The Emites stride across the page of Scripture only briefly, yet their shadow is long. Moses recalls a people “strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites,” counted among the Rephaim, whom the Moabites called Emites (Deuteronomy 2:10–11). Their memory serves a larger purpose in the story of the land: to show that God orders borders, removes obstacles, and keeps covenant promises despite foes that look impossible to move (Deuteronomy 2:9; Acts 17:26).
Their disappearance was not an accident of history. It was part of God’s preparation as He allotted territories to the descendants of Lot and later led Israel toward its inheritance, so that the nations would learn that the earth is the Lord’s and that His counsel stands when human power fades (Deuteronomy 2:9, 19–21; Psalm 24:1; Psalm 33:10–11). In the Emites we see how God humbles proud strength and teaches His people to trust His word more than their fears (Deuteronomy 9:1–3; Numbers 13:31–33).
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Historical and Cultural Background
To place the Emites, we begin with geography and kinship. Moses locates them east of the Dead Sea in the highlands that later became Moabite territory, a region assigned by God to Lot’s line and placed beyond Israel’s claim during the wilderness march (Deuteronomy 2:8–11; Deuteronomy 2:9). Moab itself descended from Lot’s firstborn, while Ammon came from the younger, making both peoples distant relatives of Israel through Abraham’s nephew (Genesis 19:36–38). The Lord honored those family ties and His own apportioning of lands by forbidding Israel to harass or seize the territory of Moab or Ammon, because He had already given them their possessions (Deuteronomy 2:9; Deuteronomy 2:19).
The biblical record ties the Emites to the Rephaim, a name used for formidable peoples known for height and strength in Canaan and Transjordan prior to Israel’s conquest (Deuteronomy 2:10–11). Related names surface in the same chapters: the Anakites in the hill country to the west, whose stature so alarmed Israel’s spies that they felt like grasshoppers, and the Zamzummites near Ammon, who were likewise counted as Rephaim before Ammon drove them out (Numbers 13:32–33; Deuteronomy 2:20–21). Earlier, Genesis records that Chedorlaomer and his allies struck the Rephaim in Ashteroth Karnaim, the Zuzites in Ham, and the Emites in Shaveh Kiriathaim, reminding us that these groups were known and feared in the patriarchal age as well (Genesis 14:5). The point is not to catalogue oddities but to set the stage for God’s dealings with nations: none of these fierce peoples stood outside His rule or beyond His reach (Psalm 22:28; Daniel 4:34–35).
Culturally, the region’s faiths were idolatrous and often violent. Moab’s national god was Chemosh, a name the prophets later rebuke, and the Lord warns Israel repeatedly not to imitate the worship of the nations around them (Numbers 21:29; 1 Kings 11:7; Deuteronomy 12:29–31). Scripture does not give a detailed portrait of Emite religion, but the association with Rephaim and the broader Canaanite context suggests practices that stood at odds with the holiness the Lord required (Deuteronomy 18:9–12). What Scripture emphasizes is not folklore but theology: the Lord dispossessed or restrained peoples whose ways opposed His purpose, and He granted lands to those He chose, whether to Lot’s descendants in the east or to Israel west of the Jordan when the time came (Deuteronomy 2:9; Deuteronomy 2:31–33).
Biblical Narrative
The narrative thread concerning the Emites is woven into Moses’ travel log. As Israel skirted Moab’s border, the Lord said, “Do not harass the Moabites or provoke them to war, for I will not give you any part of their land. I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession” (Deuteronomy 2:9). Moses then adds the historical note: “The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaim, but the Moabites called them Emites” (Deuteronomy 2:10–11). The meaning is plain. Before Moab held the plateau, another people occupied it, a people of fearsome size and strength. Yet Moab possessed the land because the Lord gave it, not because Moab’s arm was stronger (Deuteronomy 2:9; Psalm 44:3).
