There were giants in the earth in those days" (Genesis 6:4a). Not just individual giants, as an oddity, but groups of giants, cities of giants, whole races of giants, even different kinds of giants, some with six fingers and six toes – all in the Bible.

     The first giants in the Bible were known as the Nephilim. These giants existed in Noah’s time. The Hebrew word for giants in Genesis 6:4, nephiyl, gives rise to the term Nephilim.

     Other giants were known either as the Sons of Anak or the Anakim (Numbers 3:33; Deuteronomy 2:11; 9:2). According to some Bible textual scholars, the Sons of Anak and the Anakim were the descendants of the Nephilim mentioned in Genesis 6:4. These giants existed in Moses’ time. They lived in the land of Canaan at the time God led the Hebrews out of Egypt. "And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight" (Numbers 13:33).

     Other races of giants were the Emims, in Moab (Deuteronomy 2:9-10); and the Zamzummims, in Ammon (Deuteronomy 2:19-20).

     One giant, born in Gath, had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot – twenty four fingers and toes in all (I Chronicles 20:6). And he was not an only child – his father was also a giant, and he was one of four brothers (II Samuel 21:22)!

     How big were these giants? The Bible gives Goliath’s height as "six cubits and a span" (I Samuel 17:4). A span is approximately 9 inches and a cubit is approximately 18 inches – that makes Goliath about 9 feet, 9 inches tall! His coat of mail (bronze armor) weighed 5,000 shekels – 125 pounds! Yet the Lord delivered Israel from Goliath, by the hand of David (I Samuel 17:1ff.).

     Og, King of Bashan, was another giant. He was descended from the Rephaim, a different line of giants from the Nephilim. The Bible doesn’t give King Og’s measurements, but we can get an idea of his size by the Biblical description of his iron bed (Deuteronomy 3:11). His iron bed was 9 cubits long and 4 cubits wide. He must have been a big guy, because that translates to a bed 13 1/2 feet long and 6 feet wide. The mattress on a current king size bed is only around 80 inches long. It would take two king size mattresses laid end to end to cover his bed!

     "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man" (Deuteronomy 3:11).

     Are these measurements for real? What if someone made a mistake? Are there any giants today? Goliath was 2 1/2 feet taller than basketball great Michael Jordan. And if an average sized person stretched out on King Og’s bed, there would be eight feet of extra room at the bottom of King Og’s bed.

     Is the Biblical account of giants mere folklore, like Paul Bunyan; or mythological, like Medusa, Cyclops, and other creatures, or – suspiciously like a fairy tale?

Not at all. The Bible portrays all these people as real.

     The question could be raised: are there other evidences for people that tall?

     Oh yes!

     Although Michael Jordan is tall, he’s not the tallest basketball player in history. The tallest basketball player on record is Gheorghe Muresan of the Washington Bullets – 7 feet, 7 inches tall. (Even that’s still two feet shorter than Goliath.)

     But Muresan is not the tallest person in medical history. The Guinness Book of World Records lists the tallest man in medical history as Robert Pershing Wadlow of Alton, Illinois. At the time of his death in 1941, he was 8 feet 11 inches tall. That’s just a few inches shorter than Goliath at 9 feet, 9 inches, right in the 20^th century!

     Egyptian records dating from 2000 BC document the presence of giants.

     In 1833 a group of soldiers discovered a human skeleton twelve feet tall.

     In 1883 a civil engineer discovered huge footprints preserved in rock formations. Thirteen human footprints were 19 inches long and 6-8 inches wide. Others were 21 inches long and 7 inches wide. This discovery was published in April 1883 in the respected magazine Nature.

     In 1891, excavators for commercial property uncovered a huge sarcophagus, or stone coffin, near Crittenden, Arizona. They immediately called in archaeological experts to inspect it. Inside the sarcophagus was a granite mummy case. Carvings on the mummy case depicted a giant with six toes. The mummy case was over 12 feet tall.

     In 1930, the December 2 issue of the New York Times reported that skeletons of gigantic human beings were unearthed in Sayopa, Sonora, in Mexico.

     In 1936, the February 14 issue of the New York Times again reported that gigantic human beings were unearthed, this time at El Boquin, Chontales District, in Nicaragua.

     Unusual facts and discoveries like these help break down the aura of fantasy that surrounds certain Biblical events such as David and Goliath and the other accounts of Israel’s battles with giants.

     These are not just children’s fables.

     The more mankind discovers, the more facts pile up to prove the Bible was true all along. Friends, Romans, countrymen, hear this: the more man learns, the more he discovers that the Bible is truly – God’s infallible Word!