Tracking the Rephaim Through Place and Time

Abstract

In separate traditions in the HB, the Rephaim are presented either as a living group of gigantic warriors or as shadowy figures of the underworld of Sheol. They are referred to as the rp’um in earlier Amorite Ugaritic texts, in which their role and status are much debated. This paper offers a hypothesis that, first, tracks rp’um/Rephaim antecedent traditions from the Sumerian heroic and funerary practices adopted by the Amorites to the tradition of the rp’um of the Ugaritic literature, and then tracks them on to the HB, through the Amorite connection to Mlk/Molech, in two different regional traditions found in the HB. Literary analysis and cross-cultural evidence regarding the Amorites are used to demonstrate the plausibility of this hypothesis. This paper also puts forth that: the name Hammurapi is a reference to a funerary practice and is a titular name; rpi is employed in its more basic sense of meaning “to restore/mend”; rp’um, following Good, is the passive participle, “restored/healed ones”; and Deut 2:10–11 and the biblical King Og texts do not support the Israelites having encountered living Rephaim warriors. Tracking the heroic and death-culture traditions shows that the antecedents to the biblical Rephaim were likely originally heroic-age warriors who, upon death, were cared for and were appealed to through funerary rituals for some benefit. However, these Amorite traditions were not fully understood by the Israelites when they encountered them and appropriated aspects in their representation of the Rephaim.

1. Introduction

This paper presents a hypothetical model that tracks traditions related to the biblical Rephaim, temporally and spatially, from Sumerian antecedents through the Amorites to Ugarit, into Canaan and onto ancient Israel.1 First, as it speaks of the Amorites, that term is used somewhat broadly to refer to a group of people who held a common tribal identity and basic culture. Second, this paper draws on studies involving the common motifs and apparent psychology of heroic ages, as well as on recent research into Mesopotamian funerary practices, the kispum ritual, and the theory that Ugarit came under Amorite influence in the early part of the second millennium BCE. Third, a working thesis for this paper is that the influences of heroic epic traditions, whether oral or written, tended to move from Mesopotamia westward rather than from Greece eastward, the latter position being one that was popular a few decades ago.2 Fourth, the reader should note that, in order to create a coherent flow of thought in the body of the paper, further detailed discussion is located in the endnotes. Finally, this attempt to work with such broad sweeping data necessitates that the author acknowledge that he is peering over the shoulders of the “giants” of the many respective fields and drawing on their conclusions to create this synthesis.

As one studies the data, one encounters a good deal of diversity of interpretation and several questions. Regarding the biblical material, one finds that prose passages tend to treat the Rephaim as living warriors of a “gigantic” nature while, in primarily poetic passages, they are shades of the dead.3 In regard to the Ugaritic material,4 the main questions are: Do the terms related to the rp’um refer to a guild, chariot warriors, dead leaders, semi-divine beings in the underworld, or some combination? If they are being evoked in death rituals, to what end? Therefore, several issues must be explored to sort out the origins of the Ugaritic tradition and the relationship with the biblical traditions. Below is an overview of how the traditions are tracked.

Overview

Stage 1: Sumerian antecedents	Sumerian culture presents antecedents to traditions that appear with the Amorites’ rp’um and the HB Rephaim: Heroic-age traditions of mythologized characters who were “gigantic,” early leaders, and recognized as achieving a semi-divine status. Evidence of funerary practices (kispum) meant to preserve the essence of the dead in return for some benefit.
Stage 2: Amorites in Sumeria	Amorites pick up (perhaps blend) Sumerian cultural practices: Textual evidence of funeral rituals (kispum) that predated Amorite presence. Probable development of their own heroic-age traditions (e.g. eponymous Didanu/Ditannu) as found projected back in later Ugaritic texts.
Stage 3: Amorite settlement at Ugarit	Amorite settlement at Ugarit and production of texts reflecting similar traditions in regard to rp’um: First textual mention of rp’um who are influential (semi-divine), ghosts of dead, great, warrior-leaders invoked in funerary rituals with similarity to the kispum.
Stage 4: Israelites encounter Amorite traditions	HB witnesses two distinct traditions about the Rephaim (rp’um) in which they would have had exposure to Amorite traditions connected to MLK (underworld deity): In a northern area, Israelites pick up tradition of previous foreign “gigantic” great warriors. In a southern area, Israelites learn about foreign funerary practices invoking the ghosts of dead kings (perhaps the kispum).

2. Stage One: Sumerian Antecedents

The first thesis is that some elements that belong to the rp’um/Rephaim traditions, came from or were shared with the Sumerians5, and were then picked up by the Amorites (see Stage Two). One such element is the nature of heroic traditions. Sumerian epic poetry reveals a heroic age that flourished no later than the early third millennium, with such heroes as Enmerkar, Lugalbanda, and Gilgamesh (Kramer 1948, p. 158). This heroic age shares cultural patterns with other heroic ages, such the Greek, Indian, and Teutonic ones (ibid., p. 157). These shared characteristics include the migration of a group of people who had not yet culturally matured around a national organization, who depended on their military class more than on their agricultural class, who moved into the area of a more advanced civilization that was in a state of weakness or disintegration, and who coalesced into a more advanced state (ibid., pp. 158–59). One also finds this heroic-age pattern in the Amorite movement into southern Mesopotamia (beginning late third millennium BCE), the Amorite movement into Ugarit (19th to 18th cent. BCE), and in the biblical traditions of the movement of Hebrews/Israelites into the promised land during the Conquest and, to some extent, at the time of establishing the monarchy.6

The characterization of Sumerian heroic characters who are clearly mythologized but may well go back to historical personages, is significant for the later portrayals of the Rephaim as gigantic. One of the relevant features of at least two of the heroic characters is their size representation. Lugalbanda, father of Gilgamesh, is a compound name in which the first element, lugal, means “big man”, and which at some point became a term for “king”. (One is reminded of King Saul, the first Israelite king, who was a head taller than other people.) Gilgamesh, as is well known, is presented as a large superhero. However, although it may be that some such figures were somewhat larger than other contemporaries, their size representation, like that of gods, reflects an ideology of status rather than of physical actuality. For example, in the Sumerian artwork found on the so-called Sumerian Standard in the Royal Tombs of Ur from about 2600 BCE, a king is depicted as larger than other people.7 One should note then, even when heroic traditions may go back to historical characters, as is probable for Gilgamesh, who may have been large in stature, their “gigantic” reputation is rooted as much or more in their strength, military prowess, and/or political prestige than in size.8

