Journey XII
The Unseen World

The Giants Did Not Begin In Canaan

Joshua enters Canaan.
He encounters fortified cities.
Powerful kings.
Anakim.

And behind the story lies the memory of even older peoples:
Rephaim.
Emim.
Zamzummim.

And the mysterious giant king:
OG OF BASHAN.

But if we want to understand why ancient readers might have regarded these peoples as more than unusually tall warriors...
we must travel backward.

Past Moses.
Past Abraham.
Past Babel.
Past the Flood.

Back to a strange event recorded in Genesis 6:
the sons of God.
the daughters of men.
and the Nephilim.

And here...
other ancient Jewish texts have much more to say.

1 — 1 Enoch: The Watchers Descend

Genesis 6 gives only a few verses.
1 Enoch turns those verses into an entire story.

In the section commonly called the Book of the Watchers, heavenly beings look down upon human women.
Their leader is called:
SEMYAZA.

They know what they intend to do is forbidden.
So according to 1 Enoch 6, they make an oath together.

And then the text gives us a location:
MOUNT HERMON.

The Watchers descend upon the mountain.
They take human wives.
And from these unions come giants.

The biblical mystery of Genesis 6 has become, in 1 Enoch, a full-scale supernatural rebellion.

2 — Why “Hermon”?

1 Enoch even connects the mountain's name with the oath made there.
The Watchers bind themselves together before descending into rebellion.

Whether this preserves genuine pre-Flood geography is impossible to establish.
But the tradition is remarkable.

Because Mount Hermon is not located somewhere in a mythical world beyond the map.
It stands in the northern region connected with the biblical land.

And south/east of that region lies territory associated in Scripture with:
BASHAN.

Remember that.
For now we simply place the piece on the table.
Gate III will pick it up again.

3 — The Watchers Teach Humanity

According to 1 Enoch, the Watchers do more than take wives.
They reveal knowledge.

Azazel teaches humans the manufacture of weapons and ornaments.
Other Watchers teach things associated with:
sorcery,
astrology,
celestial signs,
and forbidden knowledge.

— 1 Enoch 8

The result is not enlightenment.
It is corruption.

Violence spreads.
Blood fills the earth.
The rebellion of heaven begins producing chaos on earth.

That is one of 1 Enoch's central ideas:

WHAT HAPPENS ABOVE AFFECTS WHAT HAPPENS BELOW.

4 — The Giants

Then come the children.
1 Enoch describes enormous offspring produced by the Watchers and human women.

The manuscript tradition contains famously extravagant measurements for their size.
Whatever we make of those numbers, the intended picture is unmistakable:
these are not ordinary men.

They consume what humanity produces.
Then resources run out.
They turn against humanity.
Violence escalates.
Eventually they begin destroying one another.

The giants become part of the corruption leading toward divine judgment.

And then...
the Flood comes.

5 — But What Happened To Them?

This is where 1 Enoch tells a story Genesis does not.
The giants die physically.

But according to 1 Enoch 15–16...
something remains.
Their spirits.

The text describes evil spirits proceeding from the bodies of the dead giants and remaining upon the earth.
They oppress.
Attack.
Corrupt.
Cause trouble.

And unlike the Watchers themselves—
they remain active in the earthly realm.

This became enormously important in some ancient Jewish thought.

That is Enoch's explanation.
Not Genesis' explicit explanation.

But now something very interesting has entered our Journey.

6 — Are These The “Demons”?

Many modern readers automatically assume:
fallen angels = demons.

But 1 Enoch makes a distinction.
In its worldview, the rebellious Watchers are judged and restrained.
The evil spirits roaming the earth originate from the dead giant offspring.

That does not mean the Bible explicitly teaches this demonology.
It does not.

But it shows us that at least one influential ancient Jewish tradition distinguished:

That gives us a very different picture of the unseen world.

And it may help explain why later Jewish literature can speak so naturally about hostile spirits inhabiting the world.

7 — Jubilees & The Story After the Flood

Now open the Book of Jubilees.
Jubilees knows a similar Watcher tradition.

The Watchers descend.
Corruption follows.
Giants appear.
Judgment comes.

But then Jubilees asks the same disturbing question:

IF THE FLOOD DESTROYED THE GIANTS...
WHY DOES EVIL SPIRITUAL ACTIVITY CONTINUE?

Its answer brings back someone we already encountered in Journey X and XI:
MASTEMA.

8 — Noah Asks for Help

In Jubilees 10, after the Flood, Noah's descendants are troubled by unclean spirits.
They lead people astray.
They afflict them.

Noah prays to God for protection.
God commands that the evil spirits be bound.

It sounds as though the problem is about to end.
But then Mastema speaks.

