by Brian Godawa
Giants in the Land
There are some monsters that I want to address here that are not as mythical as the ones we have looked at, but they are nevertheless as demonic and worthy of comment. These are the giants of Canaan: the Rephaim and the Anakim.
A cursory reading of the conquest narrative certainly results in the discovery of giants in the land of Canaan, but a closer look at the sacred text brings out just how important they are to the cosmic storyline of the Wars of Yahweh.
In Joshua Valiant we see two kings of the Transjordan that must be overcome in order for Israel to secure a safe entry point into the Cisjordan to begin their conquest of the Promised Land: Sihon of Heshbon, and Og of Bashan.
These are not fictional characters. They are from the text. But Sihon is not described as a giant, only as a mighty king of the area whose colonial ambitions were so well known that he had a ballad penned for him about his subduing of the Moabites under his power. A ballad that finds its way into the novel as well.
Numbers 21:26–29
For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and taken all his land out of his hand, as far as the Arnon. 27 Therefore the ballad singers say, “Come to Heshbon, let it be built; let the city of Sihon be established. 28 For fire came out from Heshbon, flame from the city of Sihon. It devoured Ar of Moab, and swallowed the heights of the Arnon. 29 Woe to you, O Moab! You are undone, O people of Chemosh! He has made his sons fugitives, and his daughters captives, to an Amorite king, Sihon.
Last of the Rephaim: Og of Bashan
Og of Bashan is another Biblical story in need of a closer look. The Bible says that he reigned in the northern region of the Transjordan and ruled out of Ashtaroth over sixty cities of Bashan (Deut. 3:4; Josh. 9:10).
These two kings, Og and Sihon are depicted in the Bible as the enemies to overthrow in the Transjordan, so God gives Israel their victory over them (Num 32:33; Deut 1:1–8).
But then the text adds an important note about Og. It says that he was the “last of the Rephaim,” a species we have seen elsewhere to be giants (Deut. 2:10–11, 20–23). It says that his territory, Bashan was called “The land of the Rephaim” for its population of giants (Deut. 3:13). It says his bed, or sarcophagus was at least thirteen and a half feet long. His size was so impressive that the bed had become a museum trophy piece in Israel years later.
Deuteronomy 3:11
11 (For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits (13.5 feet) was its length, and four cubits (6 feet) its breadth, according to the common cubit.)
In the original Hebrew, Og’s “land of the Rephaim” is an ambiguous wording that could equally be translated as “the ‘hell’ of the Rephaim.”[36] Bashan was a deeply significant spiritual location to the Canaanites and the Hebrews. And as the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible puts it, Biblical geographical tradition agrees with the mythological and cultic data of the Canaanites of Ugarit that “the Bashan region, or a part of it, clearly represented ‘Hell’, the celestial and infernal abode of their deified dead kings,” the Rephaim.[37]
Mount Hermon was in Bashan, and Mount Hermon was a location in the Bible that was linked to the Rephaim and ruled over by Og (Josh. 12:1–5), but it was also the legendary location where the Sons of God were considered to have come to earth and had sexual union with the daughters of men to produce the giant Nephilim.[38]
As I explained in previous Chronicles’ appendices, the Rephaim have an extra-Biblical tradition in Ugarit that is also tied to the land of Canaan. One of the corpus of texts unearthed at Ugarit just north of Canaan within the last century was what came to be known as the Rephaim Texts. These texts and others talked about a marzih feast that involved royalty traveling distances in their chariots to participate, wherein the “most ancient Rephaim of the netherworld” are summoned to assemble as the “council of the Ditanu, (or Didanu).”[39]
As Ugaritic scholars Levine and Tarragon sum up, “the Rephaim are long departed kings (and heroes) who dwell in the netherworld, which is located deep beneath the mountains of that far-away eastern region where the Ugaritians originated.”[40]
There are two places in the Bible that hint at the Rephaim being warrior kings brought down to Sheol in similar language to the Ugaritic notion of the Rephaim warrior kings in the underworld:
Is. 14:9
Sheol beneath is stirred up
to meet you when you come;
it rouses the shades [The Hebrew word Rephaim]
to greet you,
all who were leaders of the earth;
it raises from their thrones
all who were kings of the nations.
Ezek. 32:21
They shall fall amid those who are slain by the sword… The mighty chiefs [Rephaim] shall speak of them, with their helpers, out of the midst of Sheol: “They have come down, they lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword.”