Another common feature with the later Rephaim is a connection to some type of superior or divine status. Gilgamesh, who is a semi-divine being, refers to Lugalbanda as his god; that is, Lugalbanda became a deified king. Also, from the Old Akkadian period, we have a couple of occurrences of basilophoric names (names based on a king’s name) that deify kings: Narām-Sîn-ilī, “Narām-Sîn is my god”, and Šarru-kīn-ilī, “Sargon is my god” (De Boer 2018–2019, p. 22). This apparent Akkadian royal ideology seems to have influenced Sumerian royal ideology of the Ur III Period, due to the number of basilophoric names that begin with the reign of Šulgi, who was considered deified during his lifetime (ibid.). Apparently, under Amorite influence, none of the Babylonian kings were deified during their lifetimes; that is, they did not carry the divine determinative (^d, dingir, 𒀭) before their names. However, there still were basilophoric names, such as “Hammurapi is my god”, that indicated kings were still more than mere mortals.9 A significant point brought out by De Boer in his study of basilophoric names connected to gods is that there were degrees of divinity and empowerment such that even deified kings had to rely on superior divine support (ibid., pp. 27, 39–40). These early Mesopotamian cultures did not hold a simple, dualistic understanding of divinity; that is, that one was only either human or divine. Rather, one could be semi-divine or could become deified during one’s lifetime or after. Therefore, two characteristics of Sumerian heroic figures appear to be passed down to the Rephaim: “gigantic” in reputation and having some semi-divine status. [It should be noted that these characteristics may also appear in a variously interpreted biblical text, Gen 6:1–4, a reflection about a pre-diluvian age of the Nephilim, who were “mighty men” (gibbôrim) and who seem to be viewed as a product of the sons of god/s and the daughters of men.10]

There are also shared elements of funerary and mortuary ideology and practices that carry over to the Rephaim tradition. Based on the numerous artifacts for daily life and, possibly, on the attempts to preserve bodies with mercury sulfate in the Royal Tombs of Ur (about mid-third millennium), one finds a burial tradition that presupposed an afterlife (Baadsgaard et al. 2011; MacDougal 2014, pp. 162–75), as one finds with the rp’um/Rephaim texts, although the Sumerian dead went to the east and not into a subterranean world (MacDougal 2014, pp. 88–90). Moreover, the ancient ritual of the kispum monthly mortuary meal, to which some Ugaritic texts seem to refer, possibly goes back to pre-Sargonic Sumer (Finkelstein 1966, p. 117; MacDougal 2014, pp. 122, 162–67). Although our textual references to the kispum funerary and mortuary meal appear first in early-second-millennium texts, since those texts, such as the “Genealogy of the Hammurapi Dynasty” [GHD] and the Mari texts, trace dynasties back to the third millennium, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the kispum ritual does as well. This kispum ritual was performed both annually as well as monthly on the darkest night of the month between the time of the fading moon and new moon (the 16th of the month of the lunar calendar). Since the main god for the Sumerians and Amorites was the moon god (Sumerian: Nanna; and Akkadian: Sin), this timing of the monthly ritual was probably viewed as a liminal stage of the cosmos in which there was access for those living to be linked through portals to the dead (MacDougal 2014, pp. 155–56, 289).

3. Stage Two: Amorites in Sumeria11

With the migration of the tribal groups of the Semitic Amorites (Amurru) into southern Mesopotamia from the west,12 one finds the ingredients for another heroic age tradition. As a nomadic tribal group, or groups, that had been in the region since at least the late third millennium, they settled into the southern region at the time of the fall of the Ur III Dynasty, when the Sumerian region had been disrupted by the Akkadians, Gutians, and then Elamites. These Amorite people were initially repelled from northern Mesopotamia. However, under Amorite influence, Babylon in the south developed into a powerful city-state and the Amorites preserved, transmitted, and adopted much of the Sumerian culture and probably adapted it to their own culture. Since the Amorites had their own heroic figures and funerary practices,13 it is likely impossible to sort out completely the unique contributions of each culture as they blended. For example, antecedents of Sumerian heroic traditions are present in the later literary work of the Gilgamesh Epic; however, one does not know how much reshaping was due to Amoritic influence.

It is from Amorite texts that we learn more about the Sumerian kispum ritual and other funerary practices. In these texts, we find the tradition that the dead descend to a subterranean netherworld rather than departing to the east as with Sumerians.14 We also find elaborate genealogies that are clearly a Semitic tradition, but also are pre-Sargonic Sumerian (Finkelstein 1966, pp. 116–17). Unlike what was first projected by scholars into such burial traditions, these practices were not focused on apotropaic purposes of protecting the living from family ghosts, the eṭemmu. Rather, particularly through the kispum ritual, the purpose was to strengthen family bonds with the dead (MacDougal 2014, p. 5). Failing to implement these practices though could lead to negative consequences, since the dead would pass into oblivion and could have no beneficial effect (ibid., pp. 106–7). The person responsible for performing the kispum for the family members was called the pāqidu (LÚ-SAG-ÈN-TAR), and had the ritual responsibility of caring for the living and the dead; it was generally the primary heir, although others could fill this major role, even a female adopted as a male (ibid., pp. 5, 150; Finkelstein 1966, pp. 114–15). For an example of the importance of such an heir, one finds, in the Ugaritic Aqhat Epic (KTU 1.119), that the father, Dan’el, performs sacrifices for days to appeal to El to provide him with a son, while the first mentioned actions of the son are to provide Dan’el with proper funerary care (Wyatt 2002, pp. 255–57). Although the funerary evidence shows that families cared for their dead through such practices, one might assume that, if the practices did not originate with kings and royalty, the funerary practices of such people had at least the most political significance. It appears, then, that some of the reasons for the kispum among royalty was not just to maintain family unity, but to legitimize political power and possibly to receive benefits such as agricultural abundance.15 In fact, the likely nature and function of the GHD was as a celebration of a royal kispum at the coronation of the new king, in which the etimmu (ghosts) of dead former kings were invoked (Finkelstein 1966, p. 15) in part to legitimize the new dynasty.16 Interestingly, the connection with the dead was not necessarily based on kinship. There is evidence of the ritual for practitioners in the same guild (MacDougal 2014, p. 291). Also, in genealogical texts such as the GHD and the Amorite lists of kings from Mari in Syria, one’s legitimizing connection of power was made to past heroic kings outside one’s bloodline and even part of fictive mythology. Therefore, these lists portrayed a descent of power from the distant past.17 As MacDougal writes, “Lineage, bound up in cosmological imagery, could have rooted families to ongoing and ancient forebearers, either real, fictive or a combination of both” (ibid., p. 295).

Note on the Meaning of Hammurapi

A hypothesis of this author is that the name Hammurapi, that of the sixth and most famous of the Amorite kings from the first Babylonian dynasty who greatly expanded the kingdom, references the above funerary tradition of the kispum. The name Hammurapi comes from ʻAmmu (ancestor, paternal kinsman, clan) and Rāpi’, the latter coming from the verb rp’ (רפא), on which Rephaim is also based.18 It is necessary to note that, although it has become popular to translate the verb rp’ as “to heal”, Brown’s (2004) survey of the Northwest and Old South Arabic linguistic evidence leads to the conclusion that the basic meaning of rp’ is “to restore, make whole”, used for people and such objects as altars, land, undrinkable water, and broken pottery, whereas “to heal” is a secondary meaning and not the root concept. It is helpful to think first in terms of the more general nuance of “restore/make whole/mend” and not to assume literal physical healing. Therefore, if Hammurapi meant “[my] ancestor/kinsman is a restorer/healer”, it could mean that Hammurapi’s father saw himself, during his lifetime or projected after death, as beneficent to his people. However, this author proposes that the name means “kinsman restorer/healer”, as a reference to Hammurapi himself19, and that the “restoring/healing” referenced in the name refers the role of the pāqidu; that is, the person in charge of the kispum rituals. This proposed connection to such names as Hammurapi and rp’um/Rephaim rests on the supreme cultural and personal importance of funerary rituals as magical-medical healing, restorative practices that prepared the etimme (ghost) of the deceased for passage to the underworld and for some continuity of its existence. As noted by MacDougal (2014), the treatment of a corpse is similar to recorded healing rituals (pp. 175–76). Further support is found in the HB, in which the Egyptians who embalm Jacob for burial are called “physicians” (Gen 50:2), using the plural participial form, rôpĕʾîm, “restorers/healers”. A person called “Hammurapi”, then, was responsible for the healing funerary rituals for his ancestors.

