Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim)

by Brian Godawa

  Returning to Genesis 6:1-4, let’s take a look at the second part of the passage:

  Gen. 6:3-4

  Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

  Some believe that the Nephilim were not the result of the sexual union between the sons of God and the daughters of men, but rather Nephilim were simply mighty warriors who happened to be around during those times before and after the incident of the sons of God. But this view would make nonsense of the text by inserting something (Nephilim) that has no connection to what is being talked about, namely the sexual unions and the flood. The pericope of verses 1-4 are a lead up to the proclamation of the flood in verses 5-8. The contextual reading of this concise unit of text begins talking about the sexual union of the sons of God with the daughters of men, then makes a reference to God’s announcement to destroy the world in 120 years, which then references the Nephilim in context with that judgment, and then bookends the pericope with a reference back to the supernatural sexual union again, thus linking everything between those “bookends” as a sidebar explanation of what it was all about, which leads to the flood in verse 5-8. The Nephilim were around before and after the flood, not just the intermarriage incident, and they were the offspring result of that union.[42] Numbers 13:33 confirms this interpretation by saying that the Anakim at the time of Joshua were descendants of the Nephilim, so the Nephilim were clearly around before and after the flood.

  But the question remains, what does the Hebrew word Nephilim mean? Some scholars looking at the root word claim that it means “fallen ones” because that is what the Hebrew means, “to fall”. But there is a problem, and that is that the Septuagint (LXX) which is sometimes quoted by the New Testament authors as authoritative, translates this word as “giants.”[43] Did those ancient Hellenized Jews not know the true meaning of the word? Or did they know something we do not?

  Biblical scholar Michael S. Heiser has revealed a Biblical reference that virtually seals the proof that Nephilim are giants, not “fallen ones.” In his article “The Meaning of the Word Nephilim: Fact vs. Fantasy”[44] he explains that Hebrew is a consonantal language, which means it only spells words with consonants and leaves the reader to fill in the vowels. The ancient language of Aramaic is also consonantal and has an influence on the Hebrew text at various places. There are many Aramaic words in the Bible, and some chapters, such as Daniel 2-7, are written in Aramaic. In later copies, vowel markers were added to the consonants in order to aid in pronunciation. He then explains that the Hebrew word NPHL which is translated into English as Nephilim has different meanings depending on the morphology or form of the word. Evidently the morphological form of the word in Genesis and Numbers is not that of the Hebrew meaning “fallen ones,” but that of the Aramaic meaning “giants.” And the Bible clinches this argument in Numbers 13:33:

  Num. 13:33

  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.”

  Heiser shows that the first spelling of Nephilim in the verse is the Hebrew spelling, but the second spelling of Nephilim is a variation that is clearly the Aramaic spelling of “giants.” And should there really be any question when the text then describes these Anakim who are descendants of the Nephilim as being gigantic in stature such that they felt like small grasshoppers?

  Now, let’s take a look at the Anakim and the other giants that the Bible speaks about. The Anakim or “sons of Anak” are unquestionably defined as giants throughout the Bible because of their tall height (Num. 13:33; Deut. 1:28; 2:10, 21; 9:2). One of the most famous of all those Anakim giants was Goliath.[45] He stood at 9 feet 9 inches tall.[46] His coat of mail alone weighed about 125 pounds, the weight of his spearhead was 15 pounds (1 Sam. 17:4-7). There is no doubt Goliath was unnaturally huge in stature. And his brother Lahmi was of the same genetic material (1 Chron. 20:5). Philistia had a big problem with these Anakim giants, as 1 Chronicles 20:4-8 attests to no less than four of them who had to be killed by King David’s men in an apparent campaign against the giants.

  But if we go back in time from David to Joshua and the conquest of the Promised Land, we see that the giant Anakim that David was fighting were merely the leftovers from Joshua’s own campaign to wipe them out:

  Josh. 11:21-22

  Then 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 utterly destroyed them with their cities. There were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained.

