Weird Stuff in the Bible

Goliath’s Brothers and Other Giants of the Bible
II Samuel 21

Introduction
Let’s begin with where we left off last week. We started with Goliath and traced his origins and ancestral line backwards, all the way back to Genesis 6. In those verses in Genesis 6, we read about how spiritual beings called the Sons of God came down to earth and mated with human women.
As I said last time, this is probably the weirdest thing I believe. And if you like hearing about Weird Stuff in the Bible, you’re in the right place.
Genesis 6:1-4 say
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
So last week, we talked about how the giants- or Nephilim- were created. And how this eventually led to a most famous giant: Goliath, who fought David in I Samuel 17.
But wait, you might say: wait a minute Luke. Genesis 6:1-4 happened BEFORE the flood of Noah. So how did the Nephilim continue to populate the world in Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua and I and II Samuel, which all take place after the flood.
That’s what I will talk about today, and along the way, we’ll also meet all the other giants of the Old Testament. It wasn’t just Goliath. He wasn’t just a one-and-done. There are multiple others; in fact, entire tribes of giants.
I find that to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Numbers 13, and let’s get weird.
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How did the Nephilim return after the flood?
As I said in the intro, this is the weirdest thing I go into on this podcast. So if you like learning about the strange things in the scriptures, you’re in the right place.
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about Goliath’s brothers and other giants of the Bible.
But first, let’s deal with this question of how the giants returned after the flood of Noah. There are three popular views on how this happened.
Some believe that the flood of Noah’s day did not cover the entire planet. This is called the local flood view; it believes that the flood of Noah was not something that covered the world, just the local environment of the Middle East. You say, but doesn’t the Bible say it covered the whole world? Yes, but proponents of this view say that Noah or Moses may have only known about the Middle East region, so to them, this WAS the whole world. And so if the flood was limited to just the Middle East, perhaps there could have been other Nephilim giants in other parts of the world who weren’t affected by the flood.
One of my favorite theologians, Dr. Michael Heiser, took this view. I do not. To me, a major purpose of the flood of Noah was to kill all the Nephilim. So if the flood wasn’t widespread enough to kill them all, then why have a flood in the first place? Why spend 100 years building an ark if Noah could have just moved to Florida? So that’s why I don’t take this view, although there are some very smart scholars who do.
Another theory on how the Nephilim survived the flood is that Noah’s wife- or perhaps one of his son’s wives- would have had some Nephilim lineage and therefore carried the Nephilim genetics in her bloodline, thus passing it on to her sons. Or perhaps one of Noah’s son’s wives’ carried the Nephilim genetics in her blood, and after the flood, those genes were somehow activated after the flood. 
A scholar named Dr. Laura Sanger takes this view. I think Dr. Sanger has a lot of interesting and intriguing things to say, but I would differ with her on this. Again, this negates the purpose for the flood. It was to wipe out the Nephilim bloodline. If some of Noah’s family carried those genetics with them onto the ark, then it was all for nothing.
A third theory is that some Sons of God or Watchers came down and tried this again after the flood. A basis for this is that Genesis 6:4 told us, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.” Another translation, the KJV, says it like this: "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them,”
The fact that it says “and also after that” implies to me that this happened again. A transgression of the watchers to create giants.
The argument against this view is that we have no scriptural stories of when exactly this happened. The first transgression has Genesis 6, II Peter, Jude, and the extrabiblical Book of Enoch, to tell us about it. If the watchers tried it again, we don’t have any details about when it happened.
But to me, the fact that Genesis 6 says, “and also after that,” tells us that it did happen, even if we don’t know exactly when.
Some might say, “But Luke, why would they try it again after it didn’t work the first time around, since God just sent a flood.” But I’d say, remember that God said to Noah He would never again flood the world. That was a one-time thing. And I’m sure the demonic world heard about that. So they probably thought if they tried it again, this time they would get away with it. There wasn’t going to ever be another flood to ruin their plans.
(That’s the REAL meaning of the rainbow, by the way, so Happy Pride month everybody. The rainbow was God’s promise not to flood the world again.)
But anyway, as it turns out, their plans would get ruined again, because all of the second-wave giants get wiped out in warfare. And we’ll be looking at all their stories today.

Anak
So turn with me to Numbers 13. And as we’re turning there, I’ll just mention, there are no good giants who can just be left alone. These are fused with demonic DNA. The scriptures describe them as beings that "every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” in Genesis 6:5. If you read ancient accounts of the giants, they are nothing but violent and cannibalistic and a major threat. So from the Bible’s point-of-view, there is nothing redeemable about a giant; they must only be eradicated.