Another proposal of this paper is that Hammurapi might be a titular name or a throne name and not his birth name. His grandfather’s and father’s names break the tradition of having an Amorite name belonging to the tribe of Amnanum and are more typically Akkadian, being derived from the name of the moon god, Sin: Apil-Sin and Sin-Muballit, respectively. Hammurapi himself continues this tradition by naming his son Samsuiluna, after the sun god to whom Sin gave birth. One would think, then, that the birth name of Hammurapi would have been a compound name with Sin. It may well be, then, that the return to an Amorite tribal name, Hammurapi, was as a secondary name. As the person who most consolidated the Amorite rule of Babylonia, it seems conceivable that Hammurapi (“kinsman restorer/healer”) might have been a title of honor. Such a person heals (preserves) the continuity of the great ancestral leaders and their beneficence. In support of this thesis, this name/title is found for a contemporaneous king and for succeeding kings of the Amorite state of Yamhad to the west (often labeled Hammurapi I, II, and III).

4. Stage 3: Amorite Settlement at Ugarit

4.1. An Amorite Resettlement

Recent research has convincingly identified the resettlement and reurbanization of Ugarit around 1800 BCE, around the height of Hammurapi’s rule, as being by the Amorites. Buck (2020) supports materially and linguistically the conclusion that not only were the Amorites responsible for the reurbanization of Ugarit around 1800 BCE, retaining their influence for about 600 years, but they were a distinct group from the Canaanite peoples, with whom they also had much in common.20 Pruitt (2019) has established that the Amorites themselves and other peoples around them considered the Amorites a distinct cultural identity.21 She identified markers such as the following: behaviors; hairstyle, beard, and clothing; personal naming; family construct; extended kinship, language; the Amorite Assembly; sheep; triangular mid-rib dagger; and donkey transport (chap. 4.3). More importantly, since the Ugaritic texts that mention the rp’um/Rephaim come from this period, particularly from the 14th to the 12th centuries until about 1190 and the destruction of Ugarit, whose last king also took the name Hammurapi, this paper, then, considers the Amorite background to the Ugaritic texts to be an established theory. One should also note that the settlement of a more nomadic group into a former, more sophisticated place during a time of decline again provides the general conditions for reflections of a heroic age, a context into which the Rephaim traditions fit.

4.2. Comments on Texts and Interpretations of Rp’um

This section will present the most supportive arguments for the author’s conclusions regarding the Ugaritic rp’um, but not fully discuss the weaker options.22 In the history of the interpretation of references to the rp’um, various suppositions, which themselves call for examination, often lie behind the conclusions.23 There is not space here to work through each of the suppositions and interpretations of the references to the rp’um. It is argued below that the evidence points to the conclusion that the term rp’um in Amorite mythic and religious literature was a designation for rulers who had died and received funerary treatment that “restored/healed” them or ensured for them a continuity of existence in the underworldwith the expectation of some sort of benefit for the living. They had a status higher than that of the normal dead ghosts, eṭemmu, and were possibly semi-divine.

4.2.1. Singular Rp’u: God or Epithet?

This is an epithet; there is likely no god Rap’u. The use of the singular (rp’u) has been understood by some as the name of a god (for example: Pope 1981, p. 182; Wyatt 2010, pp. 589–90) or title of a god.24 However, the work of Rahmouni has demonstrated that the word is used in epithetic phrases as an attribute (Rahmouni 2008, pp. 37–39, 46–48, 294–96). In one case (KTU2 1.22:I:8), the text references three “brothers”, each of whom is introduced using tm, “there was”, and is followed by a series of epithets for that brother. One brother, Ṯmq, (identified with the Mesopotamian god of wild animals, Sumuqan), is called “the rp’u of Ba`lu” (ibid., pp. 292–93); so, it becomes clear that rp’u in this text is not a god’s name.25 In another text (KTU 1.108:1–4),26 the text starts off with what could be a name or an epithet, “… may the rp’u, the eternal king, drink”, but this entity is enthroned at the places Edrei and Ashtaroth, the latter of which is twice elsewhere designated as the dwelling of the god Milku. As a result, it makes sense to read the text as containing a eulogy to Milku with rp’u as an epithet.27 (This text is also significant since the Israelite literature also mentions the Rephaim in connection with the same two place names, Edrei and Ashtaroth, in Deut 1:4 and in Josh 12:4 and 13:12. See Stage Four.)

4.2.2. Note on Translation of Rp’u

The epithet rp’u refers to a current function as healers, not heroes. Different translators have rendered the epithet rp’u as “healer of”, “savior of”, “warrior of”, or “hero of”. The thinking follows this line: gods and kings could be called “healers”, sometimes in a general sense of one who blesses, sometimes in the sense of “savior”, and sometimes in the context of battle motifs such as that of “hero” or “warrior”.28 However, the general meaning of the root is “restore, make whole, mend”. Also, as this term (rp’) carries over to Hebrew, one finds the active participial form used for “physicians” (Gen 50:2(2); 2 Chr 16:12; Jer 8:22; metaphorically in Job 13:4) or for God as a healer (e.g., Exod 15:26; 2 Kgs 20:5; Ps 103:3; 147:3). Therefore, translations of rp’u as “warrior” and “hero” probably read too much into the text. (See above, in Section Note on the Meaning of Hammurapi, “Note on the Meaning of Hammurapi”, and below, Section 4.2.4, “Rp’um: Vocalization, Translation, and Summary”, for more on “restoring/healing”.)

4.2.3. Plural Rp’um: Living People, General Gods, Chthonic Deities, or Shades?

A second focus of consideration of identity arises when one turns to the plural rp’um. These entities have been identified as either living humans—usually warriors—or as general gods, or as chthonic deities, or as “shades” or “ghosts” of dead kings, or often some combination of these.29 This author supports the understanding that the rp’um in mythic and religious (ritual) texts, are dead leaders/kings of Amorite lineage going back through tribal connections to Didanu,30 who have superior status to other common dead people and who may have been regarded as semi-divine.