  As it turns out, the Anakim were not the only giants in the land. Evidently the land in and around Canaan was crawling with giants that were called by different names in different locations, such as the Emim, Rephaim, Zamzummim, Horim, Avvim and possibly Caphtorim:

  Deut. 2:10-11, 20-23

  (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim… (It is also counted as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly lived there—but the Ammonites call them Zamzummim— a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim; but the LORD destroyed them before the Ammonites, and they dispossessed them and settled in their place as he did for the people of Esau, who live in Seir, when he destroyed the Horites before them and they dispossessed them and settled in their place even to this day. As for the Avvim, who lived in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them and settled in their place.)

  King Og of Bashan is described as one of the last of “the remnant of the Rephaim” whose bed was over 13 feet long and made of iron (Deut. 3:11). That is no kingly bed alone; that was a large strong iron bed to hold a giant.

  The Rephaim have an interesting Biblical history that connects them literarily to the Nephilim in the Bible. First, the Nephilim are described as gibborim, or “mighty men,” “men of renown” in Genesis 6:4. This word gibborim is used extensively throughout the Old Testament of warriors such as David’s “mighty men” (2 Sam. 16:6) and even of the giant Goliath (1Sam. 17:51) and many others.[47] The Nephilim were mighty warriors. The Rephaim were mighty warrior kings.

  In the Bible, Rephaim were Anakim giants, descendants of the Nephilim (Deut. 2:11; Num. 13:33), who were so significant they even had a valley named after them (“Valley of the Rephaim,” Josh. 15:8). But there is more to the Rephaim than that. Og, king of Bashan, was a Rephaim giant, and all his portion of the land of Bashan was called “the land of the Rephaim” (Deut. 3:13), an ambiguous wording that could equally be translated as “the ‘hell’ of the Rephaim.”[48] 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.[49]

  Mount Hermon was in Bashan, and Mount Hermon was a location in the Bible that was linked to the Rephaim (Josh. 12:1-5), but was also the legendary location where the sons of God were considered to have come to earth and have sexual union with the daughters of men to produce the giant Nephilim.[50]

  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.[51]

  List of Giants

  The Bible reveals that there are many different clans that either were giants or had giants among them that were ultimately related in a line all the way back to the Nephilim of Genesis:

  Nephilim (Gen. 6:1-4; Num. 13:33)

  Anakim (Num. 13:28-33; Deut. 1:28; 2:10-11, 21; 9:2; Josh. 14:12)

  Amorites (Amos 2:9-10)

  Emim (Deut. 2:10-11)

  Rephaim (Deut. 2:10-11, 20; 3:11)

  Zamzummin (Deut. 2:20)

  Zuzim (Gen. 14:5)

  Perizzites (Gen. 15:20; Josh. 17:15)

  Philistines (2 Sam. 21:18-22)

  Horites/Horim (Deut. 2:21-22)

  Avvim (Deut. 2:23)

  Caphtorim (Deut. 2:23)

  The following are implied as including giants by their connection to the descendants of Anak in Numbers 13:28-29:

  Amalekites

  Hittites

  Jebusites—The word means “Those who trample”

  Amorites (Amos 2:9-10 links the Amorites as giant in size and strength)

  Hivites (Has the same consonants as a Hebrew name for snake)

  Here were the towns, cities or locations that were said to have had giants in them:

  Gob (2 Sam. 21:18)

  Hebron/Kiriatharba (Num. 13:22; Josh. 14:15)

  Ar (Deut. 2:9)

  Seir (Deut. 2:21-22)

  Debir/ Kiriath-sepher (Josh. 11:21-22)

  Anab (Josh. 11:21-22)

  Gaza (Josh. 11:21-22)

  Gath (Josh. 11:21-22)

  Ashdod (Josh. 11:21-22)

  Bashan (Deut. 3:10-11)

  Ashteroth-karnaim (Gen. 14:5)

  Ham (Gen. 14:5)

  Shaveh-kiriathaim (Gen. 14:5)

  Valley of the Rephaim (Josh. 15:8)

  Moab (1 Chron. 11:22)

  Many significant individuals are described in the Bible implicitly or explicitly as giants being struck down in war against Israel:

  Goliath (1 Sam. 17)

  Lahmi, Goliath’s brother (1 Chron. 20:5; 2 Sam. 21:19)

  Ishbi-benob (2 Sam. 21:16)

  Saph/Sippai (2 Sam. 21:17; 1 Chron. 20:4)

  Arba (Josh. 14:15)

  Sheshai (Josh.15:14, Num. 13:22)