Hebrew scholar, Michael S. Heiser concludes about this connection of Rephaim with dead warrior kings in Sheol and Bashan:
That the Israelites and the biblical writers considered the spirits of the dead giant warrior kings to be demonic is evident from the fearful aura attached to the geographical location of Bashan. As noted above, Bashan is the region of the cities Ashtaroth and Edrei, whichboth the Bible and the Ugaritic texts mention as abodes of the Rephaim. What’s even more fascinating is that in the Ugaritic language, this region was known not as Bashan, but Bathan—the Semitic people of Ugarit pronounced the Hebrew “sh” as “th” in their dialect. Why is that of interest? Because “Bathan” is a common word across all the Semitic languages, biblical Hebrew included, for “serpent.” The region of Bashan was known as “the place of the serpent.” It was ground zero for the Rephaim giant clan and, spiritually speaking, the gateway to the abode of the infernal deified Rephaim spirits.[41]
Sons of Anak: Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai
But the real enemy to overcome in Canaan was the Anakim, a powerful giant clan that seemed to dominate the southern region of the hill country. In fact, when the spies went on their forty day reconnaissance of the country, they came back with a report that told of the “Sons of Anak,” who were giants that apparently had genetic roots in the original Nephilim before the Flood.
Numbers 13:32–33
“The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
These Anakim are referred to as being “of great height” making the Israelites feel “like grasshoppers” (Num. 13:33), their height was a standard of tallness that other giants are compared to (Deut. 2:10, 21), a people “great and tall” who had a reputation for being so mighty that no one could stand before them (Deut. 9:2).
Deuteronomy 9:2–3
2 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?’ 3
Joshua 14:15 adds that the city of Kiriath-arba, (later changed to the name Hebron), was founded by Arba, “the greatest among the Anakim.” In Joshua 15:13 we discover that “Arba was the father of Anak,” the original descendant of the Anakim. That is why I placed Arba many generations earlier as the founder of Kiriath-arba during the time of Abraham in the previous novel Abraham Allegiant. Since Abraham spent many of his years at the Oaks of Mamre, only two miles away from Kiriath-arba (Gen. 35:27), it was not too much of a leap to think that he had some contact with Arba, and maybe that was where a blood feud arose between the two peoples.
But then the Bible says that there were three very important Anakim who Caleb had ousted from Kiriath-arba when he conquered that key Anakite city. (Judg. 1:9–10)
Joshua 15:
13–14
13 He gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh a portion among the people of Judah, Kiriath-arba, that is, Hebron (Arba was the father of Anak). 14 And Caleb drove out from there the three sons of Anak, Sheshai and Ahiman and Talmai, the descendants of Anak.
But there were also some interesting Jewish legends that added Ahiman as being the mightiest of the three.[42] Rabbinic tradition records Ahiman as challenging passers-by with the taunt, “Whose brother will fight with me?”[43] Sheshai and Talmai were said to make deep furrows or pits in the ground with their footsteps.[44]
I used these names of Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, as brothers of a ruling Anakim family and chief villains in Joshua Valiant and Caleb Vigilant. These warriors must have been the most difficult to overcome for Israel since they received such a special mention in Scripture several times for their mighty prowess (Josh. 15:13–14; Num. 13:22; Judg. 1:9–10). This was the basis for my focus on these three in the novels as the ones to beat for Joshua and Caleb.
How Tall Were the Giants?
Most of the giants in Joshua Valiant and Caleb Vigilant are between eight and twelve feet tall. While some writers on the Nephilim have conjectured giants in Canaan to be as tall as thirty feet and higher, I think that is without Biblical, historical, or archaeological justification.[45]
The only sizes of giants that are specified in the Bible are that of Goliath (“6 cubits and a span” or 9½ feet tall),[46] Og of Bashan (his bed of nine cubits long or 13½ feet),[47] and an unnamed Egyptian giant “of great stature, five cubits tall” (7½ to 8 feet).[48] These numbers are based on the cubit size in Scripture as being the “common” cubit of Canaan, which most scholars agree is about eighteen inches. But the definition of a cubit in that day was the span of a man’s elbow to his forefinger, which was not uniform like we have today. So in reality, those sizes are only approximations and could more likely be a bit larger.[49]
A further complication arises when one considers the fact that Moses had been raised and educated as royalty in Egypt. So he and the Exodus Israelites no doubt used the Egyptian royal cubit in their measurements. The question then is whether or not the Biblical text translated that cubit measurement to the smaller Mesopotamian/Levantine cubit or not. There is an indication in other Biblical texts of the awareness of this cubit difference. The writer of the Chronicles (written much later in Israel’s history during the exile) makes this distinction when describing the dimensions of Solomon’s temple. He writes that the “the length, in cubits of the old standard, was sixty cubits, and the breadth twenty cubits” (2 Chron. 3:3). Ezekiel, describing the measurements of the temple in his vision, also makes this distinction of cubit difference as well when he writes, “the altar by cubits (the cubit being a cubit and a handbreadth)” (Ezek. 43:13). He later calls this a “long cubit” (Ezek. 41:8). So these parentheticals written by authors around the time of the exile indicate that during that time, there was still an awareness of the older and longer Egyptian cubit as if they had been still using it up until that date.[50]
If we apply this longer cubit measurement to Goliath’s 9 cubits and a span, we get a height of about 10 1/2 feet tall![51] The Egyptian giant warrior that was killed by Benaiah (1 Chron. 11:23) was then 8 1/2 feet tall. Og of Bashan, whose bed was 9 cubits long (Deut. 3:11), would be 13 or 14 feet tall by this longer cubit. But the text says his measurement was made “according to the common cubit,” so Og was more likely the shorter height of about 11 to 12 feet.