He asks that some of the spirits remain under his authority.
And according to Jubilees...
God permits:
ONE TENTH
to remain.

The others are restrained.

Pause there.

This is an extraordinary ancient tradition.
The Flood is over.
The giants are dead.

Yet Jubilees imagines a world in which some of the hostile spirits associated with that ancient corruption are still active among humanity.

9 — Noah Receives Knowledge Against Them

Jubilees adds another unusual detail.
Noah is taught remedies against the afflictions caused by these spirits.

The angelic beings explain medicinal knowledge involving herbs.
Noah records it in a book and gives the knowledge to his son Shem.

— Jubilees 10

Whether such a book ever historically existed is another question.
But the scene gives us a fascinating glimpse into ancient Jewish thinking.

Illness, spiritual affliction, angelic knowledge and medicine could exist within the same worldview.

Again:
visible world + unseen world.
Not separated as neatly as modern people often separate them.

10 — Then Why Are There Giants After the Flood?

And now we reach the problem that makes Journey XII particularly interesting.

Genesis places the Nephilim before the Flood...
but includes the mysterious phrase:

"and also afterward."

— Genesis 6:4

Then centuries later:
Numbers speaks of the spies seeing Nephilim in connection with the sons of Anak.
Deuteronomy remembers Rephaim.
Joshua encounters Anakim.
And Og remains associated with the Rephaim.

So ancient and modern readers naturally ask:
HOW?

If the Flood destroyed the giant offspring...
why do giant traditions appear later?

The Bible does not explicitly explain the mechanism.
Neither should we pretend that it does.

Several possibilities have therefore been proposed.

11 — Did It Happen Again?

One possibility is obvious:
Perhaps Genesis' words "and also afterward" imply that something similar occurred again.

Some interpreters have proposed another incursion of beings comparable to the sons of God.
But Scripture never explicitly narrates a second Watcher descent.

So this remains:
POSSIBLE INTERPRETATION — NOT STATED FACT.

12 — Did a Line Survive?

Others have suggested that giant ancestry somehow survived through the Flood.

Again, Scripture does not explain this.
Attempts are sometimes made to place such ancestry within Noah's extended family.

But the biblical text never says:
"This person carried Nephilim blood through the Flood."

Therefore we should not present that as fact.
Interesting?
Yes.
Established?
No.

13 — Or Are the Terms Different?

There is another possibility.

Perhaps:
Nephilim, Anakim and Rephaim
should not simply be treated as three interchangeable words.

The biblical texts use them in different settings.
Some connections exist.
But ancient peoples could preserve overlapping memories, labels and traditions without every term describing exactly the same group.

That possibility deserves to remain open.

Sometimes the most responsible answer is:
WE HAVE PIECES — BUT NOT THE ENTIRE MAP.

14 — The Rephaim Become Stranger

Now something happens to the word Rephaim elsewhere in biblical literature.

In some passages it clearly refers to ancient formidable peoples.
But in poetic texts the Hebrew word rephaim can also refer to:
the dead shades in the underworld.

Isaiah 14 uses the term in its picture of the dead being stirred beneath.
Isaiah 26:14 and Proverbs 9:18 likewise use rephaim in connection with the dead.

This does not automatically mean:
Og was a ghost.

It means the word developed or carried associations in more than one context.

But for our investigation...
that is fascinating.

A name associated with ancient giant peoples also appears in biblical language concerning the dead.
The border between giant tradition and underworld imagery has suddenly become thinner.

15 — Ugarit & A Voice From Ancient Canaan

Now we leave Jewish literature for a moment.

At ancient Ugarit, north of Israel, archaeologists discovered texts written in a language closely related to Hebrew.
These tablets reveal much about Canaanite religion.

And among the terms appearing in Ugaritic material are forms related to:
RPUM
often compared linguistically and culturally with the biblical Rephaim.

In Ugaritic ritual texts, these rpum appear associated with deceased or ancestral figures, sometimes with royal or heroic overtones.

The exact relationship between the Ugaritic rpum and every biblical use of Rephaim is debated.
But the similarity is enormously interesting.

Because now we have:

The same cultural world seems to contain overlapping ideas of:
ancient heroes,
the dead,
and supernatural memory.

16 — Bashan

Now return to Og.
Scripture calls him:
King of Bashan.

Bashan was famous for fertile land and powerful cities.
But in biblical poetry and later interpretation the region also acquires darker associations.

Psalm 22 famously speaks of:

"strong bulls of Bashan."

Psalm 68 speaks of the:

"mountain of Bashan."

The geographical and theological associations surrounding Bashan became significant in later interpretation.

And just north of this wider region rises:
MOUNT HERMON.

