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Deuteronomy adds a note about how Ammon was once a land of Rephaim, giants that God destroyed so others could settle in their land. Jubilees adds a similar side note about Gilead, basing its account of the giants’ old land on Deuteronomy.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Deuteronomy 2:20
Hebrew Bible
19 But when you come close to the Ammonites, do not harass or provoke them because I am not giving you any of the Ammonites’ land as your possession; I have already given it to Lot’s descendants as their possession.” 20 (That also is considered to be a land of the Rephaites. The Rephaites lived there originally; the Ammonites call them Zamzummites. 21 They are a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed the Rephaites in advance of the Ammonites, so they dispossessed them and settled down in their place. 22 This is exactly what he did for the descendants of Esau who lived in Seir when he destroyed the Horites before them so that they could dispossess them and settle in their area to this very day.
Jubilees 29:9
Pseudepigrapha
8 There he made a mound as a testimony; for this reason that place is named the mound of testimony after this mound. 9 But at first the land of Gilead was named the land of Rafaem because it was the land of the Rafaim. The Rafaim were born, giants whose heights were ten cubits, nine cubits, eight cubits, and down to seven cubits. 10 The places where they lived extended from the land of the Ammonites as far as Mt. Hermon. Their royal centers were Karnaim, Ashtarot, Edrei, Misur, and Beon.
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Notes and References
... Having just explained the meaning of Gilead (the mound/heap of testimony), the writer departs from his base text in Genesis for a short section about Gilead and its past. He formulates the aside on the pattern of the one in Deuteronomy 2:19-21. There, after the Lord warns the people of Israel not to bother the Ammonites when they pass their border with Moab (Deuteronomy 2:19), he gives way to an editor who inserts some information about the country of Ammon: ‘It is also usually reckoned as a land of Rephaim. Rephaim formerly inhabited it, though the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, a strong and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them from before the Ammonites so that they could dispossess them and settle in their place’ (2:20-21). ...
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