  Ahiman (Josh. 15:14, Num. 13:22)

  Talmai (Josh. 15:14, Num. 13:22)

  An unnamed warrior giant (1 Chron. 20:6)

  And unnamed Egyptian giant (1 Chron. 11:23)

  Og of Bashan (Deut. 3:10-11)

  The ubiquitous presence of giants throughout the narrative of the Old Testament is no small matter. When God commanded the people of Israel to enter Canaan and devote certain of those peoples to complete destruction (Deut. 20:16-17), it is no coincidence that most of these peoples we have already seen were connected in some way to the Anakim giants, and Joshua’s campaign explicitly included the elimination of the Anakim/Sons of Anak giants. Could these giants that were from the lineage of the Nephilim (who were the offspring of the Sons of God) be the very Seed of the Serpent that would be at enmity with the promised messianic Seed of the Woman (Gen. 3:15)? You will have to read the sequels to Noah Primeval to find out.

  Appendix C

  Leviathan

  In my novel Noah Primeval, I have a sea dragon called “Leviathan” that is crucial to the plot of the story. While it is a monster of the waters, a symbol of chaos, it nevertheless is providentially used by Elohim and tamed for his own purposes. I found this character in the pages of the Bible itself and had always been befuddled by its presence. It kept popping up in strange places like the book of Job and the Psalms. Was this a mythical creature in holy writ? Was God’s power over Leviathan as described in Job just a poetic way of saying God is in control and nothing is too powerful for him? I would soon find out that this recurring sea dragon was so much more.

  Job 41 is devoted to this strange creature. Here is that chapter in its entirety:

  “Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook

  or press down his tongue with a cord?

  Can you put a rope in his nose

  or pierce his jaw with a hook?

  Will he make many pleas to you?

  Will he speak to you soft words?

  Will he make a covenant with you

  to take him for your servant forever?

  Will you play with him as with a bird,

  or will you put him on a leash for your girls?

  Will traders bargain over him?

  Will they divide him up among the merchants?

  Can you fill his skin with harpoons

  or his head with fishing spears?

  Lay your hands on him;

  remember the battle—you will not do it again!

  Behold, the hope of a man is false;

  he is laid low even at the sight of him.

  No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.

  Who then is he who can stand before me?

  Who has first given to me, that I should repay him?

  Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

  I will not keep silence concerning his limbs,

  or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame.

  Who can strip off his outer garment?

  Who would come near him with a bridle?

  Who can open the doors of his face?

  Around his teeth is terror.

  His back is made of rows of shields,

  shut up closely as with a seal.

  One is so near to another

  that no air can come between them.

  They are joined one to another;

  they clasp each other and cannot be separated.

  His sneezings flash forth light,

  and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

  Out of his mouth go flaming torches;

  sparks of fire leap forth.

  Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke,

  as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

  His breath kindles coals,

  and a flame comes forth from his mouth.

  In his neck abides strength,

  and terror dances before him.

  The folds of his flesh stick together,

  firmly cast on him and immovable.

  His heart is hard as a stone,

  hard as the lower millstone.

  When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid;

  At the crashing they are beside themselves.

  Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail,

  nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin.

  He counts iron as straw,

  and bronze as rotten wood.

  The arrow cannot make him flee;

  for him sling stones are turned to stubble.

  Clu
bs are counted as stubble;

  he laughs at the rattle of javelins.

  His underparts are like sharp potsherds;

  he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire.

  He makes the deep boil like a pot;

  he makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

  Behind him he leaves a shining wake;

  one would think the deep to be white-haired.

  On earth there is not his like,

  a creature without fear.

  He sees everything that is high;

  he is king over all the sons of pride.”

  As this chapter describes, this is no known species on earth. From the smoke and fire out of its mouth to the armor plating on back and belly, this monster of the abyss was more than a mere example of showcasing God’s omnipotent power over the mightiest of creatures, it was symbolic of something much more. And that much more can be found by understanding Leviathan in its ancient Near Eastern (ANE) and Biblical covenantal background.

  In ANE religious mythologies, the sea and the sea dragon were symbols of chaos that had to be overcome to bring order to the universe, or more exactly, the political world order of the myth’s originating culture. Some scholars call this battle Chaoskampf—the divine struggle to create order out of chaos.