In the book of Genesis we read the blunt, categorical statement: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God [angels] saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. . . .There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men [had sexual relations with them], that they bare CHILDREN to them, the same became MIGHTY MEN which were of old, men of renown" (Gen.6:1-4).
Who were these "giants" and men of "renown"? What does the Bible tell us about them? This is a fascinating story -- one that needs to be told!
What happens when a spirit being appears as flesh, and unites with a mortal woman, and their two seeds join -- the sperm of the male and the egg of the female? This was a union which God had forbidden -- for good reason. The offspring which resulted, were not only proud, insolent, arrogant, and self-centered -- they were also extremely cunning in some cases -- and they were sometimes GIGANTIC in stature! They disrupted the entire ecology and balance of life of the world before the Flood. Admits the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary
"Who, or what, then, were the Nephilim? In the only other passage where the word occurs (Num.13:32-33), it clearly means giants, being derived . . . from the mutually related roots of three verbs, yielding the fundamental idea of HUGE, EXTRAORDINARY SIZE. Nor can it be deemed incredible that in the antediluvian age, when, from the remains of quadrupeds and other inferior animals, we see that they were of an immensely larger type than the existing race of them exhibits . . . .
"Archaeology, too, show, from the traditionary fables of the classical poets, as well as from the colossal monuments that are extant, that there were people in remote times of CYCLOPEAN STRENGTH; and whether this . . . was the characteristic percularity of a certain class only, various circumstances contribute to warrant the conclusion, that in the world before the Flood there were Titans distinguished by corporeal stature and energies far above the present scale. But although the idea of GIGANTIC POWER does underlie the language of the sacred historian, the term Nephilim seems to bear a deeper significance; and if etymology may guide us, it describes a class of men of worthless and at the same time of violent character. . . intimating that the Nephilim were marauding nomads -- men of a violent, overbearing, lawless character -- who abused their bodily powers to obtain their selfish ends; who were constantly roving from place to place in quest of plunder, and, emerging suddenly from their retreat, made attacks both on the property and the lives of men" (Critical Experimental Commentary, vol.1, p. 89).
Giants AFTER the Flood, Too!
Men of gigantic stature are also mentioned as existing after the Flood of Noah's time. When the children of Israel sent spies into the land of Canaan, preparatory to invading the land, they were appalled to find giants dwelling in the land. They gave to Moses and the people a frightening, dismaying report:
"Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. . . . We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the GIANTS, the sons of Anak, which come of the GIANTS: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in their sight" (Numbers 13:28-33).
The word for "giants" here is the same word used in Genesis 6:4 -- the Nephilim. Obviously, therefore, some of them lived after the Flood.
A Second Irruption of Giants
Where did these giants come from? Since all the Pre-Flood giants were destroyed by each other, or before the Flood, these must have been born to disobedient angels who sinned by cohabiting with women soon after the Deluge. Says the Companion Bible:
"But we read of the Nephilim again in Num.13:33: 'there we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, which come of the Nephilim.' How, it may be asked, could this be, if they were all destroyed in the Flood? The answer is contained in Gen.6:4, where we read: 'There were Nephilim in the earth in those days (i.e., in the days of Noah); and also AFTER THAT, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children unto them, the same became the mighty men (Heb. gibbor, the heroes) which were of old, men of renown' (lit. men of the name, i.e. who got a name and were renowned for their ungodliness).
"So that 'after that,' i.e. after the Flood, there was a second irruption of these fallen angels, evidently smaller in number and more limited in area, for they were for the most part confined in Canaan, and were in fact known as the 'nations of Canaan.' It was for the destruction of these, that the sword of Israel was necessary, as the Flood had been before.
"As to the date of this second irruption, it was evidently soon after it became known that the seed was to come through Abraham; for, when he came out from Haran (Gen. 12:6) and entered Canaan, the significant fact is stated: 'The Canaanite was then (i.e. already) in the land.' And in Gen.14:5 they were already known as 'Rephaim' and 'Emim,' and had established themselves at Ashteroth Karnaim and Shaveh Kiria- thaim" (Appendix 25).
