What Does Deuteronomy 2:10 Mean in the King James?

The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims;

Deuteronomy 2:10 · KJV

The analysis reads the King James wording.

King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.

THE KEY

The Emim’s name means “terrors,” so the verse’s picture of a numerous, towering people is already carried inside their name.

THE MEANING

This verse holds a name for dread beside visible scale: the Emim are numerous and tall like the Anakim. Terror takes shape here as both a people and the name by which they are remembered.

THE ROOT

אֵמִים

ʾēmîm

GROWS FROM

אימ

ʾ-y-m

Terror or dread; the force of what inspires fear.

“Emims” in this verse is ʾēmîm. The name Emim is understood as “terrors,” linked to the Hebrew word for dread. The verse’s “great, and many, and tall” makes that name tangible through number and stature.

ALSO GROWS

ʾēmāh: Terror, dread.

אֵימָה

This noun reveals the fear-bearing sense behind the Emim’s name.

ʾiyyōm: Terrifying, dreadful.

אִיּוֹם

This related word describes something that carries the same quality of dread encoded in “Emim.”

THE PATTERN

Dread becomes tangible when a threatening presence seems greater than the self.

Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.

Deuteronomy 1:28 · KJVThe people’s greater size and height give fear a visible scale.

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 · KJVThe comparison to grasshoppers shows how overwhelming stature can shrink the self’s sense of scale.

And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Hebrews 2:15 · KJVFear becomes a force that holds a person in bondage when the threat seems inescapable.

THE THREAD

Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.

Deuteronomy 2:11 · KJV

The next verse names the same people among the giants and identifies “Emims” as what the Moabites call them. Beside the meaning “terrors,” the name holds the dread their immense stature evokes.

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