Who Were the Legendary Giants
Who Were the Legendary Giants? (Part 1) - by Gary Stearman
Ancient accounts name them as the Rephaim! They are the aristocracy of the damnedâ€â€and seem to be a prophetic archetype of Ezekiel's "Gog"!
In the Old Testament, there are many references to a mysterious race known in the ancient past as the "Rephaim." An examination of several scriptural references reveals some amazing things, and significantly adds to our knowledge of prophecy.
Ancient writings from the Middle East, as well as the Bible itself, have long identified them as inhabitants of the underworld. They are described as the departed spirits of the dead. Furthermore, though they may be weak and dissipated in their present state, they appear to be conscious and in possession of knowledge about their existing condition. They are also the recipients of some of God's most severe judgments. But defining them is not as simple as it may first appear, because there are also numerous references to living members of the Rephaim.
Perhaps the most ancient mention of these strange people is found in Job 26, where Job contributes to a discussion about the wicked dead:
"Dead things are formed from under the waters, and the inhabitants thereof.
"Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering" (Job 26:5,6).
Here, the word "dead" is the Hebrew rephaim , not the ordinary word for the dead, which is mooth . These are not the dead in the ordinary sense, but the unredeemed in the underworld. The Rephaim are repeatedly presented in Scripture as being beyond redemption. In fact, they seem to have done something that is especially displeasing to God. They are singled out for a special judgment.
Another example of rephaim as the word "dead" is seen in Proverbs 21:
"The man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead" (Prov. 21:16).
Here, we are given a picture of an assembly of individuals beyond the grave. They appear to be gathered into some sort of group. As we shall see, they are also conscious of their own existence and situation. Their strange congregation stands as a grisly warning to the man whose feet take him away from the path of righteousness. The Rephaim are the lost in the world of the dead.
This assessment of the Rephaim is consistent and powerfully presented throughout the Bible. Perhaps the best example is to be found in a remarkable passage in Isaiah 14. This significant chapter describes the fall of Babylon and its king, then proceeds to the fall of Lucifer. He is seen as the power behind Babylon's throne. Verses 12-14 detail the reason for Lucifer's fall from grace, in which he finally proclaims: "I will be like the most High" (Isa. 14:14).
His open proclamation of rebellion is followed by God's assessment of this brazen opportunist's situation: "Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit" (Isa 14:15).
The Leaders of the Dead
What makes this historical event so interesting in the light of our study is its proximity to a further reference concerning the Rephaim. Just prior to the passage describing Lucifer's fall is another compelling allusion to this peculiar group of the unredeemed dead. Isaiah 14:9-11 record a bizarre reception committee as this king of Babylon descends into the realm of the damned:
"Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
"All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
"Thy pomp is brought down to the grave and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee" (Isa. 14:9-11).
Here we see a gloomy, even horrifying procession of the unredeemed, as they descend from Babylon into hell. They are met by the "dead"  once again the Rephaim  who are here called the leaders of the earth. Apparently, there is something of a hierarchy in hell, whose chief members were once the close henchmen of Satan. They were the possessors of great power. But now, they speak of having become "weak." This is particularly interesting, because their name originates from raphah ), a word root that can indicate "feebleness" or "weakness."
Isaiah 26 is a song about Israel in the kingdom, after the nation has been lifted up and resurrected to new life. But significantly, there is one group whom Isaiah says will never see resurrection. They are the Rephaim, translated as "dead" in Isaiah 26:14:
"They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish."
The plight of the Rephaim begs the question, "What could they have done to deserve such a horrible fate?" As we shall see, it was something quite monstrous, indeed.
New Testament References
To the Fallen
It is quite possible that there are a number of New Testament references to this evil group. For example, in I Peter 3:18-19, we find mentioned a congregation of the underworld who were singled out by Christ after his resurrection:
"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
"By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison."
Having completed His work of redemption upon the cross, the Lord broke through the stygian gloom of deepest hades to proclaim His victory. No doubt, His message was most acutely aimed at the evil leaders of the revolutionary movement. Those to whom He spoke were incarcerated, though some evil spirits (the "principalities … powers … rulers of the darkness …") of Ephesians 6:12 seem free to torment humanity. They are a hierarchy of dark spiritual forces who roam the earth. But there is a group, which has been locked away through several millennia.
Who are these imprisoned spirits? The Bible gives several clues to their identity and the reasons for their confinement. No doubt, they're still there, awaiting the day when the Lord will deliver them to their eternal fate: "And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire" (Rev. 20:14).
As previously stated, there seems to be a special caste of condemned spirits in hades. Perhaps they might be termed "ringleaders," or the avante garde of great rebellion, who joined in when Satan attempted to wrest the control of heaven from God. This fact, coupled with their name, makes it possible to identify them. Jude mentioned them in verse 6 of his epistle:
"And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day."
These ancient residents of heaven must have been proud, powerful, and as deeply deceived as their leader. If, as seems to be the case, heaven has hierarchies of power, these must have been those close to the upper levels  close to Lucifer, himself. In Ezekiel 28:16, Satan is described before his fall as having been a "covering cherub." In other words, he was once one of the watchers assigned to duty at God's very throne! He existed at the very top of God's "chain of command." The angels who followed him must have included many of those in heaven's most respected positions. From their lofty positions, they made a wrong decision of colossal proportions!
Peter further defines the group when he mentions them in II Peter 2:4-5:
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
"And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly."
In these verses, the word "hell" is translated from the Greek tartarus (from tartaroo, or gloomy prison). It indicates the deepest, darkest, and most secure portion of hades. These imprisoned creatures were once the royalty of heaven. But they chose to follow the false promises of Satan.
