Numbers 13:33

Hebrew Bible

31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!” 32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through to investigate is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw there are of great stature. 33 We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed like grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them.

Amos 2:9

Hebrew Bible

7 They trample on the dirt-covered heads of the poor; they push the destitute away. A man and his father go to the same girl; in this way they show disrespect for my moral purity. 8 They stretch out on clothing seized as collateral; they do so right beside every altar! They drink wine bought with the fines they have levied; they do so right in the temple of their God! 9 For Israel’s sake I destroyed the Amorites. They were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks, but I destroyed the fruit on their branches and their roots in the ground. 10 I brought you up from the land of Egypt; I led you through the wilderness for 40 years so you could take the Amorites’ land as your own. 11 I made some of your sons prophets and some of your young men Nazirites. Is this not true, you Israelites?”The Lord is speaking.

 Notes and References

"... God’s plural address to his divine entourage is found elsewhere in the Bible (e.g. Isaiah 6:8, 40:1–2) and is a type of allusion we presume would have been readily apparent in ancient Israel. The Sons of God must have been familiar creatures in these traditions. In contrast to the Sons of God, the identity of the Nephilim is obscure. Their epithets, “the ancient warriors, the men of renown,” indicate that their stories were well-known, but these legendary exploits have been lost. The only other reference to the Nephilim in the Hebrew Bible is in the report by the Israelite spies commissioned by Moses to reconnoiter the Promised Land. They report after their journey [Numbers 13:32-33] ... According to this fearful report of the spies, the Nephilim are the aboriginal giants of Canaan. A related tradition calls these aboriginal giants the Amorites, as Yahweh recalls in Amos 2:9 ... The statement in Genesis 6:4 that “the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also later,” ties the Nephilim who are mighty warriors before the flood to the Nephilim who are mighty giants in Canaan at the time prior to the Israelite conquest. This dual signification of the Nephilim is odd, but the continuity of the antediluvian and postdiluvian Nephilim is clear enough ..."

Hendel, Ronald "The Nephilim Were on the Earth: Genesis 6:1–4 and Its Ancient Near Eastern Context" in Auffarth, Christoph, and Loren T. Stuckenbruck (eds.) The Fall of the Angels (pp. 11-34) Brill, 2004

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