A race of giants—known either as 'Anakites' or 'descendants of Anak'—first encountered by the Israelites when the scouts were spying out the land to map out a route for the conquest (Num 13). They lived around Hebron (Num 13:22; Jos 11:21; 14:15; 15:14; Judg 1:20); the old name for Hebron, Kiriath Arba (which is lit., 'city of Arba'), was supposed derived from Arba "the forefather of Anak" (Jos 15:13; 21:11) and "the greatest man among the Anakites" (Jos 14:15). In comparison with the Anakites the Israelite scouts saw themselves as "grasshoppers" (Num 13:33). "Tall" and "strong" are the adjectives most frequently used to describe them (Deut 1:28; 2:10, 21; 9:2). Num 13:33 claims that the Anakites were descendants of the Nephilim, of which we know nothing except for the cryptic note in Gen 6:4 that they "were in on the earth" in those days when the "sons of God" took the "daughters of men" for their wives. How this could have happened since one would have assumed that the Nephilim would have been wiped out in the flood as well remains a mystery.
Jos 11:22 claims that they were wiped out from Israel by the Israelite conquest, though remnants were still to be found in Philistia.
Resources:
Robin Routledge,"The Nephilim: a Tall Story? Who Were the Nephilim and How Did They Survive the Flood?" Tyndale Bulletin 66.1 (2015):19-40.
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