Once the elite of the revolution, they are now designated for special punishment. More than that, they are identified with Noah, as well as all those of the ancient world before the Flood, who were destroyed in a massive demonstration of God's power in judgment.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who Were the Legendary Giants? (Part 2) - by Gary Stearman
The Giants of the Ancient World
And here, the story begins to get interesting, because some of those sinning angels mentioned by Peter and Jude are also implicated in the horrific perversions that led to the destruction of the world in the great Flood of Noah's day. Their story is told in Genesis 6:4-5:
"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, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."
Here, the "sons of God" are the b'nai elohim. Over the years, it has been greatly debated whether or not these are human beings. Many have said they are the sons of Seth. But in the final analysis, we find that the term b'nai elohim is used elsewhere in the Old Testament. In virtually all of its usages, the obvious reference is to God's angelic creation. (See Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Dan. 3:25; Psalms 29:1 and 89:6.) Most expositors conclude that these are fallen angels, the same as those whom Jude mentions as having left their first estate.
More importantly, when we look at the result of their infraction, it becomes more than obvious that they were those corrupted angels. They literally took human women as mates, resulting in a monstrous progeny that was totally committed to wicked behavior. Their offspring are called "giants." But this word is translated from the Hebrew nephilim, meaning "the fallen ones."
Why then, are they called "giants"? Most likely, it is because the ancient Greek translations of the Hebrew Torah translated this and other references to these monstrous perversions of humanity as "giants," from the Greek gigantes (giganteV).
In fact, the evidence is strong that they really were giants. More than that, they seem to have displayed the superhuman powers that gave rise to the ancient legends of demigods. In the first century, Josephus wrote (Antiquities I, III, 1) that "… many angels of God accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on account of the confidence they had in their own strength, for the tradition is that these men did what resembled the acts of those whom the Grecians call giants."
Those even slightly familiar with ancient Greek mythology will shudder at the implications of this statement. Those ancient tales are fraught with perverse combinations of men and beasts. They tell of demigods whose powers were used capriciously to torture and enslave humanity. They reek of incestuous, occultic and twisted stories of power gone awry  of "gods" who took lives at a whim. They were characterized by evil thoughts acted out in an orgiastic nightmare of abused power. Greek mythology is one continuous horror story, peopled with beasts and monsters of every description.
But Genesis refers to them simply as "giants." A giant then, is some kind of perversion of that which is natural, originally designed by God to live in peace upon the earth. In fact, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament  called the Septuagint  refers not only to the nephilim, but also to the Rephaim, as "giants." But in English translations, this connection is, for the most part, lost. Instead, we find the use of the proper name, Rephaim.
The Rephaim Were Giants
It is remarkable that the Rephaim are also mentioned in the Bible as real, living, historical beings. In fact, they were residents in the territory of modern Jordan and Syria, in the land that lies generally east of the Sea of Galilee. They lived in proximity with two other groups of giants, called "Emim" and "Zamzummim," or "Zuzim." In the ancient world, all of them were referred to generically as "giants." Genesis 14:5 mentions them in conjunction with Abraham's move to the Promise Land:
"And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim" (Gen. 14:5).
To this day, ruins may be found in this region that are of gigantic proportion. Here, and northward into Syria and Lebanon, there are the remains of ancient buildings and temples that stagger the imagination. For example, the ruins of Baalbek, in Lebanon's Beqa'a Valley are so massive that some have suggested they could not be duplicated, even using modern building techniques. On the Acropolis of Baalbek, stood a temple dedicated to the storm god Hadad. It was 60 feet wide and 290 feet long, surrounded by 19 columns, each 62 feet high and over seven feet in diameter. But its flooring stones  still intact  are each larger than a modern railroad boxcar! No one can imagine how they were moved into place.
And there are many other ancient examples of outsized ancient structures in the Middle East. We should not be surprised by their existence. Many times the early Israelites encountered people that they called "giants." Even later, when Moses brought the children of Israel out of Egypt into the Promise Land, giants were seen. Perhaps the most famous incident is in Numbers 13, in which a twelve-man reconnaissance party is sent to spy out the land. Ten of the twelve men were so frightened by the presence of giants that they declined to enter the land again:
"And they brought 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 a great stature.
"And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight" (Num. 13:32-33).
In early Hebrew manuscripts, these giants are called the Nephilim, and were apparently thought by the spies to be descendants of a long line of these creatures, whom we first read about in the days before the Flood. But if the pre-Flood world, with the exception of Noah's family, was entirely destroyed, how did the evil giants survive? Here, we can only speculate. But it seems likely that the lineage of the Nephilim, Emim, Zamzummim, and Rephaim were somehow restarted even in the days after the Flood. One thing we know: after the Flood their behavior was continually evil, just like that of the pre-Flood Nephilim. The strong suggestion is that humanity's interaction with the evil spirits of ancient paganism is capable of disrupting man's genetic heritage. The result seems to be a monstrous offspring.
Still another branch of the Rephaim went by the name of "Anakim." We see them in Deuteronomy 2:10-11, where Moab is described as their area of habitation:
"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; but the Moabites call them Emims."
Here, the word "giants" is once again the Hebrew word Rephaim. They were an abnormal race. All of them seem to have been hated and feared by normal men. God sanctioned their destruction and eventually their lineage entirely disappeared. Even the Zamzummims were a subclass of the Rephaim. Deuteronomy 2:20-21 mentions their destruction from the land of Ammon, while at the same time, designating their origins:
"(That also was accounted a land of giants: [Rephaim] giants dwelt therein in old time; and the Ammonites call them Zam-zummims;
"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" (Deut 2:20,21).
As can be seen from the various Scriptures we have quoted, the Rephaim existed in Moses' day. The Lord even commissioned him to wipe out the last of their race.
