Rephaite

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Group mentioned in the Hebrew Bible

title: "Rephaite" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["rephaites", "book-of-deuteronomy", "book-of-genesis", "book-of-isaiah", "book-of-joshua", "books-of-chronicles", "books-of-samuel", "phoenician-mythology", "hebrew-bible-words-and-phrases"] description: "Group mentioned in the Hebrew Bible" topic_path: "general/rephaites" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rephaite" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Group mentioned in the Hebrew Bible ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/The_Giant_'Uj_and_the_Prophets_Moses,Jesus_and_Muhammad-_Khalili_Collection_Islamic_Art.jpg" caption="''[[Musa va 'Uj]]'', a 15th-century manuscript painting from Iran or Iraq, depicting the Rephaite [[Og]]."] ::

In the Hebrew Bible, as well as non-Jewish ancient texts from the region, the Northwest Semitic term Rephaite, or Repha'im (; ; ), refers to a people of greater-than-average height and stature in Deuteronomy 2:10-11.

Etymology

The term Rephaim first appears in Ugarit. more. It is not certain, however, if the element Rpʾ in these names refers solely to the Rephaim[.] For the nominative case, several readings have been suggested in various studies, such as Rapa‌ʾūma, Rāpa‌ʾūma, Rāpiʾūma, Rapiʾūma and so on.}}

There are two main groups of etymological hypotheses regarding the origin of the biblical term "Rephaim". The first group proposes it is a native Hebrew language term, which could be derived from the Semitic root he r-p-ʾ or he r-ph. The first root suggests "healing" () of some sort, as in the purgation souls—at least the souls of those who in life were incompletely righteous—undergo in Gehinnom (, ) between death and the world to come to atone for their earthly sins. The second root denotes weakness or powerlessness. Souls in Sheol () are weak in the sense that they hold no physical power or status as they did in the living world. Because all things that give the living power are moot in Sheol, its inhabitants are thus powerless and weak and must be submissive to God.

The second group of etymological hypotheses treats Rephaim as a loanword from other ancient Semitic languages. Among the proposals is the Akkadian rabu ("prince"), but this explanation enjoys rather limited popularity. Far more support has been gained by the hypothesis that derives the Hebrew Rephaim from the Ugaritic uga, which denotes semi-deified deceased ancestors mentioned in sources like the so-called Rephaim text (KTU 1:20–22). Despite the inconsistency between these possible meanings—and that modern translations clearly distinguish between Rephaites as one of the tribes (e.g., Genesis 14:5, Genesis 15:18–21, and Deuteronomy 2:11–20) and Rephaim as the inhabitants of the underworld (e.g., Isaiah 14:9–11 and Isaiah 26:13–15)—the same word is used in the original text.

Canaanite people group

In the Hebrew Bible, "Rephaites" or "Repha'im" describes an ancient race of giants in Canaan, from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Many locations were also named after them. According to , King Chedorlaomer and his allies attacked and defeated the Rephaites at Ashteroth Karnaim. Rephaites are also mentioned at ; , ; the Book of Joshua (, , , , ); the Books of Samuel (, ); and the Books of Chronicles (, and ).

Medieval Jewish exegetes like Nachmanides and David Qimḥi have suggested that the Rephaim and Hivites are the same. This used to explain why the two names never appear together in Biblical lists of Canaanite tribes. Nonetheless, later scholars have called this assumption into question. Others have argued that the Rephaim were not Canaanites, but that their land was still nonetheless promised to Abraham.

In the biblical narrative, the Israelites were instructed to exterminate the previous inhabitants of the Promised Land, i.e. Canaan, which include various named peoples, including some unusually tall/large individuals. Several passages in the Book of Joshua, and also , suggest that Og, king of Bashan, was one of the last survivors of the Rephaim, and that his bed was nine cubits long. (An ordinary cubit is the length of a man's forearm according to the New American Standard Bible, or approximately 18 in. This makes the bed over 13 feet long.) Anak, according to , was also a Rephaite.

The Rephaites were called the "Emim" by the Moabites in whilst the Ammonites called them the "Zamzummim" in .

Long dead ancestors

Repha'im have also been considered the residents of the Netherworld (Sheol in the Hebrew Bible) in more recent scholarship. Possible examples of this usage appear as "shades", "spirits", or "dead" in various translations of the Bible. See: , , ; ; , , ; , and possibly , where Repha'im may be read as "dead ancestors" or "weakeners", as opposed to Rophe'im, "doctors". The Heb. root רפא means "heal", and thus the masculine plural nominalized form of this root may indicate that these "deceased ancestors" could be invoked for ritual purposes that would benefit the living.