The mountain where 1 Enoch places the descent of the Watchers.

Now the pieces are getting uncomfortably close together.
But—
not yet.

Gate II collects the evidence.
Gate III will make the comparison.

17 — Og's Bed

The Bible goes out of its way to preserve a strange physical detail concerning Og.

His bed—or possibly a funerary couch/sarcophagus—is described as:
nine cubits long
four cubits wide.

— Deuteronomy 3:11

Depending upon the cubit used, this represents an object roughly four metres long.

Does that prove Og himself was four metres tall?
No.

A bed or funerary object need not equal someone's exact height.

But why does Deuteronomy mention it?
Clearly because Og's extraordinary size and reputation mattered to the memory of the conquest.

The biblical author effectively tells the reader:
THIS MAN WAS NOT ORDINARY.

18 — Josephus Remembers the Giants

Centuries later Josephus still knew traditions concerning unusually large people in Canaan.

When retelling Israel's history, he describes formidable giants whose appearance inspired fear.

In his account of the period surrounding Joshua, the ancient inhabitants are remembered as extraordinary in size and terrifying to behold.

Josephus is writing many centuries later.
He cannot serve as an eyewitness to Joshua.

But his account shows something important:
THE MEMORY OF GIANTS HAD NOT DISAPPEARED FROM JEWISH TRADITION.

The story survived.

19 — The Giants After Joshua

And Scripture itself ensures that the story continues.

Joshua says Anakim remained in:
Gaza, Gath and Ashdod.

Later:
Goliath comes from Gath.

David's warriors encounter additional giant warriors.
2 Samuel 21 describes descendants of the giant.
One has six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.

The giant motif continues from:
CANAAN
to
DAVID.

And David himself becomes the ancestor of the royal line leading toward the Messiah.

That connection will become extremely important later.

20 — Ancient Canaan Was Not Spiritually Empty

The archaeological texts of the ancient Levant reveal a religious world filled with divine beings.

Canaanite traditions knew gods such as:
El
Baal
Asherah/Athirat
Anat
Mot
and others.

Sacred mountains mattered.
Storms mattered.
Fertility mattered.
Kingship mattered.
Death and the underworld mattered.

Israel therefore did not enter merely:
foreign territory.

It entered a landscape saturated with rival religious claims.

That makes Joshua's repeated insistence upon loyalty to YHWH enormously important.

21 — “Choose This Day”

Near the end of his life Joshua gathers Israel.
And he says something remarkable.

"Put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt…"

Then:

"Choose you this day whom ye will serve."

— Joshua 24:14–15

Notice the story.
The gods are still part of the question.

Mesopotamia.
Egypt.
Canaan.

Israel has physically travelled through geography—
but spiritually it has travelled through worlds of competing worship.

Joshua's final question is therefore not:
WHERE WILL YOU LIVE?

It is:
WHOM WILL YOU SERVE?

22 — The Conquest Through An Ancient Lens

Now place everything we have seen on one table.

These sources do not tell one identical story.
They come from different periods.
Different genres.
Different purposes.

We must not simply glue them together and call the result history.

But...
they belong to overlapping ancient worlds.
And sometimes their shadows touch.

23 — The Big Question

Now we finally arrive at the question Gate II cannot answer.

Was Israel's conquest simply:
ONE HUMAN PEOPLE FIGHTING OTHER HUMAN PEOPLES?

Certainly human armies fought.
Cities fell.
Kings died.
Territory changed hands.

But Scripture itself contains:
giant clans,
foreign gods,
a commander of the LORD's heavenly army,
and strange connections surrounding Bashan.

Then ancient Jewish tradition adds:
Watchers,
Nephilim,
earthbound spirits,
Mastema,
and Mount Hermon.

So...

WHAT IF THERE WAS ANOTHER DIMENSION TO THE CONQUEST?

Not instead of the historical one.
Behind it.

24 — Before We Cross The Third Gate

We must establish our boundaries.

We cannot prove:
Og was literally a Nephilim hybrid.

Scripture calls him a remnant of the Rephaim, not explicitly a Nephilim.

We cannot prove:
the Watchers of 1 Enoch ruled Bashan during Joshua's lifetime.

We cannot prove:
every Canaanite god was a fallen angel.

And we cannot simply equate:
Rephaim = demons = Nephilim = Watchers.

The texts do not permit us to be that careless.

But neither should we ignore the strange constellation of ideas.

Because now we have:
HERMON
BASHAN
REPHAIM
ANAKIM
NEPHILIM
WATCHERS
FOREIGN GODS
THE DEAD
THE COMMANDER OF THE LORD'S HOST

And one covenant people walking directly into the middle of it.