Tool Beta
The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
Emim, Zamzummim, Zuzim
What Moab and Ammon called the same giants everyone else called Rephaim.
Genesis 14:5, in every translation this tool compares.
Three names for one thing. Moab called them Emim, Ammon called them Zamzummim, and Deuteronomy counts both as Rephaim, so the passage works as a gazetteer of what different neighbors called the same giants.
Regional names for one phenomenon. Moab called them Emim, Ammon called them Zamzummim, and Deuteronomy counts both as Rephaim, so the passage is a gazetteer of what different peoples called the giants. DDD's Zamzummim article derives the name from the root ZMM, "to plot evil," and, following Hübner, reads the Zamzummim as originally underworld spirits comparable to Og and "the Molek of Bashan," not as a folk-etymology joke about unintelligible speech. The Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen 21:29) preserves a scribe's own uncertainty about the Zuzim. He first wrote the name as ynwzny', then added a mem above the line to correct it to zumzammaye, in effect admitting he couldn't identify the Zuzim of Genesis 14:5 any other way and equating them with the better-known Zamzummim of Deuteronomy 2:20.
H368, 3 occ; H2157, 1 occ; H2104, 1 occ
DDD's Zamzummim article notes that they appear in no extra-biblical text, so unlike the Rephaim (Ugaritic rpum) they have no comparative Near Eastern evidence beyond the etymology of the name.
- Genesis 14:5
- Deuteronomy 2:10-11,20-21
- DDD's "Emim" entry is only a cross-reference to "Rephaim" (299)
- DDD s.v. "Zamzummim," 927
- DDD s.v. "Rephaim," 692-699 (Emim and Zuzim in Genesis 14:5)
- Heiser, "Rephaim," *Lexham Bible Dictionary*
