Giants In The OT

Scripture

Only king Og of Bashan remained, as the sole surviver of the Rephaim. His sarcophagus of basalt was over thirteen feet long and six feet wide, and it may still be seen in the Ammonite town of Rabbah.

~Deuteronomy 3:11, REB

Quote

Fascinating subjects have a way of becoming obsessions and can become an enemy to our priorities.

~Ya’akov

When I was in college and seminary, prophecy was the in thing and I dabbled in it some but soon realized that it could consume my time without me making any spiritual progress. It was and is a fascinating subject but one has to be careful. To the very end, the disciples begged Jesus to explain prophecy and this was His response to them… It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” It is very easy to get caught up on the times and epochs and lose track of our assignment to be witnesses.

Be that as it is, Michael Heiser’s book the UNSEEN REALM has got amateur theologians talking. What about the giants in the Old Testament mentioned first in Genesis 6 but then referenced in several books of the OT? According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, the giants were not monsters; they were very large men with an inclination to do evil. They appear as bereft of reason; insolent in spirit, rebellious toward God and very violent. They were so violent that they destroyed each other and their own offspring. Their lack of intelligence and their enormous size caused them to be totally void of humility {demut}. In them, you could see no likeness to God’s image. The Rabbis hold that these giants had seven names and I think you can find them all in the Revised English Bible: (1) “Emim,” because whoever saw one of them was seized with terror. (2) “Rephaim,” because their sight made people “soft” (fearful) like wax. (3) “Gibborim,” because their huge heads. (4) “Zamzummim,” because they inspired fear and were fierce warriors. (5) “Anakim,” because they wore huge necklaces in great numbers. You see this sometimes on athletes, unfortunately. (6) “Avim,” because they destroyed the world and were themselves destroyed. (7) “Nefilim,” because they caused the world to fall and fell themselves. They had more than one row of teeth and they had voracious appetites. I can eat an entire chicken but they could eat an ox. Some interpret the sons of Elohim to be the sons of Seth, the giants were the progeny of the union of the Sethites and the Cainite women. Seth had commanded his descendants to keep aloof from the daughters of Cain. Seven generations obeyed his injunction, but they then cohabited with the accursed breed, and the result was the birth of the Anakim, the perpetrators of all kinds of evil. These giants led a most shameful life, thus causing God to send the Flood. The flood didn’t get them all, some survived.

Girls, you can quit reading at this point but guys you will find this interesting. Adam strictly forbade the Sethites to mingle with Cainite women but eventually they fell under their power of seduction. I promise, I am not making this up: they seduced them with bewitching music, jewelry and by their personal charms heightened by cosmetics {make up}.

Hey, there is more. Some legends have Og surviving the flood because Noah made him a special place near the door of the ark, like a huge cage and Noah feed him daily. Keep in mind, this is Jewish folklore, not scripture.

What got me to thinking about this was my reading Deuteronomy 3 in the Revised English Bible. Every translation I have read to this point, speaks of the sarcophagus as a bed with an iron frame. The bed was huge: 13 feet long and 6 feet wide. But the fact that it was on display at Rabbah makes me wonder if it was not his coffin. Basalt is a black rock that looks like iron and was used to make the sarcophagus. One thing is certain: there were giants and some were bigger than Goliath. They had a very low view of God which makes you wonder if they were incorrigible.

I wrote this one yesterday so I know it has not been posted. I thought we needed something on the light side. If you want to read more on the subject, go to the Jewish Encyclopedia and type in “giants in Old Testament.”


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