Canaan: Who Were the Rephaim, the Giants Who Made Israel Fear the Promised Land?

An elderly man speaks to an entire nation for the very last time, knowing fully well he will not cross the river and that his farewell address is his final legacy to the people he guided out of Egypt. Before him stands a vast multitude born entirely in the desert, individuals who have never known the bondage of slavery and are only familiar with sand, tents, and manna. Curiously, right in the middle of a deeply solemn speech centered on divine faithfulness and the promised land, Moses abruptly interrupts his own train of thought to provide the precise measurements of a piece of furniture housed in a foreign city. This is not an exaggeration, as it is formally recorded in Deuteronomy chapter 3, verse 11, where he notes that only Og, king of Bashan, remained of the Rephaim, and describes their bed of iron located in Rabbah of the Ammonites as measuring nine cubits in length and four cubits in width, explicitly adding the phrase according to the common cubit to ensure future readers apply the correct standard.

Scholars calculate that a standard common cubit was approximately 45 centimeters, meaning the bed was roughly 4 meters long and 1.80 meters wide. Since a modern double bed is only about 2 meters long, that ancient iron object was twice that size, requiring an average person to lie down twice end-to-end to cover the distance. Moses does not present this as a vague rumor; he directs his audience to check it out in Rabbah, the royal capital of the Ammonites which currently lies beneath modern-day Amman in Jordan. It was a tangible landmark with gates, a market, and roads, featuring an iron artifact so extraordinarily large that it became a public spectacle. The underlying question is why a dying leader reviewing forty years of history would dedicate a sentence to furniture, and the answer is directly tied to the owner of the object, who belonged to the Rephaim, arguably the most uncomfortable word in the entire biblical text.

The term Rephaim is complex because its meaning shifts entirely depending on its context within the scriptural record. In certain passages, it refers to a living people with established cities, kings, and armies, while in others, it denotes the dead, the shadows, and those dwelling deep within the earth. When Job speaks of the depths, or when Isaiah describes the underworld being stirred by the arrival of a fallen king, they utilize this exact root. Proverbs uses the word to signify the ultimate fate of those who abandon wisdom, portraying the Rephaim not as physical giants, but as powerless shadows without a voice. However, within Genesis, Deuteronomy, and Joshua, the word explicitly designates a concrete political entity with a defined territory and historical memory. This dual function is not a translation error, as contemporary archaeological discoveries, such as the Ugaritic tablets excavated in northern Syria since 1929, reveal references to the Rapiuma as powerful deified ancestors whom the living summoned during ritual banquets. Phoenician inscriptions similarly link the root to illustrious dead, demonstrating that throughout the ancient Levant, the word simultaneously carried connotations of ancient greatness and mortality.

When the biblical text refers to the Rephah, it employs a vocabulary that Israel’s neighbors used to denote their revered ancestors, yet Israel utilized the term without any reverence, applying it strictly as the designation for a defeated enemy. Tracing their historical timeline leads back to Genesis chapter 14, in a war occurring long before Isaac was born, when Abraham still lived near the oaks of Mamre. Four eastern kings launched a military campaign against southern cities that had ceased paying tribute, sweeping through territories east of the Jordan River and defeating the Rephaim in Ashtaroth Karnaim, the Zuzim in Ham, and the Emim in Shaveh Kiriathaim. Ashtaroth Karnaim was located in the northern region of Bashan, which later became the Golan Heights and southern Syria, and centuries later served as a capital for King Og. This historical reality establishes that the Rephaim were not a sudden obstacle encountered by Israel upon arrival, but rather an ancient, established population recorded in military campaigns dating back to the patriarchal era.

One chapter after this ancient war, God establishes a covenant with Abraham, walking between the split pieces of sacrificial animals in a fiery torch ceremony, and lists the native peoples inhabiting the promised land, explicitly including the Rephaim in Genesis chapter 15. This inclusion demonstrates that the presence of these groups was known from the very beginning and was never an unforeseen surprise or a geographical accident. When Moses constructs his geographical map in Deuteronomy chapter 2 to explain why Israel was prohibited from attacking certain neighboring territories, he inserts historical footnotes detailing prior inhabitants. He explains that the Emim previously lived in Moab, described as a tall and numerous people considered Rephaim, while the Ammonites referred to a similar tall group as the Zamzummim. Across different languages and cultures, various regional populations preserved memories of these ancient, large groups, using the Anakim in southern Canaan as the standard point of physical comparison.

It is crucial to distinguish between the Rephaim and the Nephilim, as they are entirely different Hebrew terms appearing in distinct contexts, and Deuteronomy never labels the Emim or Zamzummim as Nephilim. The association with Nephilim derives instead from the emotionally charged reports given by the spies in Numbers 13 during a moment of national crisis. The book preserving these accounts is Deuteronomy, derived from the Greek Septuagint meaning second law, while its Hebrew title is Devarim, signifying words, structured as a series of first-person speeches by Moses. Scholars have long noted striking structural parallels between Deuteronomy and ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaties, which typically featured historical prologues, stipulations, blessings, curses, and instructions for preservation. This treaty format explains why historical geographical notes regarding prior inhabitants are seamlessly woven into Moses’ narrative review of the wilderness journey.

The transmission of this text is supported by rigorous scribal preservation, exemplified by the Masoretic tradition found in the Aleppo and Leningrad codices, as well as the ancient fragments recovered from Qumran near the Dead Sea, which demonstrate remarkable textual stability over millennia. Deuteronomy is heavily cited throughout the New Testament, serving as Jesus’ source for responding to wilderness temptations and articulating the greatest commandment. Beyond Bashan, the geographical footprint of the Rephaim extended remarkably close to Jerusalem, where the Valley of the Rephaim is referenced in the border delineations of Judah and Benjamin, and later served as a strategic campground for the Philistines during their conflicts with King David. They occupied territories to the north in Bashan, to the east in Moab and Ammon, through the central valley near Jerusalem, and southward in Hebron among the Anakim.

Hebron itself possessed immense antiquity, having been founded seven years prior to Zoan in Egypt, and was originally known as Kiriath Arba, named after Arba, the greatest man among the Anakim. It was precisely this fortified city that the twelve spies entered, encountering prominent figures like Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, whose formidable stature ultimately triggered fear and paralysis among the Israelite camp. Following their forty days of covert reconnaissance across the entire land from the Desert of Zin to the entrance of Hamath, the spies returned to Kadesh Barnea carrying massive clusters of grapes from the Valley of Eshcol, along with pomegranates and figs as physical proof of the land’s extraordinary fertility. While they confirmed the abundance of milk and honey, their truthful observation that the inhabitants were powerful, the cities were heavily fortified with massive ramparts, and the sons of Anak were present caused the entire congregation to despair. Although Caleb attempted to silence the crowd and urged immediate possession of the land, the psychological barrier created by the towering fortifications and the legendary lineage of the inhabitants left an indelible mark on Israel’s history, culminating in the final defeat of King Og of Bashan as recorded in the administrative inventory of Joshua chapter 12.