Rephaite

, 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 (from Repha'im, ; ; ), refers to a people of greater-than-average height and stature in Deuteronomy 2:10-11, or departed spirits in the afterlife, Sheol as written in the following scriptures: Isaiah 26:14; Psalms 88:11, and Proverbs 9:18.

, 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 (from Repha'im, ; ; ), refers to a people of greater-than-average height and stature in Deuteronomy 2:10-11, or departed spirits in the afterlife, Sheol as written in the following scriptures: Isaiah 26:14; Psalms 88:11, and Proverbs 9:18.

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 . 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 Deuteronomy 2:11, 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: Sun rules the Rephaim, Sun rules the divine ones: Your company are the gods, see, the dead are your company.

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