First, while there is general agreement that these entities in some texts are shades in the underworld, there is no clear evidence for them being living humans in other mythic and religious texts. KTU 1.161 serves as a key text about the identity of the plural rp’um. In a funerary ritual which occurs in conjunction with the new king’s coronation, one finds the phrase “rp’um ʼarṣ” (the rp’um of the earth), which has led to the assumption that these are humans living on the earth (e.g., by De Moor 1976, p. 324). However, ʼarṣ can refer to the underworld, as it does here. In this text, Šapšu, the sun goddess, is to lead the dead into the netherworld during her nightly journey under the earth from the west to the east (Bordreuil 2007, pp. 91–92), a role of Šapšu recognized by De Moor in a text about Ba’al and Mot (KTU 1.6) (De Moor 1976, pp. 330–31). Moreover, De Moor himself notes, in regard to KTU 1.6, that “when someone was buried, he was interred with the ʼilm ʼarṣ” (ibid., p. 331), a phrase used for deities of some sort in the underworld with—or possibly the same as—the rp’um. A similar use of ʼarṣ is found in KTU 1.114, in which Ilu (El) holds a marzēaḥ-like drinking feast31 for gods, he drinks to excess, and we are told in a couplet: “ỈIu fell down like a dead one, (ql.ỉl.km mt) Ilu, like those going down to the earth (ỉl.kyrdm.ảrṣ)” (del Olmo Lete 2015, p. 234). Therefore, in regard to KTU 1.161, the various gods and beings addressed, those who are identified as ʼIlanûma of the ʼarṣ/earth, are chthonic deities. Moreover, there may be an underworld hierarchy of first the ʼilanûma, then the rp’um, and then the mûtûma, deceased humans.32 Two more points support the conclusion that the rp’um are only among the dead: first, in the religious and mythic texts that summon the rp’um, the contexts generally refer to a funerary ritual that appears to be the kispum;33 second, all of the human- and warrior-like actions of the rp’m, such as sitting in chairs, feasting, and gathering in chariots are also appropriate for underworld characters.34

Another claim in support of the rp’um being living humans is that one finds, outside mythic and religious texts, the unknown term bn.rp’iyn (sons of rp’iyn) for a group of people who receive a stipend from the king; this group was employed along with the mrynm, who were warriors (KTU 4.232, (Schmidt 1996, pp. 88–91). However, nothing more is known about this group. If it is a variant spelling of rp’, it may be a reference to the physicians and/or embalmers (see Gen 50:2) who accompanied warriors. In any case, the rp’um of the mythic and religious texts are deceased. Doak (2012), who also concludes that the rp’um are deceased, correctly stresses that their warrior status is parallel to other hero cult traditions in which the hero takes on a significant status after death (pp. 164–65). Based on the current information then, the name/title rp’um in the Ugaritic mythic and religious texts is an after-death designation for honored heroes. (See below, Section 4.2.4, “Rp’um: Vocalization, Translation, and Summary”.)

A second issue is the status or power of the underworld rp’um. On the one hand, they have been viewed as powerful enough to grant healing or fertility;35 on the other, they have been viewed as powerless.36 This paper supports the position that the Rephaim were “divinized” beings, who could appeal to the gods, but who were not very powerful. Bordreuil has noted that, in a possible hierarchy of the underworld, they seem to be situated between chthonic gods and the normal dead,37 a status that would be in parallel with their earthly kingship roles as intermediaries between their people and their patron gods. When they are called up in the context of necromancy, one would assume that they are invoked for some benefit, if only for information. A probable parallel example in the HB is when Saul sought to consult the dead Samuel through a medium (1 Sam 28:8–19), who says that she saw elohim (gods) in Samuel’s company (vv. 12–13; see more below under Section 5.3.2, “Valley of the Rephaim and Shades of the Dead”). At a minimum, based on what has been learned about the kispum ritual which invokes the eṭemmu, the family ghosts were invoked to reinforce family bonds (MacDougal 2014, p. 5). In the case of the royal dead, the emphasis appears to have fallen on the right of political power transferring from the dead king to the one being enthroned, for example, in the Keret (Kirta) story, when El blesses Keret (KTU 1.15 ii 16–iii 16) (Wyatt 2010, pp. 587–88). Further, it was also believed that such ghosts had at least some minimal power to bestow a blessing or cause harm (MacDougal 2014, p. 6). So, the royal kispum, which would be associated with the rp’um, was a practice for the continuity of political power, but was possibly also an appeal for fertility, as is found in Greek heroic funerary practice.38

The rp’um should probably be considered as semi-divine in a qualified sense. Reflecting on heroic-age literature, one notes that the ancient heroes are portrayed as being semi-divine, as well as usually of gigantic stature. However, one should use the designation of “semi-divine” with caution. In the kingship lists that go back to the Sumerians and Akkadians and, more specifically, in those with the basilophoric names, one can track how some kings were granted divine status after death and where some kings claim such an attribute during their lifetimes39 However, even when basilophoric names are in prayers to kings, the contexts make it clear that such deified kings themselves relied on other gods (De Boer 2018–2019, pp. 27, 34, 39). It may well be then that, in the netherworld, as in their earthly role as regent of a god, kings were again seen as intermediaries who could appeal to the gods or, in cases of necromancy, could at least relay information from the gods.

4.2.4. Rp’um: Vocalization, Translation, and Summary

The above conclusion—that, in the mythic and religious texts, the rp’um are the ghosts of leaders/kings and warriors, with some power but not that of the mainstream gods—leads this author to support a hypothesis by Robert Good. His thesis was that, in such texts, the best translation of our term’s consonants with /a/ and /i/ class vowels would not be the active participle, “healers”, but the passive participle, “healed ones”.40 That is to say that the rp’um are a class of “restored/mended/healed” dead who have been prepared for an afterlife role. The often-assumed role of the rp’um as healers themselves is an inference based on the root rp’ and is not based on what is clearly stated in the texts. For example, in Doak’s (2012) survey of parallels to Greek hero cults, he also refers to them as “healers”, but does not point to where this claim is found in any text (pp. 156–62). Even if he is correct that Greek heroes were healers, the evidence is not there for the rp’um. To be sure, kings and gods may be referred to loosely as “healers/restorers”. Also, it is possible that the singular rp’u could be the epithet of an underworld god who had a role in “restoring/healing”, perhaps even restoring the dead to the status of rp’um. However, although some dead heroes may be appealed to for fertility, which might be viewed as a kind of “healing”, Brown points out that the verb rp’ is never used for any action of the rp’um, and there are no accounts of them actually healing.41

Aside from the above negative evidence, in support of the thesis that the rp’um are “restored/healed ones”, one should note that, first, funerary rites such as the kispum, which seem to be found in connection with the rp’um, are similar to healing rituals, and functioned to maintain the continuity of the dead. Second, in the tradition of the Hebrew texts, the active participle of rp’ (rôpĕʾîm, showing the Canaanite vowel shift) is used for “physicians” who prepared Jacob’s body after his death by embalming it (Gen 50:2). Third, in KTU 1.22, we find “holy balsams” being spilled in connection with the dead (Pope 1981, pp. 168–69), an action apparently akin to embalming. Finally, in the tradition of the HB, had the Israelites understood rp’um to mean “healers”, they likely would have preserved it as an active participle, and not as Rephaim (רְפָאִֽים).42 Therefore, it seems the term rp’um in Amorite mythic and religious literature was a designation for rulers who had died and received funerary treatment that “restored/healed” or enabled them (perhaps in part through embalming) to continue existence in the underworld for some sort of benefit to the living, at least establishing the living ones’ continuity of power.

