(Rephʹa·im).

A tall people or tribe. There is uncertainty as to the meaning and origin of the name. Likely, they were called Rephaim because of being descendants of a man named Raphah. At 2 Samuel 21:16 ha·Ra·phahʹ (literally, the Raphah) seems to employ the father’s name to stand for the entire giant race.

At some early period the Rephaim evidently dwelt E of the Dead Sea. The Moabites, who dispossessed them, referred to the Rephaim as Emim (“Frightful Things”). The Ammonites called them Zamzummim (possibly from a root meaning “have in mind; scheme”). (De 2:10, 11, 19, 20) When King Chedorlaomer of Elam came W to fight five rebellious kings near the Dead Sea (taking Lot captive), he defeated the Rephaim in Ashteroth-karnaim. (Ge 14:1, 5) This locates the Rephaim at that time in Bashan, E of the Jordan. Shortly thereafter God said that he would give Abraham’s descendants the Promised Land, which included territory where the Rephaim lived.​—Ge 15:18-20.

More than 400 years later, just before Israel entered Canaan, “the land of the Rephaim” was still identified with Bashan. There the Israelites defeated Og the king of Bashan (De 3:3, 11, 13; Jos 12:4; 13:12), who alone “remained of what was left of the Rephaim.” It is uncertain whether this means that he was the last king of the Rephaim or that he was the last of the Rephaim in that section, for Rephaim were shortly found W of the Jordan.

In the Promised Land the Israelites had problems with the Rephaim, for some of them persisted in the forests of the mountainous region of Ephraim. The sons of Joseph were afraid to drive them away. (Jos 17:14-18) When David was fighting the Philistines, he and his servants struck down four men “born to the Rephaim in Gath.” One of them was described as “a man of extraordinary size whose fingers and toes were in sixes, twenty-four.” The description of their armor indicates that they were all men of great stature. One of these was “Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite.” (1Ch 20:4-8) This Goliath, whom David killed, was in height six cubits and a span (2.9 m; 9.5 ft). (1Sa 17:4-7) The account at 2 Samuel 21:16-22 reads “Goliath,” instead of “the brother of Goliath,” as at 1 Chronicles 20:5, which may indicate that there were two Goliaths.​—See GOLIATH.

The Hebrew repha·ʼimʹ is used in another sense in the Bible. Sometimes it clearly applies, not to a specific people, but to those who are dead. Linking the word to a root meaning “drop down, relax,” some scholars conclude that it means “sunken, powerless ones.” In texts where it has this sense, the New World Translation renders it “those impotent in death,” and many other translations use renderings such as “dead things,” “deceased,” and “dead.”​—Job 26:5; Ps 88:10; Pr 2:18; 9:18; 21:16; Isa 14:9; 26:14, 19.