with the Anakim in the broader category: "these also are accounted Rephaim, as the Anakim; but the Moabites call them Emim" (Deut 2:11). Of the Ammonite territory: "(That also is accounted a land of Rephaim: Rephaim dwelt in it previously; but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim," (Deut 2:20). The early-patriarchal raid reports the same peoples occupying the same general region: "And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings who were with him, and struck the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim, and the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh-kiriathaim," (Gen 14:5).

The Rephaim also leave their name on the western highlands. Joshua tells the Joseph tribes to clear timber "in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim; since the hill-country of Ephraim is too narrow for you" (Josh 17:15). The southern boundary of Benjamin runs past "the valley of Rephaim northward" (Josh 18:16).

Og of Bashan

One named survivor of the Rephaim is preserved in the deuteronomic account: "(For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the Rephaim; look, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits the width of it, after the cubit of a man.)" (Deut 3:11). The iron bedstead, preserved as a relic at Rabbah, fixes Og as the last representative of the trans-Jordanian giant population.

Goliath, Ishbi-benob, and the Sons of the Giant

By the Davidic period the surviving giant-figures are concentrated among the Philistines, particularly at Gath. The most famous is Goliath: "And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span" (1 Sam 17:4). David's later wars against the Philistines bring out the rest of "the sons of the giant." Ishbi-benob nearly kills the king: "and Ishbibenob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred [shekels] of bronze in weight, he being girded with a new [sword], thought to have slain David" (2 Sam 21:16). And another at Gath: "And there was again war at Gath, where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant" (2 Sam 21:20).

Two later texts pick up the Goliath strand and read David's victory back through the figure of the giant. Sirach's praise of David puts the killing at the head of his exploits: "In his youth he slew the giant, And took away the reproach from the people; When he slung his hand with the sling, And broke the pride of Goliath" (Sir 47:4). And the eulogy of Judas Maccabeus at the opening of his war stretches the same image forward: "And he got his people great honor, And put on a breastplate as a giant, And girt his warlike armor about him in battles, And protected the camp with the sword" (1 Macc 3:3). By this point "giant" has become as much a posture taken in battle as a name for a separate race — the warrior who stands over Israel's enemies the way David stood over Goliath.