David Alsobrook - Land of Giants

The Land of Giants

by David Alsobrook

Did giants ever exist?

How did they originate?

What happened to them?

Are there giants today?

Unless otherwise noted all Scripture quotations are from the Authorized (King James) Version.

Italicized portions of Scripture quotations are the author's emphasis, not the versions quoted.

Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Did Giants Ever Exist?
2 What Were Giants and How Did They Originate?
3 Slaying Giants

Acknowledgments

I wish to give grateful thanks to those who helped with this book. Most of them were unaware of their help and some are enjoying their reward, nevertheless their aid was invaluable and the apostolic injunction to "give honor to whom honor is due" aptly fits these scholars.

Grateful acknowledgment is given to J. Finis Dake whose tedious work in the Scriptures has helped multitudes of serious Christians in their endeavors to better understand the Word of God. His notes on giants motivated my initial study and were the foundation upon which it was built.

I also wish to credit the work of these other scholarsStrong, Wilson, Gesenius, Zodhiates, Ryrie, Unger, Davis, Halley, Harris, Archer, and Waltke. I researched all the modern and ancient translations and also employed the original language study aids, especially in the part on the Rephaim (the Shades).

I would like to thank Katherine Ingerson, formerly of Tampa, Florida, more recently of heavenly location, for her initial encouragement several years ago and for her editing and grammatical input.

Several who read the manuscript commented on the scholarly, well-written flow in this study. Now you know why.

Finally, I want to thank Dianne, Ashley, and Kimberly for giving me up for concentrated blocks of time. This book consumed far more time than any previous book of its size. May God bless them for their continual unselfishness in allowing me to fulfill the writing and traveling ministry He called me to perform.

Introduction

Why Giants?

Why a book about giants? Aren't there more important subjects? Why spend precious time on such a trivial, perhaps speculative subject?

If you asked yourself these questions when you saw the cover of this book you are not alone. I remember when my secretary asked me what I was writing and the look she gave me when I told her. She simply could not believe I was writing about literal giants. "You mean 'the giants in our lives,' don't you?" she asked in disbelief. "Well, yes, uh...just wait for the book."

Granted, giants are not on the top of God's priority list, but having devoted most of my writing to major Bible doctrines, I don't think the subject of giants is too unimportant to consider now. Especially when the Bible devotes more than 75 verses to this "minor" subject!

Besides, when it comes to the Word of God no one should select certain portions and leave the rest alone. Jesus said that life comes from every word of God ( see Matthew 4:4).

Often what seems to be a sideline subject is actually far more important than what it appears at first glance.

Such is the case with giants. Let me give you a little tidbit that will be verified as you study this book: giants were actually an early attempt of Satan to corrupt the human family, thereby preventing the coming of Jesus, the Seed of the Woman!

Now, if that isn't important, please tell me what is!

Chapter One

Did Giants Ever Exist?

"...all Bashan, which was called the land of giants" ( Deuteronomy 3:13).

As a little boy I was fascinated with the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk." The deep bass voice crying out, "Fee, fi, fo, fum...I smell the blood of an Englishman" sent chills up and down my spine. I also marveled at the adventures of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe. The friendly giant in Gul iver's Travels and the mighty Hercules in Greek mythology intrigued me, too. Although I knew none of it was true, my imagination was an open stage where these fictitious guys could play and perform their extraordinary feats, especially during boring days at school.

I heard about giants in Sunday School, too, but my teacher "explained" that Goliath was not a real gianthe was just a big man, since "no such thing as a giant has ever existed."

I unconsciously accepted her statement until I studied the Word of God about giants. I was amazed at the Bible record! Not only do we find solitary giants mentioned, like Goliath and Og, but we even find nations of giants in several references! It is true there were none the size of the fabled Paul Bunyan whose head "reached into the Milky Way" but there were men two and maybe three times taller than we are today! These men not only made many Israelites feel like grasshoppers, but that is in fact how the Hebrews appeared to them ( see Numbers 13:32,33).

Have you ever considered Og? (Read about him in Numbers 21:33-35 and Deuteronomy 3:1-11.) This giant king, whose name is recorded in twenty two verses of the Bible, ruled over "threescore cities" in the ancient area of Palestine known as Bashan. He slept in a bed of iron (to support his weight) which was nine cubits long and four cubits wide.

A "cubit" was a common measurement in antiquity and was gauged from 18 to 25 inches, so you can see that his bed was anywhere from 13 1/2 to 18 feet long (depending on the cubit length you accept) and almost half that wide. In fact, the Ammonites were so amazed at its size that they made his bed a museum-type show piece.1

Many centuries after Og's defeat at the hand of Moses the Israelites still sang praises to the God who smote him ( see Psalm 135:10-11; 136:17-20). When you consider how large Og was and how powerful his kingdom of sixty cities must have been it was truly remarkable that Moses destroyed him. Og was the last enemy Israel had to conquer before they could enter Canaan (although they were soon scared by the thought of a land of giants to overcome ).

No wonder Rahab told the Hebrew spies, partly in reference to Og's defeat, "...as soon as we had heard these things our hearts did melt...for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath" (Joshua 2:11).

Og was among the last of the race of giants called the Rephaim ( see Joshua 12:4)a ferocious giant nation whose rulers lorded over the other inhabitants of ancient Palestine, according to Isaiah 26:13,14 (literal Hebrew):

"O LORD our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us: but by Thee only will we make mention of Thy name. They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased (Rephaim) they shall not rise: therefore hast Thou visited and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish."

The Rephaim controlled a large valley, near Jerusalem, for many centuries.

"The valley of the Rephaim or giants near Jerusalem was a perpetual reminder, by its name, of the early stalwart race which long inhabited it (Joshua 15:8; 18:16)" (Davis Dictionary of the Bible , p. 269).

The "valley of Rephaim" (valley of giants) is mentioned five times in the King James Bible (2 Samuel 5:18; 23:13; 1 Chronicles 11:15; 14:9; Isaiah 17:5). Unger says the Rephaim were: "...the aboriginal giants who inhabited Canaan, Edom, Moab, and Ammon. In Abraham's time, c. 1950 B.C., Chedorlaomer defeated them. At the period of the Conquest, c. 1440 B.C., Og, king of Bashan is said to have alone remained of this race" ( Unger's Bible Dictionary , p. 402 ).

The Rephaim were the most populous of the giant nations and the ones who inhabited the greater Palestine area; hence, the term "Rephaim" became a Hebrew generic word for giants in general more than for the Rephaim tribe in particular.

Bashan, Og's former domain, was an area where many Rephaim lived which was also known as "the land of giants" (see Deuteronomy 3:13; Joshua 15:8). In fact, it appears that Palestine was a giant haven where the often mentioned Anakim lived ( see Numbers 13:22-28; Deuteronomy 1:28; 2:10,11,20,21; Joshua 11:21,22; 14:12,15).