Troublesome Topic: HOW BIG WERE THE GIANTS AND HOW WERE THEY DEFEATED?

Everyone seems to agree that the original text of the 1 Enoch was written in Aramaic, which was translated into Greek, and then the last version to come along was the Ethiopic version. 1 Enoch indicates in 7:2 how tall the Nephilim were. One of the translations I have seen of the Aramaic version has the height of 7:2 in brackets, meaning it was not found on the fragments available in Aramaic, so it was taken from somewhere else, probably the Ethiopic version, and added to the translation. That translation says 3000 cubits (4500 feet). Most of the findings from my internet searches say the Aramaic version says 3000 ell, meaning 3000 cubits, but I have not yet found solid evidence that the Aramaic version even includes that portion of the text, so I’m not sure how they can say that with confidence. The Greek version says 300 cubits tall (450 feet tall).

On pages 211-212 of Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser downplays the size of human giants. I do not find any place in the book Unseen Realm where Heiser addresses the size of the Nephilim. But his silence about that is ironic in light of the fact that the Greek and Ethiopic version do mention a number. I think Heiser implies that their size was not as big a deal as their spiritual attributes – half divine and half human. According to Michael Heiser, the real danger came when they were killed, and their spirits became demons.

I find it interesting that, even though Heiser relies heavily on the books of Enoch, and seems to trust them, he cannot bring himself to say the size of the giants. Heiser’s reluctance in this matter seems to show a lack of confidence in anything besides that Qumran fragments, which is an admission that the others have been added to and are not trustworthy. What about the partial version found at Qumran? Was it added to as well? Everyone I have read says “Yes, it was”.

Heiser is quick to believe every other part of 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, the book of Giants, the Book of Jubilee, etc. but he does not want to believe the size of the giants as recorded in the extant versions of 1 Enoch. He knew the numbers are ludicrous.

My personal opinion is that the biggest human giants were 12 or 13 feet tall. Genesis 7:20 says the waters of the flood covered the highest hill by 15 cubits (27 feet using a 22-inch cubit). I theorize that such a depth would have covered the tallest giant twice; God would not send a flood that would barely cover the tallest giant standing on the highest hill; he would have truly covered them. Thus, the pre-flood giants could not have been 450 feet tall. Even if the Aramaic version of 1 Enoch said only 30 cubits tall, that would be a giant about 45 feet tall, 7.5 times as tall as a 6-foot man, and twice as tall as the depth of the water in the flood.

After the flood, King Og of Bashan had a bed or a sarcophagus (the word means both) that was about 13 feet long. They would have left a bit of room on either end, so this implies that he may have been about 12 feet tall. If so, he was the tallest person mentioned in the Bible by name. 

HOW COULD THEY KILL GIANTS THAT BIG?

We know that there were giants after the world-wide flood; we also know that at some point during the Old Testament history, all of the giants had been killed.

How could normal people kill a giant if it was as tall as 1 Enoch says they were (either 4500 or 450 feet tall)?

They couldn’t.

How could they kill giants that were 12 feet tall? Even this would have been very difficult.

I have a series of lessons about the rules of combat in ancient warfare, so I will only summarize here. Most battles started with army against army, but apart from archers sending arrows, the battle would soon become a series of contests between individual combatants. In one-on-one contests, they had to follow several unwritten rules. For instance, they had to use the weapon they started with, they could not shoot arrows from close distance, and they could not gang up on their opponent (e.g. several combatant against one at the same time). See more on these matters go to my series on THE UNWRITTEN RULES FOR ONE-ON-ONE COMBAT.

Under normal circumstances, fighting men in ancient times did not want to violate the rules of combat because they risked losing the favor of their god of war. However, I think they had to do something out of the ordinary to get rid of the threat posed by giants in the ranks of their enemies.

I envision the demise of the giants happening like this. The commanders of armies that did not have giants realized that killing the enemy’s giants was a must; this threat had to be eliminated. But doing so would require breaking the rules of combat because nothing normal would be effective; that was true whether the giants were 4500 feet tall or “only” 45 feet tall (the latter being a number drawn from silence). In fact, even with giants between 10 and 12 feet tall, as I suggest, they had to break the rules of combat to vanquish them.

What could they do to get “permission” to break the rules?

They “asked” their gods of war if they could break those rules in this situation.

Here is how people in ancient Greece got answers to their questions from their gods. One way was to go to a medium who would contact the spirit realm. Another way was to go to a temple where they had a priestess hang in a sling or hammock over a crack in the ground that had noxious gases coming out of it. Said priestess would get high and begin to speak in gibberish. The priests would talk to those coming with questions and write down their questions. Then they would listen to the priestess speaking gibberish and write down parts of what she said. Then they would go off by themselves and “interpret” the gibberish in light of the question that had been asked. Then they would go tell the inquirer what the answer was. However, my summary is vastly oversimplified because sometimes the inquirers had to wait for days or even weeks for this process to play out (there was more money in it for the temple if they drug this process out).

Ray Vander Laan shares a story that I believe came from his research. A family came to a certain temple with a question that went something like this. “Our family has always worked in agriculture. But recently, we found marble on our property. What would we need to do to keep the gods from being angry if we switched vocations and learned to cut and sell marble?”

Vander Laan did not share the specific answer, but such answers usually included a positive response if the inquirer offered extra sacrifices and gave extra offerings of money to the temple.

I envision a question being taken to the priests of the god of war that sounded something like this, “What can we do to keep our god of war from being angry if we violate the rules of combat in order to defeat the enemy’s giants which cannot be killed using normal means?” After doing whatever the priests said, they were able to change tactics in the way they fought against the giants.

The changes in tactics could have included shooting arrows from many angles at any exposed skin of the giants, then having several warriors attack one giant at the same time with spears. If they wounded a giant, there was the possibility of infection setting in and killing the giant later.

What’s more, they may have relied on trickery and ambush, even when there was no battle. They could have set the house of a giant on fire while he was sleeping, or poisoned his water, or any other deadly tactic.

All we know is that the giants of ancient times were indeed killed off over time.

THE ISRAELITES COULD NEVER VIOLATE THE RULES OF COMBAT

The Israelite warriors did not have the luxury of requesting an exemption from the rules of combat. God expected them to always do things the right way, and there was disgrace when individuals did not do so. We are told that, during the time of David, several Israelite fighters killed several giants in a number of engagements using extreme courage, excellent skills and reliance on the Creator God for help.

I NEED TO SAY A WORD ABOUT SAMSON

While samson was not a giant, he was a formidable fighter, even with the jawbone of a donkey. I believe that when the Philistines saw that Samson was besting all their men, they did not have special permission to break the rules of combat, and they did not want to lose the favor of their god of war. So all they could do against Samson was encourage one another and hope that this crazy man would get tired.