Nephilim
Named twice, described almost not at all, and the subject of more speculation than any other word in Genesis.
The Nephilim appear in one verse before the Flood, alongside a line about the sons of God taking wives of the daughters of men, and the text gives them only "the mighty men who were of old, men of renown". The word surfaces once more, in the report the spies bring back from Canaan, where the sons of Anak are called Nephilim and the spies say they felt like grasshoppers. Almost everything else said about them — who fathered them, what became of them, whether the two passages describe the same thing — is inference, and the text neither supports nor refuses most of it.
Disputed. Genesis 6:4 gives no description beyond "mighty men of old". Whether they are the offspring of the sons of God, whether the Numbers 13 reference is the same group, and what the word means are all disputed and none is settled by the text.
Where it appears
See also
- Rephaim — The other word the tall peoples are grouped under