Edom's Giants (See Abraham and the Giants)
Eleazar the Giant
According to Josephus, a Jew named Eleazar the Giant, who stood over ten feet high, was among the hostages that the king of Persia sent to Rome to insure a peace. Vitellius no doubt referred to this same incident, for he declared that when "Darius, son of Artabanes, was sent as a hostage to Rome, he took with him, with divers presents, a man 7 cubits high, a Jew named Eleazar, who was called a giant by reason of his greatness."71 (See Josephus on the Giants)
Elhanan
Elhanan, the son of Jair, killed Lahmi, the brother of Goliath, in one of Israel's battles with the Philistines at Gob. (See David vs Goliath; Ishbi-benob; Sippai; Six-fingered, Six-toed Giant)
Emim
The huge Emim ("dreadful ones") lived in that area later taken over by the descendants of Moab, before Israel's invasion of Canaan. (See Abraham and the Giants; Sihon's and Og's Overthrow)
Execration Texts
The so-called Egyptian Execration Texts, composed between 1900 and 1700 B.C., substantiates the biblical account of a gigantic people called the Anakim. These texts, written on Pharaoh's orders, put curses on some Anakim chieftains who lived in Canaan.
For example, one of the Execration Texts of the Twelfth Dynasty (c. 1900 B.C.), now on display at the Berlin Museum, contains "an incantation directed towards certain enemy cities and territories among which are Palestinian areas and which names specific rulers of an area called 'Iy-'aneq'," which most scholars read as Anak. The texts also often refer to Ashdod as a "city of the giants." (See Canaan's Anakim; Ras Shamra Texts)
Gabbaras, the Arabian Giant
Pliny mentions that in the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54), a nine-foot-nine-inch giant named Gabbaras was brought to Rome from Arabia. Claudius placed him at the head of the famed Adiutrix legions. The giant so awed his troops that some worshipped him as a god. (See Giants Who Became Gods; Graveyards of the Giants)
Gath's Giants
Many giants apparently made Gath, one of the five great Philistine cities, their home. Their prominence in the city is borne out by Joshua's statement that at the end of his campaign "there were no Anakim left in the land of the sons of Israel; only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod some remained." Goliath, whom young David killed in later times, lived here. Rapha, believed by some scholars to have been Goliath's father, also lived here, as did four other of his giant sons.72 (See Ashdod's Giants; Beth-Paleth's Giants; Gaza's Giants)
Gaza's Giants
According to Joshua 11:22, Gaza remained a well-known abode of the Anakim giants after Israel conquered most of Canaan. As one of the five principal Philistine cities, it occupied an important position on the trade routes from Egypt to West Asia. Before the Anakim came, this very ancient city was inhabited by the Avvim giants, who were driven out by the Caphtorim, afterward called the Philistines. (See Ashdod's Giants; Beth-Paleth's Giants; Oath's Giants)
Giants, Valley of the
From the earliest times, a three-mile-long vale that begins at the top of the valley of Hinnom and stretches south along the road to Bethlehem was known as the "Valley of the Rephaim," or "Valley of the Giants." Today it is called the Baqa’. (See Israel's Wars with the Giants)
Gibborim, House of (See Israel's Wars with the Giants)
Gibeonites
The Gibeonites, who tricked Israel into signing a treaty with them at the time of the conquest (Joshua 9:3-27), are classified mainly as Amorites and Hivites, but, according to the Septuagint, they are identified also with the giant Horim, who had formerly lived in Edom. (See Israel's Wars with the Giants)
Goliath (See David vs Goliath)
Gomarian Giants
When the great rainstorms finally ceased and the heaped-up waters began to recede, Noah's ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Strange as it may seem, Noah's unusual three-storied vessel may still lie on this Armenian mountaintop, preserved in ice. At least, while flying over Ararat in 1917, a Russian aviator named Wladimir Roskovitsky spotted what looked like the skeleton of a huge ship whose prow jutted out from the ice pack. And in 1955, the French explorer Fernand Navarra reported finding near the summit of this mountain the remains of what he believed was Noah's ark. He returned with a five-foot piece of the ancient timber impregnated with bituminous pitch.73 The Institute Forestal at Madrid, Spain, the Centre Technique de Bois at Paris, France, and the Institut de Prehistoire de l'Université at Bordeaux, France, after testing a sample by the "degree of lignite formation, gain in density, cell modification, and the degree of fossilization," described the timber as of "great antiquity."74
