the Nephilim: legendary superhuman figures of primeval times, described as offspring of divine beings and human women, remembered as the mightiest of ancient heroes
The Nephilim appear in only two passages in the Hebrew Bible, and in both they function as a marker of something extraordinary and threatening: the children of divine beings and human women who became the famed warriors of old (Genesis 6:4), and the terrifying inhabitants of Canaan whom the Israelite spies compare themselves to grasshoppers beside (Numbers 13:33).
The word almost certainly derives from the Hebrew root נפל (to fall), most likely as a passive form meaning something like "ones who have fallen" or "the fallen ones." The most influential modern explanation, advanced by Ronald Hendel, connects them to the legendary dead warriors who lie fallen in Sheol in Ezekiel 32:27, primeval heroes doomed to die, whose glory was their very destruction. Ancient translators divided between this instinct and another: the Septuagint rendered the word as γίγαντες (giants), importing Greek mythology's earth-born monsters, while Targum Onkelos called them גִּבָּרַיָּא (mighty ones). Aquila went strictly etymological with "those falling upon," meaning attackers, and Symmachus chose "the violent ones."
Genesis 6:4 sits in one of the most compressed and syntactically puzzling sentences in the Bible. The verse says the Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the divine beings came in to the daughters of humankind and bore children by them: these were the mighty men of old, the men of renown. Whether the Nephilim are the offspring of those unions, or a pre-existing population distinct from the offspring called the mighty men, is a live scholarly question. The clause "and also afterward" becomes a bridge to Numbers 13:33, where the spies describe the Anakim as descendants of the Nephilim, though critics from the Septuagint tradition onward have noted that this clause is absent in the Greek text of Numbers, suggesting it may be a later editorial harmonization. Either way, the Numbers 13 context makes clear the narrator views the spies' account as a "false report" (the Hebrew word דִּבָּה), which means the grasshopper comparison and the Nephilim identification carry a freight of frightened exaggeration.
Disputed
Whether the word means "fallen ones" (from the root נפל, passive form) or derives from an Aramaic loanword already meaning "giant."
- majorityA Hebrew passive form from נפל, meaning "ones who have fallen" or "fallen ones," denoting legendary dead heroes or figures destined for destruction.; HALOT, s.v. נְפִלִים; BDB, s.v. נְפִלִים; DCH, s.v. נְפִלִים; R. Hendel, 'Of Demigods and the Deluge: Toward an Interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4,' JBL 106 (1987), pp. 13-26; J. J. Collins, in NIDOTTE, s.v. נְפִלִים
- minorityA loanword from Aramaic נְפִילָא, which already meant "giant" (as in the constellation Orion, the felled hunter), making the word mean "giant" directly rather than derivatively.; M. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Lexham Press, 2015)
Whether the Nephilim in Genesis 6:4 are the offspring of the unions between divine beings and human women, or a pre-existing population distinct from the offspring called the mighty men (גִּבֹּרִים).
- majorityThe Nephilim are the same as or identical to the offspring, the mighty men of old produced by the unions. The pronoun "these" in Genesis 6:4 refers to the offspring.; U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, Part 1 (Magnes, 1961); G. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, WBC (Word, 1987); V. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17, NICOT (Eerdmans, 1990); R. Hendel, 'The Nephilim Were on the Earth: Genesis 6:1-4 and Its Ancient Near Eastern Context,' in C. Auffarth and L. Stuckenbruck, eds., The Fall of the Angels (Brill, 2004)
- minorityThe Nephilim are a pre-existing population separate from the offspring; the pronoun "these" refers back to the Nephilim themselves, and the mighty men are a distinct group.; K. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, NAC (Broadman & Holman, 1996); J. Day, From Creation to Babel: Studies in Genesis 1-11, LHBOTS 592 (Bloomsbury, 2013); K.-E. Jang, 'Re-Reading the Nephilim: A New Interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4,' Religions 16 (2025)