Also known as: Giants, Angelic offspring

Category: Angelic–human hybrid

Hierarchy & association: Tier 3 (1=Angelic, 2=Fallen, 3=Hybrid, 4=Giant lineage, 5=Human, 6=Other) · Genetic human link: hybrid · Angel association: hybrid_parent.

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One of 7 races of giants catalogued here — a race or lineage, not a named individual. Named individuals are on Named Giants. The Watchers named as their fathers are under Fallen Angels and Grigori / Watchers.

The -im is the ordinary Hebrew masculine plural, the same ending as on Seraphim and Cherubim. Why these seven share it, and how Deuteronomy 2 sorts the post-Flood names, is on Races of Giants.

Hebrew nephilim (נְפִלִים). The word is attested only as a plural, and only twice: Genesis 6:4 and Numbers 13:33. A singular naphil is what the grammar implies; the Hebrew Bible never uses it.

Genesis 6:4 says they were on the earth in those days — and also afterward — when the sons of God went in to the daughters of men. The same verse calls that offspring the gibborim of old, men of the name. The “also afterward” is why the post-Flood lineages stay attached to this generation in the catalog. Numbers 13:33 is the spies at Hebron, saying the sons of Anak come from the Nephilim. That sentence is the only textual bridge from this generation to the Anakim, and it belongs to the report Caleb and Joshua reject.

The etymology is disputed. The usual connection is the verb naphal, “to fall”: fallen ones, or ones who fall upon others. The Septuagint does not translate the root. It says gigantes. 1 Enoch 7 expands the Watchers’ offspring into giants who consume the labor of people and then turn on each other. That is Second Temple narrative, not the wording of Genesis.