A few extra-Biblical sources add some more context to the size of Canaanite giants. The pseudepigraphical Book of Jubilees, when speaking of Og’s kingdom of Rephaim, measures the giants from the size of 10 feet to 15 feet tall.
Jubilees 29:9
But before they used to call the land of Gilead the land of the Rephaim; for it was the land of the Rephaim, and the Rephaim were born (there), giants whose height was ten, nine, eight down to seven cubits. [10 1/2 feet to 15 feet tall]
One thirteenth-century Egyptian papyrus describes bedouin nomads in Canaan as being “four or five cubits (7 to 9 feet) from their nose to their foot and have fierce faces.”[52]
First century Jewish historian Josephus wrote about the giants in Hebron or Kiriath-arba of Canaan as 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 creditable relations of other men.[53]
Josephus also wrote of a Jew named Eleazar during the time of Tiberius who was 7 cubits tall (10½ feet).[54]
Pliny, the Roman historian wrote of a giant during the time of Claudius named Gabbaras, who was over 9 feet tall.[55]
Greek historian Herodotus (ca. 430 B.C.) wrote of ancients finding a coffin ten feet long with human bones in it to match.[56]
A Greek geographer, Pausanias (ca. A.D. 150) wrote of Roman soldiers diverting the river Orontes in Syria finding a coffin more than 16 feet long with a corpse the size of it inside. The Orontes flows through Mount Hermon in the land of Bashan, where the Rephaim king Og ruled.[57]
Scholar Adrienne Mayor analyzes many other ancient accounts of the discovery of coffinless giant bones, some as big as sixty cubits tall, in her book The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times. She analyzes them only to reveal that most of them are mammoth and other ancient extinct fossils innocently misinterpreted as buried bones of giants by ancient man unaware of such prehistoric beasts.
In light of these ancient descriptions, I kept my giants within this more realistic range of 7 to 12 feet tall, with Ahiman being an anomaly of 15 feet high.
But the Bible does not merely mention giants as being generic bad guys in the land just because they are tall and mean. Joshua seems to be on a systematic search and destroy mission for the Anakim in particular, which as noted earlier in Numbers 13:33 was because they had direct ancestral ties to the evil Nephilim giants wiped out at the Flood.
Joshua 11:21–22
21 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 devoted them to destruction with their cities. 22 There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain.
But since the Anakim were theologically tied to the Nephilim of Genesis 6, whose bloodguilt was partially responsible for the Flood, it makes sense that God would engage in a mop up operation on their giant descendants later. Interestingly, the giants left in Gaza and Gath, the land of the Philistines, would cause much pain for Israel in the time of the Judges and be wiped out finally by David, the symbolic type of Messiah, who would be the ultimate victor over the principalities and powers of this present darkness in the heavenly places. Christus Victor. But that is for the upcoming novels to reveal.
About the Author
Brian Godawa is the screenwriter for the award-winning feature film, To End All Wars, starring Kiefer Sutherland. It was awarded the Commander in Chief Medal of Service, Honor and Pride by the Veterans of Foreign Wars, won the first Heartland Film Festival by storm, and showcased the Cannes Film Festival Cinema for Peace.
He also co-wrote Alleged, starring Brian Dennehy as Clarence Darrow and Fred Thompson as William Jennings Bryan. He previously adapted to film the bestselling supernatural thriller novel The Visitation by author Frank Peretti for Ralph Winter (X-Men, Wolverine), and wrote and directed Wall of Separation, a PBS documentary, and Lines That Divide, a documentary on stem cell research.
Mr. Godawa’s scripts have won multiple awards in respected screenplay competitions, and his articles on movies and philosophy have been published around the world. He has traveled around the United States teaching on movies, worldviews, and culture to colleges, churches and community groups.
His book, Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernm
ent has been released in a revised edition from InterVarsity Press. His book Word Pictures: Knowing God Through Story and Imagination (IVP) addresses the power of image and story in the pages of the Bible to transform the Christian life.
Find out more about his other books, lecture tapes and dvds for sale at his website www.godawa.com.
JOSHUA Valiant is 5th in a Series!
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Enoch Primordial is one chapter of the series saga Chronicles of the Nephilim that charts the rise and fall of the Nephilim and just what their place is in the evil plans of the fallen sons of God called, “The Watchers.”
Book 1, Noah Primeval, reveals the hero’s journey of Noah that leads to God’s first act of justice against this diabolical plan of the Watchers: The Deluge.
The Prequel, or Lost Book 2, Enoch Primordial tells the forgotten story of the original descent of the Watchers on Mount Hermon and their introduction of the Nephilim into the created order.
Book 3, Gilgamesh Immortal tells the story of the first Giant King after the Flood, Gilgamesh of Uruk and his epic search for eternal life.
Read the rest of the series to discover just how far the Seed of the Serpent will go in its war on the Seed of Eve.
BOOKS BY BRIAN GODAWA