To summarize this thesis so far, what one finds is that the Amorites who resettled and re-established Ugarit brought with them their heroic-age tradition of kingship continuity from their great past warrior tribal leaders going back to the eponymous Didanu/Ditannu. They brought the funerary practice of evoking them under the designation of rp’um, referring to them as “restored/mended/healed” ones, that is, efficacious ghosts.

5. Stage Four: The Israelites Encounter Amorite Traditions

5.1. Ideological Background: The Weaker Overcome the Stronger

Before taking the next step of suggesting how the Israelite tradition of the Rephaim as gigantic living warriors developed, it is important to note an influential feature of the Israelite heroic tradition. The Israelites often portrayed themselves in confrontations as the weaker party, rescued by God. To be sure, on the one hand, Israelite literature sometimes used the ANE motif of size being related to prestige, for example, with King Saul being a head taller than the average male and with the strong-man Samson. On the other hand, the Israelites often portrayed themselves as tinier, weaker, or fewer than their enemies rather than more powerful. An example is found in the report of the scouts back to Moses prior to the Conquest:, “And there we saw the Nephilim—descendants of Anak [are] from the Nephilim—and we in our eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes” (Num 13:33). In this mention of the “Nephilim”, one has a Sumerian-like preflood tradition of heroic entities, mighty men (הַגִּבֹּרִ֛ים) who, as noted above (Section 2, “Stage One: Sumerian Antecedents”, paragraph 3 and n. 10), appear to be the product of the cohabitation of “sons of gods” with humans (Gen 6:4). Although being the weaker party, the Israelites, in their heroic tradition, conquer their gigantic mighty foes through the intervention of Yahweh. Doak argues that such “giants” symbolically embodied what was wrong in the land that had to be set right, with the last giant finally being defeated by David to firmly establish the Israelite monarchy.43 This “underdog” motif is found in stories about the Conquest, settling the land, and securing the monarchy against the Philistines. In Judges, for example, which has marks of old, oral tradition, the character Gideon, who is hiding in a wine press to do his threshing, is ironically called “mighty warrior” (Judg 6:11–12). He protests his calling by God to lead his people in battle, since he is the least in his family which is the least in his tribe, and he puts God to the test for reassurance with the “fleece test” twice (6:36–39). In addition, before he does go out to battle, his numbers are reduced by God to a fraction of those of the enemy (7:4–9). This early occurring “underdog-against-the-great” motif appears, then, to have influenced later Israelite literary interpretation of their “Conquest”, the securing of the Davidic monarchy, and one traditional layer about the Rephaim.

5.2. Textual Background: The Appearance of Living Rephaim in Biblical Texts: Deut 2:10–11, Deut 3:11 and the King Og Texts, and Abrahamic Traditions

It is also necessary to explore whether early Israelite traditions support Israelites actually encountering living Rephaim warriors. The position concluded in this section is that legendary Rephaim were supplied anachronistically and fit with the Israelite “underdog-against-the-great” motif. (Although identifying the specific source, date, and purpose of anachronisms and redactional layers is important, it is not necessary for the purposes of this paper. Rather, showing that a text has been supplied for a later audience than the implied audience of the greater context increases the likelihood that the later author was less likely to know the origins of the traditions asserted.)44

As will be argued later, a tradition about the Rephaim was probably picked up from Israelite contact with the Amorites or other former residents of the land (see Section 5.3.1, “Land of the Rephaim and Gigantic Warriors”). Involved in the discussion is the ability to assess the historical accuracy of preserved biblical traditions, a matter which must be handled case by case. The main texts are treated below.

5.2.1. Deuteronomy 2:10–11: Encountered Rephaim?

Deuteronomy 2:10–11 is a lynchpin case. For example, Korpelainen (2022) presented a thesis about the Rephaim in which he gives priority to the biblical writings over the Ugaritic texts. Finding the Rephaim to be living warriors in the HB, he projects that conclusion on the Ugaritic texts. Methodologically, he works with a 15th-century date for the entrance of Moses and the Israelites into the Transjordan, and an assumption that the historical notes about their entry, particularly as found in Deuteronomy 2, are accurate. Even given those assumptions, his argument comes from a mistaken but commonly adopted reading of Deut 2:10–11 that identifies the living Anakim as Rephaim.45 The text actually identifies the former resident Emim as Rephaim and the current Anakim, whom Israel would face, not as Rephaim but “like” Rephaim, since they too were reputed to be large (e.g., Num 13:33; Deut 9:2). A typical misleading translation is as follows:

“The Emim—a large and numerous people, as tall as the Anakim—had formerly inhabited it. Like the Anakim, they are usually reckoned as Rephaim, though the Moabites call them Emim.”

(Deut 2:10–11, NRSV)

Before looking at the syntax of the text closely, it should be noted that verses 10–12, as well as verses 2:20–23, appear to be later, redactional inserts to the “Mosaic” speech, providing a background of conquests that occurred by others before Israel arrived. Such markers are the shift from the second-person direct address to referring to Israel in the third person (v. 12) and, more importantly, both the anachronistic reference to the land as already taken (v. 12) and a later time reference “to this day” (v. 22). The added comments enhance the speaker’s argument, stating that, although the Israelites would be facing Anakim in the land to the west of the Jordan, great people like the Anakim were previously defeated through Yahweh (v. 21): the Emim by the Moabites and the Zamzummim by the Ammonites.

Moreover, an examination of the discourse structure of the Hebrew leads to a different syntactical interpretation than what has been traditional in translations.

X-yiqtol: “The Emim before them were dwelling in her [=land]”,

  Nominal phrases/clause: “a people great and mighty and being tall [were] like the Anakim”.

X-yiqtol: “Rephaim they [Emim] were considered”,

  Nominal phrases/clause: “also they [=Rephaim] [were] like the Anakim”.

X-yiqtol: “And the Moabites called them [=Rephaim] Emim”.

Rather than saying that the Anakim, whom Israel would encounter, were Rephaim, the text is saying that the extinct Emim were Rephaim, and the Anakim are like the Rephaim. First, the identification of the pronouns (in brackets) is significant and follows a pattern. Since the Emim are the topic introduced by the “X” of the first X-yiqtol, they are being qualified as great ones, in the nominal description, as mighty and “like the Anakim”. The implied subject of the passive verb “were considered” (יֵחָשְׁב֥וּ) continues this qualification, so “Rephaim they were considered” is about the Emim, not the Anakim. Then, picking up on the last-named entity, the “X” of the second X-yiqtol construction, Rephaim, and moving to greater specificity, the pronoun “they” (הֵ֖ם) is the Rephaim, who also, “like the Anakim”, were mighty. Second, although the MT accent system is late, it supports this reading. The degree of disjunctiveness between the participle “being tall” (וָרָ֖ם) and “like the Anakim” creates an apposition which may be rendered as a nominal clause; the characteristics of the Emim were like that of the Anakim. The same degree of disjunctiveness occurs in the second set of nominal phrases between “also they” and the second “like the Anakim”, stating that the Rephaim were also like the Anakim. (The same X-yiqtol structure, vocabulary, degree of disjunctiveness, and sense occur again at 2:20b–21, in regard to the Zamzummim) Third, this reading gets rid of the conflict around considering living Anakim as Rephaim, when Deut 3:10 identifies Og as the only one left of the remnant of the Rephaim, and when the Anakim are still to be fought on the west side of the Jordan (Deut 9:1–2; Josh 11:21–22; 15:13–14)! Most significantly, this reading fits the theme and flow of thought of Deut 2:1–23, of defeating powerful enemies through Yahweh’s help.