Various ancient Northwest Semitic texts are also replete with references to terms evidently cognate with Rephaim as the dead or dead kings. Lewis (1989) undertakes a detailed study of several enigmatic funerary ritual texts from the ancient coastal city of Ugarit. Lewis concludes that the "Ugaritic Funerary Text" provides important evidence for understanding Ugarit's cult of the dead, wherein beings called rapi'uma, the long dead, and malakuma, recently dead kings, were invoked in a funeral liturgy, presented with food/drink offerings, and asked to provide blessings for the reign of the current king. The many references to repha'im in the Hebrew Bible in contexts involving Sheol and dead spirits strongly suggests that many ancient Israelites imagined the spirits of the dead as playing an active and important role in securing blessings, healing, or other benefits in the lives of the living. In 2021, a new theory regarding the identity of the Rephaim was published by J. Yogev, which suggests that the Rephaim were systematically eradicated from biblical texts as an agenda to eliminate their memory according to monotheistic belief systems in biblical times.

The divine status of the Rephaim is evident from "The Rephaim," where they are called "gods" and "divine ones," but also from the end of "Baal" in Stories from Ancient Canaan: ::quote

Sun rules the Rephaim, Sun rules the divine ones: Your company are the gods, see, the dead are your company. ::

References

Notes

References

  1. Yogev, J.. (2021). "The Rephaim: Sons of the Gods". Brill.
  2. "Using Corpus Linguistics to Address some Questions of Phoenician Grammar and Syntax found in the Kulamuwa Inscription".
  3. {{Tanakhverse. Deuteronomy. 2:10–11
  4. {{cite Talmud. b. Shabbat. 33b:7
  5. "Mishnah Eduyot 2:10".
  6. {{cite Talmud. b. Rosh Hashanah. 16b:15
  7. {{cite Talmud. b. Rosh Hashanah. 17a:3
  8. Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver and Charles A. Briggs C.A., ''A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament'' (Oxford, 1907/2013) [BDB], (CD-ROM), 9242.
  9. Kohler, Ludwig, and Walter Baumgartner. 2002. ''The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament''. Leiden: Brill [HALOT]. (CD-ROM), 8014.
  10. Harris, R. Laird., Gleason L. Archer, and Bruce K. Waltke. 2003. ''Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament''. Chicago: Moody Press [TWOT]. (CD-ROM), 2198d.
  11. Lewis, Theodore J. 1999. "Dead." In Dictionary of Deities and Demons, pp. 223–231.
  12. Rouillard-Bonraisin, Hedwige. 1999. "Rephaim." In Dictionary of Deities and Demons, pp. 692–700.
  13. {{Tanakhverse. Genesis. 14:5
  14. {{Tanakhverse. Genesis. 15:18–21
  15. {{Tanakhverse. Deuteronomy. 2:11–20
  16. {{Tanakhverse. Isaiah. 14:9–11
  17. {{Tanakhverse. Isaiah. 26:13–15
  18. Kosior, Wojciech. (2018-05-22). "The Fallen (Or) Giants? The Gigantic Qualities of the Nefilim in the Hebrew Bible". De Gruyter.
  19. Klein, Reuven Chaim (Rudolph). (April 2018). "Nations and Super-Nations of Canaan". Jewish Bible Quarterly.
  20. R. Mark Shipp. ''Of Dead Kings and Dirges: Myth and Meaning in Isaiah 14:4b-21.'' 2002 p. 121: "It is also possible that the distinction here is not between the Rephaim and non-Rephaim dead kings, but rather between the rpim qdmym (Ulkn, Tr 'limn, Sdn w Rdn, Trmn; the "ancient Rephaim") and the more recent Rephaim (Ammishtamru, ..."
  21. Matthew J. Suriano ''The Politics of Dead Kings: Dynastic Ancestors in the Book of ...'' 2010 p160 "Unlike the texts from Ras Shamra, however, Israelite literature negatively portrayed the Rephaim in order to undermine a politically potent element that was otherwise embraced in Ugaritic tradition. The equation of the Rephaim as dead ..."
  22. Brian B. Schmidt ''Israel's beneficent dead: ancestor cult and necromancy in ancient ... '' 1994 p267 "The Ugaritic rp 'um are repeatedly invoked as confirmation for the existence of both a living and dead biblical Rephaim. De Moor's theory comprises the most compelling and thoroughgoing proposal to date. According to this author,"
  23. [[Kanaanäische und Aramäische Inschriften. KAI]] 13.7-8, 14.8, 177.1; [[Corpus tablettes alphabetiques. KTU]] 1.161. See the article by M.S. Smith, "Rephaim," in the ''Anchor Bible Dictionary''.
  24. T. J. Lewis (professor of Hebrew Bible at Johns Hopkins University), ''Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit'' (Scholars Press, 1989)
  25. [[Keilschrift Texte aus Ugarit
  26. On the role of the dead and burial customs in ancient Israelite society and the cultures of the ancient Levant generally, see L. Bloch-Smith's ''Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs About the Dead'' (Continuum, 1992).
  27. see J. Yogev ''The Rephaim: Sons of the Gods'' (Brill, 2021)
  28. (2012-03-15). "Stories from Ancient Canaan, Second Edition". Westminster John Knox Press.

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rephaitesbook-of-deuteronomybook-of-genesisbook-of-isaiahbook-of-joshuabooks-of-chroniclesbooks-of-samuelphoenician-mythologyhebrew-bible-words-and-phrases