Weird Stuff in the Bible

Nephilim After the Flood
Numbers through II Samuel

Introduction
The book of Genesis, chapter 6, verse 4, tells us about when these spiritual beings called the Sons of God reproduced offspring with human women.
Yeah, you know from this opening sentence that this podcast is properly titled. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. My name is Luke. Not Skywalker, but Taylor, and today we’re going to spend one more episode digging into this issue of what happened to the Nephilim, or the giants, in the Old Testament. These are the offspring of women and these rebellious angels called the Sons of God.
Genesis 6:4 says
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that
And also after that. This didn’t just happen in those days. It happened again other days later. God sent a flood to wipe out all life on the planet, and yet after the flood, this creation of Nephilim or giants happened again.
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible. And I’m excited for today because they Bible is going to make so much more sense to you 20 minutes from now after you finish this episode.
So we’ll start in Numbers 13. Turn there, and let’s get weird.
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Some people really have a hard time with this concept of divine or angelic beings coming down to mate with human women. And that’s where they try to start detouring into one of these alternative theories like what’s called the Line of Seth view. But I love to get to this point in the study- what we’re going to be talking about today- because I’m gonna point out how once you accept that angelic beings produced giant evil monstrous offspring, it actually sheds light on a lot of other things throughout the Scriptures and makes them make so much more sense than they did before. And that’s what you’re going to get out of today’s study.
I once did a lesson called Tracing the Giants. Not on this podcast. I did this years ago when I was studying the book of Jude with my youth group. I thought Jude would be a fine book to use as a Bible study that summer while the kids were out of school. And that is not a light book. Despite being one chapter, that book packs a huge punch. And man, those kids probably didn’t feel like they got a summer break that year, because you really have to do your homework to understand that book. I kept waiting for a parent to call me and be like, “why did my kid attend your summer bible study and learn about there being giants and angels marrying women” but that call never came. I was ready for it, though.
And I’m ready for it here, too. So on this podcast, we’ve been crawling through Jude, and Jude has sent us on this side mission to go investigate the Nephilim. This is kind of like one of those video games where you can explore at your leisure but there are all these side quests that detour you from the main storyline for a while. And Jude 5 and 6 refer back to the Old Testament stories of the giants and the Sons of God,
So we’ve been in this side quest to better understand the Sons of God. I’m going to wrap that up today and we’ll go back into the book of Jude further next week. After Christmas. Christmas is on a Monday. My episodes release on Wednesdays. I’m gonna go ahead and put one out that week because I’m just really excited about what I have planned for January. I wouldn’t normally on a big holiday week like that. But as I said, I’m excited. So make sure you’re subscribed so you can get into all that stuff with me next month.

Tracing the Giants
So today’s lesson is called Nephilim After the Flood, because there was a second phase of Nephilim after the flood of Noah wiped out the first phase. It is my belief that Noah was chosen not just because he was a good man, but because he was one of the few humans on the earth at that time who had no demonic or Nephilim DNA in his bloodline. That’s why it says Noah was perfect in his generations. So Noah and his kids were saved above the waters of the flood. All of those Phase I Nephilim died. If they didn’t, then God sent the flood for nothing. I don’t believe in any theories that say some Nephilim survived or that one of Noah’s kids was a Nephilim. I believe that the Sons of God came down and tried this again with women after the flood. We don’t have a story that says when they did that, but sometime between the flood and the time of Moses, it happened again. I hope to come across that story and perhaps be able to share it with you in my studies going forward on this podcast.
One of the original Nephilim in this Phase II line was a guy named Anak, and we know this because of the verses we studied last week:
Numbers 13:33
We saw the Nephilim (or giants; same word as in other translations) there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. (NIV)
The Sons of Anak are also called the Anakim later in the Bible. So if you’re taking notes, you can write Nephilim, then draw an arrow, and the arrow can be pointing to the word Anakim. If you’re taking notes on a computer, it will probably try to autocorrect Anakim to Anakin, like Anakin Skywalker. But this is not Skywalker, just like I’m not Luke Skywalker. This is AnakiM, with an M, not an N. In Hebrew, when you make a word plural, that is transliterated as adding an -IM to the end of the word. So Cherub becomes Cherubim, you have the Nephilim, and the Sons of Anak are also called the Anakim, and so that becomes a word to refer to the Nephilim giants.
Throughout Israel’s wilderness wanderings, they encounter another group of giants near Mount Bashan. We learn that they have a leader named Og. Which is such a cool name for a giant. I mean, you wouldn’t want to meet a giant and find out his name was Jimmy or Greg. That just wouldn’t be a very fitting name for a giant. But this guy? He’s like, “I am Og, king of the giants,” and that’s perfect. My hat is off to his parents, they really nailed it with that one. I couldn’t think of a better name for a king of the giants than Og.
So in Deuteronomy 3, Moses recounts their encounter with Og:
Deuteronomy 3:3
So the Lord our God also delivered into our hands Og king of Bashan, with all his people, and we attacked him until he had no survivors remaining…
The location of Bashan is interesting; this is a significant mountain in the northern part of the land of Israel, and there is always weird and demonic stuff going on anytime you talk about Bashan. According to the Book of Enoch- which is not scripture, but the Bible writers accepted it as a true story, so do with that what you want- Bashan was THE PLACE in Genesis 6 where the Sons of God came down and lusted after women. That was the location where this happened. In particular, a mountain there called Mount Hermon.
And throughout the Bible, when you see Bashan brought up, it’s always a place of darkness and foreboding. In fact, the word Bashan means “serpent,” and the Bashan region was called the Place of the Serpent. According to other ancient texts from that time, Bashan was also considered the gateway to the underworld. In New Testament times, it was called the gates of hell, and there’s a whole other study we could do on that someday because you might recognize the phrase “gates of hell” from something Jesus said.
So what did Moses remember about Og, king of the giants at Bashan?
Deuteronomy 3:11
For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants. Indeed his bedstead was an iron bedstead. (Is it not in Rabbah of the people of Ammon?) Nine cubits is its length and four cubits its width, according to the standard cubit.
In English: his bed was about 13 feet long! As I’ve been saying, the giants in the Old Testament were not hundreds of feet tall, like Godzilla. They were a few feet taller than people, though; Og in particular is super tall, up to 13 feet. He was probably a bit shorter than 13 feet if that’s how long his bed is. And Moses is like, “remember when we killed that guy. That was a good day. We took his bed and put it in a museum, pretty cool.”
The word for “giants” right here is not “Nephilim,” but a different word: Rephaim. But this is another word for the Nephilim or Anakim. This is another name that the Nephilim became known by as time went on. My best guess is that this name comes from another Nephilim who was named Rapha, and so his descendants were the Rephaim. Anak’s descendants were the Anakim.

