2 Samuel 5:18

The valley of Rephaim. This fruitful valley ( Isaiah 17:5 ) is about three miles in length, and two in breadth. Occupying it in vast numbers, the Philistines sent out bodies of men to plunder the whole country, while a sufficient force watched Jerusalem, intending to take it by famine. The Rephaim were an aboriginal race, first mentioned in Genesis 14:5 , and evidently in early times very widely spread in Palestine. The idea that they were giants has no more to be said in its favour than that they were ghosts—the meaning of the word in Isaiah 26:14 , Isaiah 26:19 . No sensible philologist will endeavour to explain the names of these primitive races and of their towns by Hebrew roots, though there has been too much of this craze in past times. The Rephaim seem. however, to have been physically a well-developed people, and several races of Canaan of great stature are described in Deuteronomy 2:11 as having belonged to them, as did Og, who was a man of extraordinary dimensions ( Deuteronomy 3:11 ).