We don’t come across giants after the flood until the spies are sent to scout out the land of Israel in Numbers 13. Here’s what happened.
Verses 25-28
25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.
And then verses 32 and 33
32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
Now you say, Luke, we just read this last week. Yes we did, but let’s talk about Anak there. Who was Anak? Because it says some of this second wave of Nephilim came from Anak. And so these particular giants will be called the Anakim.
We don’t know who Anak was, but let me throw out some possibilities. One, Anak was a prominent giant in that area in that time. He had several giant kids, and those giant kids had giant kids, and I bet this family left a huge mess every time they went to McDonalds.
Two, perhaps Anak was not the name of an ancient giant but actually the name of a Watcher who came down and mated with a human female. Therefore, Anak in this case would be a fallen angel, basically, and the father of this bloodlines.
Third, I’m wondering if perhaps Anak was the mother, since she would be the human source of this new line of giants. I don’t think that’s the case, but I’m just throwing it out there to cover all my bases. These giants are called the Anakim and typically people groups are not named after an ancient grandmother. Also, Anak just sounds kinda like a boy’s name. I’m sorry to any ladies out there named Anak who might be listening, I don’t meant to offend you, but I just think it sounds like more of a guy name.
My guess would be that Anak is an ancient giant patriarch, the leader of a clan or tribe. Now where did Anak himself come from? Again, we don’t know, but I think there was a second transgression of the watchers. By the time we learn Anak’s name in the Scripture, he is already dead.
So what happens with the Anakim? Well, the Israelites don’t go kill the Anakim in Numbers because they chicken out, so they’re forced to spend 40 years in the wilderness until the next generation goes in. However, during those 40 years, they do encounter a clan of giants in a region called Bashan.
Bashan is a demonic stronghold in the Old Testament. It contains Mount Hermon, which is the mountain where the first transgression of the Watchers is believed to have taken place, the story told in Genesis 6. Bashan is the place of the serpent, and it’s also the region known in the time of Jesus as the gates of hell. In the time of Moses, there is a stronghold of giants in this region, which I don’t believe is coincidence. There’s just a lot of bad spiritual mojo in this place.
Numbers 21:31-35
31 Thus Israel lived in the land of the Amorites. 32 And Moses sent to spy out Jazer, and they captured its villages and dispossessed the Amorites who were there. 33 Then they turned and went up by the way to Bashan. And Og the king of Bashan came out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei. 34 But the Lord said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.” 35 So they defeated him and his sons and all his people, until he had no survivor left. And they possessed his land.
Many people struggle with God’s commands in these books to wipe out certain villages, and God would often say, “Leave no survivor, not even children, sometimes not even animals.” (Not that that’s a direct quote, but that’s basically what God would say.)
This is something atheists often point out to disparage God’s character in the Bible. This is something many pastors and apologists have to answer for. We often make it into kind of a moralistic lesson that we should listen to whatever God says, no matter what. (Or some apologists actually try to explain this away as if it didn’t literally happen.)
And I have an alternative answer to this problem: they were killing giants. That’s what this was for. Genocide of a demonic unredeemable race. And you don’t leave any giants alive, they are pure evil, not even baby giants who might grow up and become a problem with you 30 years from now, or mix with your future daughters and pollute the Israelite bloodline. Plus, what do you even feed a baby giant? No, it’s gonna turn into a Gremlins sequel if you bring that thing home.
Anyway, Og the King of Bashan was a giant. When Moses recounts this story later, he says in
Deuteronomy 2:3-4
3 So the Lord our God gave into our hand Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people, and we struck him down until he had no survivor left. 4 And we took all his cities at that time—there was not a city that we did not take from them—sixty cities, the whole region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.
And then it says in verse 11
11 (For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.)
Og’s bed was 13-and-a-half feet long and 6 feet wide. Which means bro was either a giant or on major steroids. And I’m gonna go with giant because it said Og was a remnant of the Rephaim. Who are they?
The Rephaim are a type of giant. They actually are referred to in Genesis 14, but they aren’t stated to be giants back there. They were giants, but that just wasn’t made clear back then. Rephaim means ghosts or shades. “Shade” is a word for a dark spirit. When I think of the Anakim, I think of more of the WWE wrestler types of giants. They want to be champions; they want to put on a show. When I think of the Rephaim, I think of the Goth giants. The Rephaim are more loners, but something about them seems more sinister. A lot of that is just my imagination but that helps me keep them all straight. Og is the king of the goths.