Facing the Giants
Joshua 11:20-22 – 20 For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that He might utterly destroy them, and that they might receive no mercy, but that He might destroy them, as the Lord had commanded Moses.
21 And at that time Joshua came and cut off the Anakim from the mountains: from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel; Joshua utterly destroyed them with their cities. 22 None of the Anakim were left in the land of the children of Israel; they remained only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod.
Note two things:
God wanted complete destruction of these people; “no mercy” “utterly destroyed them”
This is why God told the Israelites to wipe out every last man woman boy and girl. Sounds extreme. Many people struggle with this instruction. This is why. If these bloodlines aren’t purged, they grow. This is why God wiped everyone out with a flood.
Where did the Anakim that the Israelites didn’t destroy end up? Gaza. Yes, that same strip of land that Israel can’t get their hands on today. They failed to take it back then, and today, it’s considered the property of Palestine. But they are fighting for it right now, we need to pray that they finally take it.
“Gath” is one of the three places the Anakim who survived ended up
[write down] Anakim —> Gath
I Samuel 17:4 - 4 And a champion went out from the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, from Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
In modern terms, he was almost 10 feet tall.
The tallest man in the world is Sultan Koseem, he’s 8 foot 3 inches. Not even close to Goliath.
I was standing next to a statue at Ripley’s of some guy who was reportedly the tallest man who ever lived. I can’t remember the name but he was close to 9-feet-tall. Goliath was even taller than that.
You may say, “Well Luke, we know Goliath was some kind of freak of nature, but how do you know he was a Nephilim?” Let’s look at where Goliath came from: Gath
Nephilim —> Anakim —> Gath (hometown of Goliath)
So when we say David fought the giant, another way to say that is that David fought a Nephilim.
Before we leave, look at something: I Samuel 17:40 - 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.
Let’s explain that.

Erasing the Giants
Turn to II Samuel 21. In this chapter- and I think Chronicles speaks of this as well- we learn that the Israelites continued to battle and wipe out the descendants of the giants.
II Samuel 21:16, 18-22 - 16 Then Ishbi-Benob, who was one of the sons of the giant [in the Hebrew: descendants of Rapha], the weight of whose bronze spear was three hundred shekels, who was bearing a new sword, thought he could kill David……
18 Now it happened afterward that there was again a battle with the Philistines at Gob. Then Sibbechai the Hushathite killed Saph, who was one of the sons of the giant [Rapha, for Rephaim]. 19 Again there was war at Gob with the Philistines, where Elhanan the son of Jaare-Oregim the Bethlehemite killed the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.
20 Yet again there was 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 born to the giant [Rapha]. 21 So when he defied Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea, David’s brother, killed him.
22 These four were born to the giant in Gath, and fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants.
They were all from Gath. So they were all giants. They were all Nephilim, who then went by Anakim, who then became the Gathites, and were eventually referred to as the Rephaim in the Bible. We can trace this in a direct line from Numbers through Deuteronomy through Joshua through First Samuel through Second Samuel through Chronicles. Which are all the history books of the Old Testament.
So for your last note on your page today, you can write:
Gath —> Rapha
And as we close today, let me mention again this verse from
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.
What great faith David showed! Some thought he was being cautious. No, he was ready to go 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, you become a giant killer.
If you’re a Christian, you have God with you. And when God is with you, you can do whatever God has set before you today. You can kill giants.
Now, thanks to the Israelites- and I mean that sincerely, a big thanks to them- we don’t have to kill any giants today. But God has something for you to do, and He’s gonna empower you to do it, so get out there and do it.
And if you think that sounds weird, fine, I hope you’re a little more weird today. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, have a Merry Christmas, and we’ll see you next time.