Nephilim

According to Genesis 6:4 of the Bible, the Nephilim /ˈnɛfᵻˌlɪm/ (Hebrew: נְפִילִים‎) were the offspring of the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men" before the Deluge. According to Numbers 13:33, they later inhabited Canaan at the time of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. An either similar or identical biblical Hebrew term, read as "Nephilim" by some scholars, or as the word "fallen" by others, appears in Ezekiel 32:27.

The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon (1906) gives the meaning of nephilim as "giants", and holds that proposed etymologies of the word are "all very precarious. Many suggested interpretations are based on the assumption that the word is a derivative of Hebrew verbal root n-ph-l "fall". Robert Baker Girdlestone argued in 1871 the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem, implying that the nephilim are to be perceived as "those that cause others to fall down". Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form "ones who have fallen", equivalent grammatically to paqid "one who is appointed" (i.e., overseer), asir "one who is bound" (i.e., prisoner), etc.

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