A parallel note appears when Israel nears Ammon. “That too was considered a land of the Rephaim, who used to live there; but the Ammonites call them Zamzummites. They were a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. The Lord destroyed them from before the Ammonites, who drove them out and settled in their place” (Deuteronomy 2:20–21). The same pattern is seen in the south along the coast, where the Caphtorites came out of Caphtor and destroyed the Avvim who lived in villages as far as Gaza, yet all this fell under the Lord’s providence and timing (Deuteronomy 2:23). Through these notes Moses is catechizing Israel in the sovereignty of God over history: He sets boundaries, He removes obstacles, and He grants inheritances according to His promise (Deuteronomy 32:8; Acts 17:26).
Genesis supplies an earlier snapshot. In the days of Abraham, a confederation led by Chedorlaomer struck multiple peoples, including the Rephaim, the Zuzites, and the Emites, evidence that these groups were part of the land’s reality in the patriarchal era (Genesis 14:5–7). Later, when Israel sent twelve men to spy out Canaan, the report of fortified cities and tall men in the line of Anak paralyzed the camp with fear, even though the Lord had sworn to give them the land (Numbers 13:27–33; Deuteronomy 1:26–32). The generation that listened to fear perished in the wilderness, but the lesson remained: faith fixes its eyes on the God who fights for His people, not on the size of the giants that stand in the way (Deuteronomy 1:30–31; Deuteronomy 20:1–4).
The Emites’ presence, then, functions narratively as a backdrop to God’s faithfulness. If Moab and Ammon—smaller nations—could possess lands formerly held by towering foes because the Lord gave it to them, how much more should Israel trust the Lord who promised Abraham a territory stretching from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates, naming among the inhabitants the “Rephaim” whom He would dispossess (Genesis 15:18–21). The history of the Emites is a footnote with a message: God keeps His word and prepares the way, often by means that humble human pride (Deuteronomy 7:7–9; Isaiah 40:23–24).
Theological Significance
The story of the Emites presses home three theological themes that run across Scripture. First, God governs nations and assigns their times and territories. Moses’ review of Moab’s and Ammon’s inheritances is not trivia; it is doctrine. The Lord says, “I have given,” and history obeys, whether by war, migration, or the rise and fall of kings (Deuteronomy 2:9; Deuteronomy 2:19; Daniel 2:21). Paul echoes this truth when he says that God “marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands,” so that people would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him (Acts 17:26–27). This means that the shifting map is not random. It unfolds within the purpose of the Sovereign who keeps covenant love and does all He pleases (Psalm 115:3; Psalm 136:23–26).
Second, God keeps promises in the face of impossible odds. The patriarchal promise included peoples whose names signaled trouble, yet the promise did not blink in the face of Rephaim or Anakites (Genesis 15:18–21). When Moses looked ahead to Israel’s crossing into Canaan, he said, “Hear, Israel: You are now about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you… a people great and tall,” and he added that the Lord would go ahead “like a consuming fire” to subdue them (Deuteronomy 9:1–3). The Lord does not need large numbers or large men to keep His word. He delights to show strength in weakness so that praise runs upward to Him (Judges 7:2; 2 Corinthians 12:9–10).
Third, God’s holiness opposes idolatry and violence, and His judgments clear space for righteousness to take root. Israel was warned again and again not to learn the ways of the nations, not to bow to their gods, and not to copy their practices, which included abominations the Lord detested (Deuteronomy 12:29–31; Deuteronomy 18:9–12). The removal of fearsome peoples who poisoned the land with idols was not ethnic rivalry; it was the moral governance of God at work in history, preparing a place where His name would dwell and His word would be taught to children and strangers alike (Deuteronomy 12:5; Deuteronomy 6:6–9). In that light, the Emites’ passing is a signpost: strength without truth cannot secure a future, but humble trust under God’s word is fruitful and lasting (Psalm 1:1–3; Proverbs 14:34).
Dispensational clarity sharpens these themes without forcing them. Deuteronomy speaks to Israel under the law and to Israel’s neighbors by God’s ordering of lands; it does not fold Moab into Israel, nor does it erase Israel by blending her into the nations (Deuteronomy 2:9; Deuteronomy 7:6). The Emites’ story thus supports a reading of Scripture that honors the distinct roles God assigns in different eras while holding together His one purpose to bless the earth through Abraham’s seed and to set His King on Zion in due time (Genesis 12:1–3; Psalm 2:6; Isaiah 2:2–4). The brief note about giants in Moab’s past becomes part of a bigger testimony: God arranges steps and stops on the way to promises that will culminate in the reign of the Son of David over Israel and the nations (Isaiah 9:6–7; Zechariah 14:9).