Satan knew that the promised Messiah would come through the descendants of Abraham. Satan adopted a pre-emptive strategy and bred more "giants" to occupy the Promised Land to prevent the Israelites from being able to occupy it. His plan aborted, however, when the Israelites under Moses and later Joshua conquered the inhabitants of the land, and destroyed the remaining Anakim.
Another Race of Giants -- the Rephaim
In the book of Deuteronomy, Moses writes of the land of Moab, "The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims" (Deut.2:10-11). The word for "giant" here is Raphah, which means "giant." Interestingly, the same word also means "ghost, dead, deceased." The Rephaim were another of the lines of giants which existed after the Flood. Moses tells us of the land of Moab, "That also was accounted a land of giants; GIANTS dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zamzummims; a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead" (v.20-21).
Og, the king of Bashan, conquered by Moses and the Israelites on their entrance into the Promised Land, was one of the giants. "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits [approximately 14 feet!] was the length thereof, and four cubits [6 feet] the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man [i.e., a normal man -- the normal cubit measured 18 inches]" (Deut.3:11). Bashan, the land of Og, was called "the land of giants"(v.13; see also Josh.12:4, 13:12). The valley of Hinnom, the refuse dump for Jerusalem, a type of the final Gehenna fire, lay eastward of the "valley of the giants" (Josh.15:8; 18:16). Joshua 17:15 mentions the "Rephaim," another branch of the "giants." These dwelt in the region near Sodom and Gomorrah in the time of Abraham (Gen.14:5; 15:20; see also II Sam.5:18,22; 23:13).
In an ancient text of the Jews, we read an astonishing description of some of these gigantic Amorites whom the Israelites conquered. In Buber's Tanhuma, Devarim 7, the text tells us of a Rabbi Johnanan ben Zakkai's encounter with the Roman Emperor Hadrian. This event occurred in about A.D. 135, soon after the Roman victory in the Bar Kochba war, when the Jews rebelled against the Romans. The text reads:
"The wicked emperor Hadrian, who conquered Jerusalem, boasted, 'I have conquered Jerusalem with great power.' Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai said to him, 'Do not boast. Had it not been the will of Heaven, you would not have conquered it.' Rabbi Johanan then took Hadrian into a cave and showed him the bodies of Amorites who were buried there. One of them measured eighteen cubits [approximately 30 feet] in height. He said, 'When we were deserving, such men were defeated by us, but now, because of our sins, you have defeated us'" (quoted in Judaism, edited by Arthur Hertzberg, p.155-156, George Braziller, New York: 1962).
Thirty feet tall! The bones of these men were still in existence during the time of Josephus, the Jewish historian of the first century!
The "Giants" of Mythology and Early History These mighty "giants" of old were the source and origin of the Greek legends of gods coming down from heaven and marrying women, having incestuous and adulterous relationships, "Cyclops," and other "Titans" and giants. They may also explain the difficulties engineers have had in explaining the construction of the great pyramid and the movement of the massive blocks of stone weighing hundreds of tons! Says the Companion Bible:
"If these Nephilim . . . were associated with Egypt, we have an explanation of the problem which has for ages perplexed all engineers, as to how those huge stones and monuments were brought together. . . .
"Moreover, we have in these mighty men, the 'men of renown,' the explanation of the origin of the Greek mythology. That mythology was no mere invention of the human brain, but it grew out of the traditions, and memories, and legends of the doings of that mighty race of beings; and was gradually evolved out of the 'heroes' of Gen.6:4. The fact that they were supernatural in their origin formed an easy step to their being regarded as the demi-gods of the Greeks" (appendix 25).
The Companion Bible adds:
"Thus the Babylonian 'Creation Tablets,' the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead,' the Greek mythology, and heathen Cosmogonies, which by some are set on an equality with Scripture, or by others adduced in support of it, are all the corruption and perversion of primitive truths, distorted in proportion as their origin was forgotten, and their memories faded away" (Companion Bible, appendix 25).