In summary, what should be noted is that these two groups of people, the Emim and the Zamsummim, were gone from the land before the Israelites entered the Transjordan area, and they were later—whenever that might have been—identified by the speaker/redactor as Rephaim. Since, in the following account, the people the Israelite next encounter in battle in the Transjordan are Amorites (Deut 2:24–3:11), it makes sense to suppose that the Israelites picked up older, but misunderstood, traditions about the Rephaim from them. Therefore, Deut 2:10–12 and 20-23 do not lead to the conclusion that the Israelites encountered living Rephaim.

5.2.2. Deut 3:11 and the King Og Texts: Last of the Rephaim?

The above reading of Deut 2:10-11 as a redactional reference to the Rephaim having once been defeated in the land prior to Israel’s entry, still leaves a problem, particularly in Deuteronomy 3, with King Og as the lone living Rephaim (Deut 3:11; cf. Josh 13:12 and 12:4, although the wording of the last text is vaguer). This claim about Og also has the appearance of an anachronistic, redactional insertion. First, the text does present Og as being defeated in battle (Deut 3:1–10; cf. Josh 12:1, 4–5; 13:12). However, it should be noted that Og and his people are merely identified as Amorites (Deut 3:8; cf. 4:47; 31:4; Josh 9:10; and probably 24:12), until one gets to an aside comment in Deut 3:11 about Og being the last Rephaim, a comment that occurs along with a rhetorical question that makes a reference to Og’s large “iron bed”: “Is it not in Rabbah of the sons of Ammon?” Second, this comment and question break the flow of the “Mosaic” speech. Third, the reference to the audience’s knowledge of Og’s bed being in Rabbah appears to be an anachronistic statement for a later audience. Fourth, the dimensions of and the memorial preservation of Og’s “iron bed,” whether it is interpreted literally or as a funerary object, grant him heroic recognition.46 It is not this author’s intention to settle the interpretive issue about the “bed”, but to note that Og is identified as a Rephaim in this apparently later insertion, in which Og already had a heroic identity. The evidence supports either that Og was a deceased legendary figure prior to the Israelites’ battle with the Amorites or that he, merely an Amorite king, was made into a legendary obstacle in retrospect through the Israelite “underdog-against-the-great” motif by identifying him as a Rephaim.47 Therefore, without trying to date oral or written sources, but based alone on a close reading of both Deut 2:10–11 and 3:11, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that the Israelites never experienced living Rephaim in their Transjordan battles.

5.2.3. Abrahamic Traditions of Rephaim

There are two other references to living Rephaim in the Abrahamic traditions, both of which echo Conquest traditions and, therefore, appear to be backward anachronistic projections. The first, Gen 14:5 (see 5–7), coincides with Deut 2:10–11 and 3:11 as the only place where the Emim and Zamzummim (probably the same as the Zuzim) are mentioned. The second is Gen 15:20 (see 18–20), which lists various people to be conquered as also found in Exod 3:8–17; 23:23; Josh 24:11; and Deut 7:1. None of these other references, however, lists the Rephaim, but they do list the Amorites. Also, it is to be noted that the Rephaim stand out as the only people listed in Gen 15:18–20, written without a gentilic ending. Although the gentilic ending is not a conclusive indicator, it is probable that such Rephaim were viewed, in Israelite tradition, as a people, and were not associated specifically with an ancestorial linage or fixed location. The evidence, again, supports the conclusion that the Rephaim were not encountered as a living group but were anachronistically read into the Genesis texts by being associated with Emim and/or Amorites. (For more reflections on how the Rephaim were projected into Israelite history, see below, Section 5.3.4, “Notes on Literary Developments”.)

5.3. Two Israelite Traditions Regarding Rephaim and Mlk

The evidence in the HB leads to the conclusion that Israel picked up two distinct traditions about the Rephaim from different locations. Israelite literature has two Rephaim traditions, one primarily found in the narrative texts on so-called mighty/gigantic adversaries, and one primarily found in poetic texts of shades of the dead (see n. 3 for texts). Since Israelite literature draws on antecedents from surrounding cultures and has redacted its literature through its perspective of increasingly monotheistic Yahwism, one can only put forth hypotheses about how their traditions developed. The concern of this paper is not primarily to explain how different HB literary strands came together, but to identify the regional connections from which the Israelite traditions originated.

There is a key piece of evidence that appears to shed light on the two traditions. There are two Israelite areas connected to the Rephaim, each of which likely led to separate regional traditions, but both of which have a link to the Amorite Ugaritic god Mlk (Milku or Malik) who is found throughout Canaan and whom the Israelites in Judah at least knew as Molech.48 Milku, or Malik, is known as a god from personal names found in Ebla texts from the third millennium, as well as in second-millennium Mari texts. In the Mari texts, one finds recipients of funerary offerings, shades or gods called maliku (Heider 1992, vol. 4, p. 895), who sound much like the rp’um. Akkadian texts from the Old Babylonian period equate Malku/Milku with the underworld god Nergal, and again mention the mal(i)kū as involved in cultic rites for dead ancestors. So, both in the Ugaritic eulogy which is apparently to Milku (KTU 1.108) and which mentions the rp’um (see above Section 4.2.1, “Singular Rp’u: God or Epithet?”) and in the Mari texts, one finds dead chthonic ancestors connected to Milku (ibid.). Also, as Frendo notes, “the king” of Isa 57:9 appears to be a reference to a god in Sheol, if not to a god named Melek-Sheol (Frendo 2016, p. 362).

A side note to be borne in mind that correlates with how the Israelites developed two different traditions in different places regarding the Rephaim is that they were apparently not seen as a specific tribal group with that name. For example, whereas the Hebrew texts refer to the Amorites as a nation or tribe using the gentilic form (אמֹרִי), the Hebrew texts never use the gentilic ending when referring to the Rephaim (see above, regarding the list of “nation” names in Gen 15:19–21 and how Rephaim is the only non-gentilic form, Section 5.2.3) This evidence leads to a tentative conclusion that the Israelites did not consider the term Rephaim to be a patronymic or tribal name, but a people grouping associated with the Amorites or possibly even more broadly with the Canaanites, whose Milku traditions the Israelites had encountered in two different places.