Spiritual Lessons and Application
The Emites teach courage. Israel needed to know that giants can fall, not by human bravado but by trust in the Lord who goes ahead of His people. Moses made that link when he reminded the people that Moab and Ammon possessed their lands despite the terrifying stature of those who lived there before them (Deuteronomy 2:10–11; Deuteronomy 2:20–21). The lesson comes alive when we face our own “giants,” the troubles that loom larger than our strength—fear that paralyzes, sin that seems habitual, opposition that mocks faith. Scripture directs us to seek the Lord, to remember His past deeds, and to move forward in obedience because “the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory” (Deuteronomy 20:1–4).
The Emites teach humility. A people known for height and might vanished from the land, and only a few lines remember them. That is a sermon on the shortness of human glory. “Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket… He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing,” Isaiah says, and the Emites stand as evidence along the road (Isaiah 40:15, 23–24). Faith refuses to boast in numbers, skill, or size; it boasts in the Lord who saves by many or by few and whose name is a strong tower for the weak (1 Samuel 14:6; Proverbs 18:10). In daily life this humility looks like prayer before strategy, generosity before grasping, and truth before optics (Psalm 37:3–7; James 4:6–10).
The Emites teach vigilance. Israel was commanded not to trade the Lord for idols, not to be seduced by the practices of the nations, and not to forget that prosperity is a gift, not a god (Deuteronomy 8:10–14; Deuteronomy 12:29–31). The New Testament echoes the same call in a spiritual register: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood,” Paul writes, urging believers to stand firm in the Lord’s strength and to take up the armor He provides (Ephesians 6:12–13). The “giants” of our age—false teaching, cynicism, greed, lust, despair—cannot be met in our own power, but the weapons God gives “have divine power to demolish strongholds” as we take thoughts captive to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3–5). The fall of fearsome peoples in Scripture encourages households and congregations to keep short accounts with God, to confess quickly, to forgive freely, and to keep the word on the lips and in the heart (Psalm 119:11; 1 John 1:9).
The Emites also teach hope. The Lord who arranged Moab’s inheritance and later brought Israel across the Jordan is the same Lord who still orders steps for those who trust Him (Joshua 21:43–45; Proverbs 3:5–6). The obstacles that look immovable today may become tomorrow’s memorials to grace, the way the stone heaps by the Jordan told later generations that the Lord cut off the river before the ark of the covenant (Joshua 4:6–7). Hope remembers that God’s purpose does not rise or fall on today’s headlines. He keeps His promises through days of small things and days of great wonders alike (Zechariah 4:10; Hebrews 10:23).
Conclusion
In a handful of lines, Scripture tells us that towering men once lived in Moab’s hills, that the Moabites called them Emites, and that they were counted among the Rephaim (Deuteronomy 2:10–11). Those lines are enough to place their story within the larger testimony of God’s rule. He apportioned lands, removed obstacles, and kept His word to patriarchs and prophets alike (Deuteronomy 2:9; Genesis 15:18–21). Their strength could not secure their future because they stood outside the Lord’s purpose; their fall cleared the way for others whose time had come by His decree (Deuteronomy 2:20–21; Psalm 75:6–7).
What the Emites meant for fear, God meant for instruction. Israel learned that giants are not gods and that promises are not fragile. The church learns to read such passages with reverence for the God who governs nations and with resolve to trust Him in our own trials, certain that “if God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). The end of the story is not found in the rise of the mighty but in the reign of the Lord, who will be King over all the earth and whose counsel will stand when the tallest walls have fallen (Zechariah 14:9; Isaiah 46:9–10).
“The Emites used to live there—a people strong and numerous, and as tall as the Anakites. Like the Anakites, they too were considered Rephaim, but the Moabites called them Emites.” (Deuteronomy 2:10–11)
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