The Encyclopedia Britannica, eleventh edition, provides more insight into the giants of old. Although the editors of the Britannica did not endorse the idea of real "giants" as having lived in the past, they put together a very interesting description of a theme which runs throughout ancient times -- that of real living giants. Notice:
"When reading in Homer of 'the Cyclopes and the wild tribes of the Giants,' or of Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemus (Homer, Odyss. vii, 206; ix), we seem to come into view of dim traditions, exaggerated [sic] through the mist of ages, of Pre-Hellenic barbarians, godless, cannibal, skin-clothed, hurling huge stones in their rude warfare. Giant-legends of this class are common in Europe and Asia, where the big and stupid giants would seem to have been barbaric tribes exaggerated [sic] into monsters in the legends of those who dispossessed and slew them. In early times it was usual for cities to have their legends of giants. Thus London had Gog and Magog, whose effigies (14 ft. high) still stand in the Guildhall; Antwerp had her Antigonus, 40 ft. high; Douai had Gayant, 22 ft. high, and so on" (v.11, p.926).
The Roman historian Pliny relates that an Arabian, Gabbarus, was about 9 and one half feet tall, and he also mentions a Posio and Secundila who were half a foot taller. Why should this seem so strange or unbelievable to moderns? The Scriptures tell us that David slew Goliath (whose name means "an exile"), a famous giant of the city of Gath, who was probably descended from the ancient Rephaim, of whom a remnant took refuge among the Philistines (Deut.2:20-21; II Sam.21:22). Goliath's height was "six cubits and a span," making him 9 feet and 9 inches tall!
Possible footprints of ancient gigantic men have been found in places like the Paluxy riverbed in eastern Texas. A tooth weighing 4 and three quarters pounds, and a thigh bone 17 feet long were found in New England in 1712, and were at that time thought to be evidence of the existence of ancient men of prodigious size in the antediluvian world. Giants in the streets of Basel, supporting the arms of Lucerne, seem to have originated from fossil bones found in 1577. Examined by the physician Felix Plater, they were pronounced as having belonged to a giant some 16 or 19 feet high.
According to ancient English history, the giant effigies (dating from 1708 and replacing those destroyed in the Great Fire of London) of Gog and Magog in Guildhall were the survivors of a race of giants. Says the Recuyell des histoires de Troye, Brute [Brutus] and his companions, when they fled ancient Troy, sailed through the Mediterranean, and up the coast of Europe, eventually invading England. "Gog and Magog" were among a race of giants they encountered. After the giants were defeated, these two were brought to London (Troy-novant or "New Troy") and compelled to officiate as porters at the gate of the royal palace. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Goemot or Goemagzot (either corrupted from or into "Gog and Magog") was a giant, who, along with his brother Corineus, tyrannized in the western horn of England until slain by foreign invaders ("Gog," Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, vol.12. p.190).
The Jewish historian Josephus, writing of the time of the Exodus and conquest of Canaan, tells us further:
"There were till then left the RACE OF GIANTS, who had bodies so large, and countenances so entirely different from other men, that they were surprising to the sight, and terrible to the hearing. The bones of these men are still shown to this very day, unlike to any credible relations of other men" (Ant., V,ii,3).
Josephus relates that remnants of the race of giants still lived in David's day, about 1000 years before Christ. After one particular battle when king David made war against the Philistines, putting them to flight, he was tired and left alone, and one of the enemy saw him, "whose name was Achmon, the son of Araph; he was one of the sons of the giants. He had a spear, the handle of which weighed three hundred shekels, and a breastplate of chain-work, and a sword. He turned back, and ran violently to slay [David] their enemy's king, for he was quite tired out with labour; but Abishai, Joab's brother, appeared on the sudden, and protected the king with his shield, as he lay down, and slew the enemy" (Ant., VII, xii,1). The handle or staff of this giant's spear weighed about 75 pounds!
http://www.hope-of-israel.org/giants.htm