5.3.1. “Land of the Rephaim” and Gigantic Warriors

The first Israelite area connected through Milku and the Amorites to the Rephaim is the area east of the Sea of Kinnereth (Sea of Galilee), the “land of the Rephaim” (Deut 2:20; 3:13; Josh 17:15). It is also known in the Israelite literature as Bashan and overlapped with Ammon to the south (see above, Section 5.2.1. on the Ammonites driving out the Rephaim, whom they called the Zamzummim, Deut 2:16–21). This territory was at the southern end of the Amorite tribal kingdom of Qatna, that was thriving around 2000 BCE, but which declined around 1770 BCE as the Amorite state of Yamhad, in which Ugarit was located, grew in power. As mentioned previously, in the Ugaritic eulogy to a god whose name has not survived (KTU 1.108:1–4), one of epithets links that god to the cities of Ashtaroth and Edrei, which are east of the Sea of Kinnereth (Sea of Galilee) in Bashan. Since twice in Ugaritic texts Ashtaroth is linked with the underworld deity Milku, he is probably the god in mind in that eulogy. These two place names occur in the HB, where the Israelites claimed victory over King Og of Bashan, along with King Sihon, “kings of the Amorites” (e.g., Deut 3:8; cf. 4:47; 31:4; Josh 9:10), and where they identify Og as one who is connected to both Ashtaroth and Edrei (e.g., Josh 12:14; 13:12; 13:31).49

The Israelites likely picked up from local lore, going back to Amorites, a misunderstood tradition that rp’um were once in this territory as great warriors. Thus, they called it, at some point in time, the “land of the Rephaim”. Horwitz wisely notes that ancient populations might not have clearly understood their own culture’s mythological concepts.50 Perhaps the Israelites even encountered the presence of Bronze Age dolmen tombs and had mythical explanations about them.51 Such local tradition would serve the Israelite ideological spin of facing and defeating “giants”, even though the rp’um are never described as gigantic. However, this antecedent tradition was picked up without the Israelites understanding that rp’um arose as a post-death title for these dead warriors and not as a pre-death designation. As Day (2002) argues, the Rephaim, as once-living people, were derived from the underworld traditions regarding the Rephaim (pp. 223–25), although probably with confusion. As explored above, as this Israelite regional tradition was later interpreted, the rpu’m/Rephaim became a group of once-living warriors and were even linked to other enemy traditions in the area back to the time of Abraham (Gen 14:5; 15:20).

A second Ugaritic text provides a possible link for Amorite tradition in this area as well: the Story of Aqhat (KTU 1.119). In this story, the death of the hero Aqhat and the loss of his remains causes a drought. Although the rp’um are not mentioned by name, Aqhat’s father Dan’el searches for his son’s remains so that he might be placed “in a hole for ilm art [for arṣ], with chthonic gods”, (1.119 iii) (Wyatt 2002, p. 304), which is the realm of the rp’um. Finding some remains, Dan’el buries his treasured son Aqhat in/by a “sea” that is not the Mediterranean. Margalit has put together a case for the story setting to be in the area of the Sea of Kinnereth, particularly the east and south sides.52 Recent research, as discussed by Freikman and Marco, has located a large stone cairn (approx. 60,000 tons) that is currently submerged near the lake’s south shore, located near the ancient city of Beth Yerah and built around 3000 BCE (Freikman and Marco 2021, pp. 237–41). At this time, Beth Yerah was a large city, and the region was suffering a drought, as in the story of Aqhat (ibid.). Such a monument marked a significant event, perhaps a heroic tomb, the memory of which would have lasted some time. Although all one can do is speculate at this point, Freikman and Marco suggest that this monument could have become associated with the burial place of Aqhat in the story that has been preserved in the Ugaritic literature (ibid.). Such a link would explain (1) how the story of Aqhat entered into Amorite legendary past when they resettled the area of Qatna in the late third millennium, (2) how the story was also preserved at Ugarit as the Amorite state of Yamhad dominated Qatna, and (3) how a regional memory connecting the “land of the Amorites” to the area of Bashan was preserved.53

The next likely step in the development of the tradition of the Rephaim as gigantic warriors, then, is that the Israelites of this region were exposed to Amorite-preserved traditions about entities called the Rephaim through their contacts with the people they defeated under King Sihon and King Og, the latter of which they labeled “the last of the Rephaim”. This thread easily fitted into their heroic tradition of being the underdogs who defeated more powerful warrior giants of the land by the might of Yahweh.

5.3.2. “Valley of the Rephaim” and Shades of the Dead

The second Israelite-mentioned place name connected to the Rephaim is the “Valley of the Rephaim.”54 This is a fertile area that runs SW of Jerusalem and connects on its north end with the Valley of Hinnom and might have included it (Pope 1981, p. 174). The Valley of Hinnom was known as a site of idolatry for child sacrifices to the god Molech who, as noted above, is likely a version of the underworld god Mlk (Milku or Malik). Therefore, the next likely step in the development of the tradition of the Rephaim as shades of the dead is that Israelites in this area became aware of the Mlk/Molech underworld traditions in which Rephaim were chthonic-like beings with some purported influence. This awareness probably came through contact with foreign funerary practices such as the kispum ritual or other magical acts of invoking the dead. Similar funerary traditions were vehemently addressed in the Israelite Yahwistic mortuary theology that banned cults of the dead and necromancy and which ridiculed these Rephaim “shades” of the dead (e.g., Deut 18:9–13; Isa 8:19–22; Lev 19:26–31). In this Israelite tradition, represented most clearly in Isaiah, the dead Rephaim are recognized as once having been powerful living beings, now belittled and become powerless (14:9; 26:14, 1955). For instance, Isa 14:9–10 is set in a taunt directed at a dead king of Babylon 14:3–24 about his new weakened state. Importantly, it is representative of the second-millennium Ugaritic understanding that the Rephaim were dead leaders and of how a newly dead king could become one of them (see above, Section 4.2.3, “Plural Rp’um” and the discussion a royal kispum):

Sheol beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come;

it rouses the shades [Rephaim] to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth;

it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations.

All of them will speak and say to you:

“You too have become as weak as we! You have become like us!”

(NRSV)

It is understandable, then, to see how secondarily the Israelites came to think of these chthonic beings as once-powerful leaders who had inhabited this area.56 The rest of the poetic references use the term Rephaim generally for weak spirits in the abode of the dead (Job 26:5; Ps 88:11 [MT]; Prov 2:18; 9:18; 21:16).

An interesting narrative about a banned funerary practice that fits with some Ugaritic rituals for consulting the dead is when Saul seeks out the witch of Endor to consult the spirit of Samuel. The text says that she first sees “gods” (elohim) which are rather analogous to the chthonic ʼilanûma (see above, Section 4.2.3, “Plural Rp’um”), and then she sees an old man coming up, identified as Samuel, who is consulted just as one might imagine in the Ugaritic funeral rituals involving the rp’um (1 Sam 28:4–20). It is unfortunate that we are not told more about the ritual itself.

5.3.3. Conclusion: The Israelite Rephaim Traditions

Bringing the above observations together, the most likely explanation for the two divergent Israelite traditions is that the Israelite exposure to the Amorite tradition of rp’um (Israelite “Rephaim”) came through at least two regionally based sources. The first was the notion of great warriors being associated with a Transjordan northern area of Bashan that they conquered, the “land of the Rephaim”. In this tradition, the local Israelites did not know the background and more precise Ugaritic use of the term rp’um.57 However, their exposure to Amorite tradition, later combined with the Israelite “underdog” motif, led to an interpretation of the Rephaim as gigantic opponent warriors whom they once faced in the “land of the Rephaim”.