There is another dude who is often mentioned in conjunction with Og named Sihon. It’s possible to me that he was a giant as well, although I can’t prove it. So I just leave it as a possibility because Sihon and Og are mentioned repeated together throughout the rest of the Old Testament. This was a major victory for Israel that was referred back to a lot going forward. And the Bible often makes note that the end of Og and his kingdom was the end of the Rephaim.
Well, the end of the physical Rephaim. As I was saying last week, the spirits of the giants become the unclean spirits or demons we see going forward. Unclean is a word the Bible uses to denote a mixture, a mixing of two different things. The demons are unclean spirits because they are part human, part fallen angel. Even though the physical Rephaim giants are defeated in Numbers 21, their spirits are referred to in:
Isaiah 21:13-14
13 O Lord our God,
    other lords besides you have ruled over us,
    but your name alone we bring to remembrance.
14 They are dead, they will not live;
    they are shades, they will not arise;
to that end you have visited them with destruction
Where it says “they are shades,” that is the word “rephaim.” The spirits of the giants do not rise. They remain here on earth. They seek to torment humans and do the bidding of the fallen angels. Later this summer, I plan to do a deep-dive into the hierarchy of fallen angels from Ephesians 6, and we’ll learn how demons and fallen angels and principalities all work together and understand more of the spiritual battlefield.

Mailbag
But that’s for later. We still have a few more giants to read about today: Goliath’s brothers. Before I get into that, I just want to give a shoutout to a few people who gave me a shoutout last week. Thank you to Sherry and Reuben for some positive comments and shares on social media. That was very awesome of you guys. Reuben shared a picture of listening to the podcast while on his drive to work and that just blows my mind to think of someone giving me their time like that, so thank you to both of you.
Got an email just this weekend from Jon who says, “I’m a total weirdo! Just finished all the podcasts and looking forward to more!” Jon, I am humbled and amazed that anybody would listen to me for that long that they’ve heard every single episode. Thank you for being an all-in listener. My heart goes out to you that you had to listen to my voice for that long but I’m glad you enjoyed the content.
And I do have some bad news, Jon. I’ve said before on the podcast that if you listen to at least 25 episodes of this show, you are an official weirdo. But I said that back when I only had like 25 episodes, and now we have like 75 episodes, so I’m afraid you are a triple weirdo!
Also to Matt who left this comment on Spotify: “We enjoyed that show on Amazon as well! Great episode!” So thank you to Matt, he left that on last week’s episode where I was referring to the new House of David show on Amazon. That was a really well-done series. It does change a few things from the biblical narrative but in very minor ways. The biggest change it makes is that the David and Goliath fight lasts a little longer than how it seems to be in the Bible. David even gets nicked by a spear. That’s gonna bother some people. It wasn’t a dealbreaker for me; I think it was generally pretty faithful to the text and it even went out of its way at times to include a lot of details from the Scriptures that other depictions of David usually don’t.
One aspect I was especially surprised by is that it actually gave the Nephilim view for the origin of the giants. It actually- especially in episode 6- goes into great detail what the book of Enoch says about the Watchers coming down and getting with human women. It doesn’t show any sexual content in the show but it makes it clear that the Nephilim came from this union. So being a weird Bible guy, I give it major credit for not shying away from that aspect of Bible weirdness that most pastors don’t even want to touch with a 10-foot-poll.
This House of David series on Amazon, which is surely not even made by Christians, jumped in with both feet, so I give it a lot of cred for that. If any of you out there listening have watched it, I’d be curious to hear what you think as well.
I also saw a great production of David’s life at sight-and-sound theaters. It was simply called David; one thing that I liked about this show at Branson, Missouri, was that it also went into the story of defeating Goliath’s four brothers. Most Christians and Bible teachers don’t mention Goliath’s brothers, but they come up in II Samuel 21.

Goliath’s brothers
II Samuel 21:15-17
15 There was war again between the Philistines and Israel, and David went down together with his servants, and they fought against the Philistines. And David grew weary. 16 And Ishbi-benob, one of the descendants of the giants, whose spear weighed three hundred shekels of bronze, and who was armed with a new sword, thought to kill David. 17 But Abishai the son of Zeruiah came to his aid and attacked the Philistine and killed him. Then David's men swore to him, “You shall no longer go out with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.”
So there was a giant named Ishi-Benob. That means “His Dwelling is in Nob.” It’s an interesting name; Nob was a city in Israel where a whole bunch of priests had been slain by King Saul back before David was king. But I have no idea how Ishi-Benob got his name.
This chapter is not chronological to the rest of the book of II Samuel. The book of II Samuel ends chronologically at chapter 20, and then chapters 21, 22 and 23 tell stories of other events from David’s reign that hadn’t already been covered, like the stories of his mighty men. So I believe verses 15 through 17 here happened just before chapter 11, when the men went away to war but David stayed home.
