Zamzummim

or ZUZIM, a gigantic race of people, who, together with the Rephaim and Emim, men of like stature, occupied, in the time of Abraham, the country east of Jordan and the Dead Sea, where they were routed by Chedorlaomer, and from which they were afterward expelled by the Ammonites, Deu 2:20-21. These, together with the Anakim, another family of giants, were all evidently of a race foreign to the original inhabitants of the countries where they were found; they were probably tribes of invading Cushites. The Vulgate and the Septuagint say, they were conquered with the Rephaim in Ashteroth-Karnaim. The Chaldee interpreters have taken Zuzim in the sense of an appellative, for stout and valiant men; and the Septuagint have rendered the word Zuzim, εθνη ισχυρα, robust nations. We meet with the word Zuzim only in Gen 14:5.

A race of giants east of the Jordan, defeated by Chedorlaomer, Gen 14:5, and exterminated by the Ammonites, who possessed their territory until themselves subdued by Moses, Deu 2:20-21 . See AMMONITES, and ZUZIM.\par

Zamzum’mim. Deu 2:20 only, the Ammonite name for the people who by others were called Rephaim. They are described as having originally been a powerful and numerous nation of giants. From a slight similarity between the two names, and from the mention of the Emim in connection with each, it is conjectured that the Zamzummim are identical with the Zuzim.

Zamzummim (zam-zŭm’mim.) Deu 2:20. The Ammonite name for the people who by others were called Rephaim.

ZAMZUMMIM.—A name given by the conquering Ammonites to the Rephaim, the original inhabitants of the land (Deu 2:20). They are described as a people ‘great and many and tall like the Anakim’ (see art. Rephaim). The name Zamzummim has been connected with Arab. [Note: Arabic.] zamzamah ‘a distant and confused noise,’ and with zizim, the sound of the jinn heard in the desert at night. The word may thus perhaps be translated ‘Whisperers,’ ‘Murmurers,’ and may denote the spirits of the giants supposed to haunt the hills and ruins of Eastern Palestine (cf. art. Zuzim).

W. F. Boyd.

zam-zum´im (זמזמּים, zamzummı̄m): A race of giants who inhabited the region East of the Jordan afterward occupied by the Ammonites who displaced them. They are identified with the Rephaim (Deu 2:20). They may be the same as the Zuzim mentioned in connection with the Rephaim in Gen 14:5. See REPHAIM.