Deuteronomy 2:11-12

2:11 These people, as well as the Anakites, are also considered Rephaites; ¹  the Moabites call them Emites. 2:12 Previously the Horites ²  lived in Seir but the descendants of Esau dispossessed and destroyed them and settled in their place, just as Israel did to the land it came to possess, the land the Lord gave them.) ³ 

Deuteronomy 2:21

2:21 They are a people as powerful, numerous, and tall as the Anakites. But the Lord destroyed the Rephaites ⁴  in advance of the Ammonites, ⁵  so they dispossessed them and settled down in their place.

¹ sn Rephaites. The earliest reference to this infamous giant race is, again, in the story of the invasion of the eastern kings (Gen 14:5). They lived around Ashteroth Karnaim, probably modern Tell Ashtarah (cf. Deut 1:4), in the Bashan plateau east of the Sea of Galilee. Og, king of Bashan, was a Rephaite (Deut 3:11; Josh 12:4; 13:12). Other texts speak of them or their kinfolk in both Transjordan (Deut 2:20; 3:13) and Canaan (Josh 11:21-22; 14:12, 15; 15:13-14; Judg 1:20; 1 Sam 17:4; 1 Chr 20:4-8). They also appear in extra-biblical literature, especially in connection with the city state of Ugarit. See C. L’Heureux, “Ugaritic and Biblical Rephaim,” HTR 67 (1974): 265-74.

² sn Horites. Most likely these are the same as the well-known people of ancient Near Eastern texts described as Hurrians. They were geographically widespread and probably non-Semitic. Genesis speaks of them as the indigenous peoples of Edom that Esau expelled (Gen 36:8-19, 31-43) and also as among those who confronted the kings of the east (Gen 14:6).

³ tn Most modern English versions, beginning with the ASV (1901), regard vv. 10-12 as parenthetical to the narrative.

⁴ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the Rephaites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁵ tn Heb “them”; the referent (the Ammonites) has been specified in the translation for clarity.