Nephilim (Hastings' Dictionary)

This word (0% '}), translatel ‘giants’ in the AV, is found in two passa; in the OT. The first passage is the note, syn- tactically separate from its context, in Gn 6¢ ‘The Néephilim were in the earth in those days, and also afterward, forasmuch as the sons of God used to go in to the daughters of man, and they bare them children; they were the heroes that were of old, the men of name.

’ The connective ‘forasmuch as’ articulates the statement better than the word ‘when,’ used in the English ver- sions. It is not explicitly said that the Néphiltm were the heroes borne by women to the ‘sons of God,’ and some scholars have held that they were not; but this writer certainly meant that they were, for otherwise it is impossible to account for his mentioning them at all.

There is much here not easy to understand ; but in these four verses we certainly have an allusion to that region of mythology so copiously treated in the sacred legends a other peoples, the region of demigods and heroes. The Néphilim, whatever else may be true of them, are thought of as beings analogous to the demigods of the nations.

The other passage is most naturally thus trans- lated: ‘And there we saw the NépAilim, sons of Anak of the Néphilim ; and we were in our eyes as grasshoppers, and so were we in their eyes’ (Nu 13°), Evidently, the word Néphilim here has exactly the same meaning as in Genesis. These men are trying to find the strongest possible lan- guage for expressing the terribleness of the gigantic Anakim ; and this they effect by saying that the Anakim are veritable demigods.

Per- haps they intended to be understood to imply that the Anakim were descended from the demigods ; or perhaps their language is metaphorical. It raat the Anakim seem more dreadful thus to suggest that there was something supernatural and uncanny about them. When we have examined these two passages we have exhausted the direct evidence in regard to the Néphilim.

Among the derivations proposed for the name, one makes it to be from naphal, “to fall’ ; either as meaning beings fallen from a revious high estate (cf. Is 14%, Lk 1018), or as ghters who fall upon the enemy fiercely. The latter view has been supposed to be favoured by the Greek versions, the LXX having γίγαντες, aie ἐπιπίπτοντες, and Symmachus βιαῖοι, but see Dillm. on Gn 64.

In former generations the passage in Genesis was voluminously discussed, especially the question as to who the ‘sons of God’ there mentioned were. Some account of these discussions, with references to the literature, may be found in Smith’s DB under art. ‘Giants’; see also the various com- mentaries on this passage ; Lenormant, Beginnings of History ; art. GIANT (in vol. ii.) with the litera- ture there{mentioned ; Budde, Urgeschichte, 30 ff.; Wellhausen, Comp. 308. W. J. BEECHER.