II Samuel 21:18
18 After this there was again war with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbecai the Hushathite struck down Saph, who was one of the descendants of the giants.
Saph is another giant of the Philistines. Saph means “tall.” Which is a really unoriginal name for a giant but clearly they were running out of ideas after Ishi-Benob.
The Philistines had giants; the Philistines were not all giants, but as we studied last week, some of the giants of the Anakim ran off to Gath, one of the five Philistine cities. So the Philistines had some giants living among them.
The next giant has a very interesting name; he’s called Goliath, but it’s not the same one David fought.
II Samuel 21:19
19 And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob, and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
Now we all know that David killed Goliath, so who is this other Goliath struck down by Elhanan? There are some competing theories about this verse, but it seems that the word “Goliath” is not a name as much as a title, meaning basically the most powerful of the giants.
I could not find a straight meaning of the word “Goliath.” Maybe they were named after the Goliath beetle; I’ve noticed that those things are pretty big, too.
So David killed the previous Goliath, and then while David was king, this guy Elhanan killed the next Goliath.
Oh, and we’re actually given his specific name later. I Chronicles 20 gives a parallel account to this. It says:
In verse 5
And there was again war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair struck down Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
So the new Goliath- the brother here of the one David killed- was named Lahmi, which means “my bread.”
Some notes on the weights of these guys instruments of battle. For example, it said this Goliath’s spear was like a weaver’s beam. Earlier it said another giant’s spear weighed 300 shekels. How heavy is this?
It’s not gonna sound that heavy; about 8 pounds. But that was actually heavier and probably longer than typical spears in those days, which is why it makes note of it. A typical spear was probably half as heavy. A weaver’s beam is very long.
And then one last giant to talk about today.
II Samuel 21:21-22
20 And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number, and he also was descended from the giants. 21 And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David's brother, struck him down. 22 These four were descended from the giants in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
This one is not given a name here, nor is he given a name later in I Chronicles. But we’re told he had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.
Why? Well, the DNA of humankind had been messed with here. I would say that the giants or Nephilim were more prone to genetic mutations, since their DNA was already screwed up.
Now, I’m not saying that anybody with a genetic mutation has to worry about being part Nephilim. There are people today who are sometimes born with an extra digit. It’s part of life; it’s part of living in this fallen world. I’m simply saying that the Nephilim giants already had screwed up DNA, so they were more likely to have these kinds of abnormalities.
And by the way, no more physical giants are mentioned being in the world in the rest of the Bible, but cultures all over the world with ancient roots have stories of the giants. This is not something just unique about the Bible; just like most of the cultures in the world have a flood story, most of them have giant stories as well.
Even right here in America. The Paiute Tribe of the Lovelock Cave in Nevada (and I know someone will correct me, I’m sorry I probably said that wrong), the Paiutes were a Native American tribe who have stories of red-haired giants with six fingers.
Housekeeping/Mailbag
And we’ll have to leave it there for today because I’m just about out of time! But if you need to get in touch with me, my email is weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
And I had more I wanted to discuss today, but I guess I’m going to have to save it for the newsletter. We covered all the named giants in scripture today, but I also wanted to talk about the five giant tribes. We mentioned the Anakim and the Rephaim today, but I wanted to discuss some others and how they all got wiped out, and I just don’t have time.
So go sign up for the newsletter, there’s a link to sign yourself up in my show notes. You don’t have to put in your name or any identifying information, just your email, and you’ll get the newsletter this weekend. You can also use that same link to view all the previous newsletters as well, in case you miss this one.

Closing Thoughts
But in closing, one thing I definitely have to mention is
I Samuel 17:40
Then he took his staff in his hand; and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag, in a pouch which he had, and his sling was in his hand. And he drew near to the Philistine.
So most think David took five stones just in case he missed with one of the first shots. But no, David took five stones because Gath had at least 5 giants: Goliath and his brothers. Or if they weren’t all his literal brothers, they were at least his cousins.
Some thought David was being cautious. No, he was ready to throw down four more times! There were five giants, so he brought 5 stones. He didn’t need an extra stone, because he knew God was with him, and he knew that when God is on your side, the giants need to be running from YOU.
The Bible is oftentimes weird, but not because it talks about giants. 13-foot giants with 24 fingers and toes the Bible are not unique to the Bible. This is common history in cultures around the world. As crazy as it sounds, and despite that I often say it’s the weirdest thing I believe, it’s actually something pretty normal.
God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.