The second tradition came from the area SW of Jerusalem, in the area around the Valley of the Rephaim, in which local Israelites became familiar with an Amorite-like cult of the dead and necromantic rituals connected to Mlk/Milku/Molech. From this local exposure, the Israelites came to know the Rephaim as supposedly powerful shades of the dead, whom they mocked. One affiliation was with a group of great warriors, and the other affiliation was with dead leaders and kings, both of which fit well with the stages and heroic traditions that led to the Amorite mythic and religious literature on the rp’um.58

5.3.4. Notes on Literary Developments

As the two originally distinct regional Israelite traditions were passed down, they never became explicitly linked in the HB. However, as noted above, just as the ideologically shaped Conquest traditions of encountering great warriors in the land of the Rephaim became linked to the remote past of Abraham, so too was the tradition of encountering great warriors drawn into the heroic age of David. This connection was apparently made through the place name, Valley of the Rephaim.

Both Rephaim-related traditions are found in the Book of Joshua (people in the NE land of the Rephaim: 12:4; 13:12; and the Valley of Rephaim in the SW: 15:8; 18:16).59 Although the compositional history of Joshua is complex, it seems likely that these two distinct Rephaim traditions began to be linked with the development of the heroic stories of David for the following reasons. First, there is evidence that some material in Joshua was shaped by a Deuteronomistic redaction that was monarchical and pre-exilic (Boling 1992, vol. 6, pp. 1002–15). Second, some of David’s key battles with the Philistines took place in the Valley of the Rephaim (2 Sam 5:18,22 // 1 Chr 14:9; 2 Sam 23:13 // 2 Chr 11:15). Third, in the heroic presentation of David establishing the monarchy, the portrait of him and his warriors battling with “giants” continued a motif parallel to the traditions of the Conquest. It seems possible, then, that some of the Rephaim texts in Joshua come from a later period that had constructed a Conquest-like David who battled against gigantic odds in the Valley of the Rephaim with people like the Rephaim, thus validating David, his warriors, his monarchy, and his God.60

More definitively, one can say that, at least by the time of the final redaction of Chronicles, this connection between great warriors and the Valley of the Rephaim had been established. In the narrative texts of David’s men fighting against the Philistines (2 Sam 21:15–22; 1 Chr 20:4–8), some of the noteworthy Philistine warriors are said to be “descendants of the Rapha”, (רָפָה, perhaps from the verb “to be slack/weak”) an unknown eponymous ancestor perhaps implicitly connected to the Rephaim (2 Sam 21:16, 18, 20, 22; 1 Chr 20:6, 8). However, 1 Chr 20:4 (parallel to 2 Sam 21:18) explicitly identifies these warriors as “descendants of the Rephaim.”61 Since one of those warriors is “of stature” (1 Chr 20:6) and some of their weaponry was of great size, the Davidic heroic tradition, in which he himself battled Goliath, apparently became interpreted in view of the earlier northeastern “land of Rephaim” Conquest tradition. Moreover, by the time of the LXX, the connection above had become a settled interpretation. The place of some the battles against the Philistines in the southeastern “Valley of the Rephaim” (2 Sam 5:18, 22; 23:13; 1 Chr 11:15; 14:9)62 became the “titans’ valley” (2 Sam 5:18, 22) or the “giants’ valley” (1 Chr 11:15; 14:9), perhaps even influenced by an east–west inter-sharing of heroic traditions.

Moving in the other direction, from the cult of the dead to previous living warriors, there exist a few possible implicit connections.63 One would expect that Israelites would have been exposed to cults of the dead, including heroic ones, since this would be a common, indigenous religious motif. If Og’s “bed” was some sort of funerary object, that could be a point of contact between a heroic warrior and a cult of the dead belief. A more possible connecting point is found in Isa 14:9. There, the king of Babylon is to be greeted in Sheol by the Rephaim, who appear to be qualified as former leaders of the earth and associated with former kings; that is, echoing a heroic death-cult tradition. Finally, although the Rephaim are not mentioned by name in Ezekiel’s tour of fallen nations in Sheol (Ezek 32:17–32), one finds “mighty men” (gibbôrim) like the Rephaim, as the Nephilim and others are called. There these mighty men address the newly dead (v 21) as the Rephaim do in Isaiah 14.64

6. Summary

The first stage of a trajectory of traditions leading to the Israelites’ Rephaim traditions apparently goes back to a heroic-age tradition of the Sumerians which was probably connected to real people (e.g., Gilgamesh) who were possibly large in stature but certainly mythologized as being quite large. These individuals were early military leaders and possibly kings. Some of them became recognized as semi-divine, a title which needs to be used with caution, since such ones might have had limited power and been subordinate to higher gods. Moreover, the kispum funerary ritual of caring for such deceased people in return for their beneficence, which belongs to this era, is evident from later texts.

The second stage begins when the Amorites moved into the lower Mesopotamian region of the declining Sumerian civilization, adopted some of their traditions, and probably blended their lore with that of their own heroic ancestors. Another contributing factor for the Rephaim tradition was the Mesopotamian funerary practice. Early on, people practiced ritual efforts to preserve the health of, and their unity with, the living essence of the dead person as it moved into the netherworld; that is, as they became ghosts or etimmu. The textual evidence of the kispum funerary ritual, which strengthened family bonds with the dead and sought some benefit from them, appears in the early second millennium, but almost certainly records earlier practice predating the Amorite movement into Mesopotamia. Given the importance of this practice, it is possible that the name Hammurapi was an honorific title that refers to the role of the pāqidu; that is, the person in charge of kispum rituals.

The third stage in the development of the Rephaim tradition occurred as the Amorites brought their acquired funerary rituals and heroic-age traditions into Ugarit around 1800 BCE. It is in the Ugaritic texts that one first finds reference to the rp’um. The evidence regarding the rp’um, though highly debated, best fits understanding them as semi-divine, or at least influential, ghosts of dead warrior-leaders, who are invoked in kispum-like rituals to establish the political stability of the current king and provide some beneficial aid to the people. Most likely, the designation rp’um that was attributed to these ancient warriors who were cared for after death through funerary rituals was a passive participle indicating that they were “restored/mended/healed ones”.

In the fourth stage, the Israelites picked up vaguely understood Amorite traditions and incorporated them into their own Abrahamic tradition, their heroic stories from the Israelite Conquest to the establishment of the monarchy under David, and their netherworld tradition. One stream of Israelite tradition came from Amorite culture in the NE area, east of the Sea of Kinnereth in Bashan, the “land of the Rephaim”, in which the Israelites won battles against Amorite kings. There, they picked up and added to their heroic tradition that the Rephaim were once great warriors whom they, as underdogs, overcame by the power of Yahweh. The other stream of tradition was picked up from Amorite traditions in the area SW of Jerusalem, the Valley of the Rephaim. There, through contact with the worship of Molech, Israelites learned of the funerary aspect of the Rephaim as dead kings and relegated them to shades of the dead who were ridiculed as powerless.