These two news stories created much excitement--and some controversy. But the sightings of a ship high up on Ararat amounted to nothing new. Such a vessel has been seen on this mountain since ancient times. The historian Berosus, for example, recorded that in his day, circa 475 B.C., the people still climbed Mount Ararat to see the ark and to scrape off bits of bitumen for talismans or souvenirs. The Jewish historian Josephus also writes that the Armenians of his time (A.D. 37-95) showed tourists the ark at its final resting place. Even that famous traveler Marco Polo, who lived thirteen centuries later, mentioned the ark while describing Mount Ararat. Navarra's discovery has led to some lively arguments among the experts as to what his find really represents. Some claim the ice-encased structure is Noah's ark. Others say not. Whatever the truth of this debate, there remains one indisputable fact: at the foot of Mount Ararat sits the ancient city of Naxuana, or Nakhichevan. It claims the tomb of Noah. And its name, translated, means: "Here Noah settled."75
So, after the great flood, Noah and his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, apparently settled in this area. No longer having the antediluvian giants to worry about, they began making for them-selves a new life and repeopling the earth. Eventually their families grew into three separate and distinct races. Noah himself predicted this would happen. One day, in a prophetic mood, he said to the three: "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave."76 All these things came true. From the loins of Shem came the Hebrews, through whom the promised Messiah would one day be born. Shem's male issue included Elam, Asshur, Arphaxad, Lud, and Aram. As for Japheth, he greatly enlarged himself. His descendants soon possessed half of Asia, practically all of Europe, a portion of Africa, and in more modern times most of America. Born to Japheth were Gomer, the eldest, who fathered the Gomarian giants, then Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. And just as Noah said, the descendants of Canaan, Ham's
youngest son, eventually became servants to those of his brothers. The other sons of Ham included Cush, Mizraim, and Put.
For perhaps a century after the cleansing flood, Noah's fast-growing family remained free of the Nephilim's destructive influences and the giants' tyranny. Humans, nevertheless, were again enticed into ways that were not good. For instance, they got deeply involved in astrology. They also began worshipping idols. Needing a place to gather for these degenerate activities, the people decided to build in Babel a tall tower, called a ziggurat. This stepped temple contained two sanctuaries--one at ground level and one at the summit, where worshippers believed their pagan god sometimes appeared. Moses relates, however, that one night God overthrew this tower, confused the people's language, and scattered them abroad.77
Remarkably, an ancient tablet recovered in recent years from the ruins of a tower located in the center of old Babylon seems to con-firm the biblical account. Found by G. Smith, it contained this fateful report: "The building of this illustrious tower offended the gods. In a night they threw down what they had built. They scattered them abroad, and made strange their speech."78
Commenting on this find, Henry H. Halley writes: "This seems like a tradition of Babel." The site, he adds, "is now an immense hole 330 feet square, which has been used as a quarry from which to take bricks. When standing it consisted of a number of successive platforms one on the top of another, each smaller than the one below, a sanctuary to Marduk on the top." Halley also explains the Bible's description of a tower with its top in heaven as "an expression of the vast pride of the first builders of 'ziggurats,' the artificial temple hills of Sumeria and Babylonia . . . Ziggurats still exist in ruin at Ur and Erech (modern Warka) and their construction illustrates Genesis 11:3, 4. Their whole purpose whenever found was idolatrous worship and herein lay the sin of the Babel builders."79
Following the tower's overthrow, the people of Babel found themselves no longer able to understand one another, so they began scattering toward all points on the compass. But still blessed with robust health and long life, these clans flourished. When their numbers became too great, many pushed out into other lands. Unfortunately, during these migrations, they once more encountered the evolved Nephilim people. And when these fallen, earthbound sons of God saw that the daughters of Noah were more beautiful than their own, they took them for wives. So the Gibborim, the huge, hellish children born of such marriages, once more appeared on earth.
Though these movements occurred in dim antiquity, the ancient historians have been able to track many of them. Gomer's clans, for instance, settled in "Higher Asia," in lands not too distant from one another. Here they came in contact with some Nephilim flood survivors and apparently entered a close association with them, for, after being defiled by genes from this "strange flesh," they eventually evolved into a race of giants. From them, affirms the Celtic scholar Paul Pezron, sprang the enormous blond Sacae that overran parts of Asia and Asia Minor and some Fertile Crescent countries, possibly including Canaan. In later times, having changed their derisive name Sacae to Celtae, they conquered most of Europe.
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