YouTube is full of talk about giants. The Nephilim, the sons of Anak, Goliath of Gath: all of them enemies of God’s people. But why should the Devil have all the big people? Were there no giants on God’s side?
This is not a question about physical height. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could have been eight feet tall and worn shirts like boat sails for all we know. The text simply does not tell us. The measurement in question is far more significant than mere stature, and when we get it right, the entire narrative of Genesis clicks into focus with a clarity that transforms our reading.
We have a problem of scale. The characters in the Jacob story were not men of regular proportions. But we have been measuring them in inches instead of feet, and we need to multiply our picture by a factor of twelve just to come close to their correct stature.
The Imaginary Drone Test
Here is an exercise that transforms the reading of any biblical narrative. When Genesis 25 says that Jacob “dwelt in tents,” take an imaginary drone up into the air in your mind’s eye and look down at those tents. What do you see? How many tents are there? How many people? How is Jacob dressed? What animals are grazing in the surrounding fields?
Most of us, if we are honest, picture a couple of modest tents, a handful of sheep, and a man in a beige tea towel. We have unconsciously shrunk the patriarchs to the scale of middle-class suburbanites. The text of Scripture tells us a radically different story.
How Big Was Abraham?
Abraham rubbed shoulders with Pharaoh himself in Genesis 12. He stood in the presence of the greatest king of the age, and he left Egypt greatly enriched with sheep, cattle, donkeys, male and female slaves, and camels. Genesis 13 says he was “very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold.”
He spent time with another great potentate, Abimelech the Philistine king. Abraham made a treaty with Abimelech, and treaties are made between peers. Only kings and princes make deals with kings. When Abraham bought a burial plot for Sarah, the powerful Hittites called him a “mighty prince” (Genesis 23:6).
But Abraham was not just a paper prince. Genesis 14:14 records that he “led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen of them,” into battle against a coalition of kings, and won. Abraham was a mighty prince with a substantial private militia under his command.
If he could field 318 fighting men born in his own house, how large was his entire household? Including younger boys, middle-aged and older men, their wives and daughters, and newly acquired servants, his household would have been at least 2,000 souls. This was a clan, and Abraham was their mighty chieftain.
Think of the breadth of leadership this required: religious instruction, training of fighting men, adjudication of disputes for 2,000 people as the final court of appeal, international relations with local confederates and regional powers, and the management of a vast livestock operation that was the economic engine of the entire community.
How Big Was Isaac?
Isaac inherited everything Abraham had, and then God supercharged it. During a famine, God appeared to Isaac and blessed him. Isaac sowed in the land and reaped a hundredfold. If an already very wealthy man receives a superabundant harvest while everyone else’s crops fail, the result is explosive growth.
The Scripture says Isaac “began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous.” He had “possessions of flocks and possessions of herds and a great number of servants.” Like Joseph in Egypt centuries later, Isaac was drowning in grain when everyone else had dust and disappointment.
How does Isaac compare with his father Abraham, whom the Hittites called “a mighty prince”? In Genesis 26:16, King Abimelech himself said to Isaac: “Go away from us, for you are much mightier than we.” Here is a king telling Isaac that Isaac is much mightier than the Philistines. Abraham was a mighty prince. Isaac was mightier than a king.
How Big Was Jacob?
Jacob left for Laban’s house with nothing but a staff in his hand, and returned with a princess for a wife, her sister, many sons, and great herds of goats, sheep, camels, cows, bulls, and donkeys. From his great wealth, he showered his murderous brother Esau with wave after wave of valuable gifts amounting to 580 animals, approximately $344,000 worth of livestock.
And this was not a devastating sacrifice. Genesis 32:13 says Jacob “took what came to his hand as a present.” There is no indication that this was a great portion of his fortune. Do you know anyone rich enough to lay hands on $344,000 worth of assets and simply give them away without flinching?
When Jacob finally took over the rule of the clan from his father and the two households merged, he would have been a force to reckon with: commanding thousands of staff, tens of thousands of animals, and enjoying the military and political alliances that came with such power.
God renamed Jacob “Israel,” meaning “Prince with God.” Abraham had been honoured as a prophet before Abimelech. But the Lord took Jacob, whom He loved so dearly, and before all men and for all time declared him a prince with God. Matthew Henry wrote: “Thou shalt be called Israel, a prince with God, a name greater than those of the great men of the earth.”
Why the Scale Matters
Getting the scale wrong does not merely result in a less colourful mental picture. It fundamentally distorts our understanding of the narrative.
When we picture Jacob as a peasant herder tricking his dim-witted brother out of a bowl of stew, we have invented a fairy tale. The real story involves a prince of God, heir to a vast fortune and a military force, contending with a profane and dangerous rival for control of a covenant inheritance that carried cosmic significance. The stakes were not petty. The players were not small.
The default picture in our heads, perhaps given by children’s story books, is that these men were peasants, or perhaps upper middle class at best, people just like us or a little lower. But if that is not a lie, then it is a gross and perverse distortion of reality. You cannot build a working bridge with chocolate bricks. Nor can you build an accurate picture of Jacob’s life by stacking up falsehoods and distortions.
These men shouldered burdens daily that would have crushed lesser men: the weight of business affairs, the management of staff, the adjudication of disputes, the religious instruction of households that grew larger with every passing year, and the constant demands of international diplomacy. Unless you are King-of-England wealthy, in today’s world, these men are not like you.
And yet they are your fathers in the faith. Their God is your God. Their covenant is your covenant. And the blessing that made them mighty princes is the same blessing that rests upon every believer in Christ. Get the scale right, and the promise of that blessing becomes breathtakingly real.