Which also were accounted giants - This is not a fortunate version. The word is not giants, but רפאים Rephaim, the name of a people. It appears that the Emim, the Anakim, and the Rephaim, were probably the same people, called by different names in the different countries where they dwelt; for they appear originally to have been a kind of wandering free-booters, who lived by plunder. (See on Deuteronomy 2:10 (note)). It must be granted, however, that there were several men of this race of extraordinary stature. And hence all gigantic men have been called Rephaim. (See on Genesis 6:4 (note), and Genesis 14:5 (note)). But we well know that fear and public report have often added whole cubits to men's height. It was under this influence that the spies acted, when they brought the disheartening report mentioned Numbers 13:33.

Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims,.... Because of their bulky size and tall stature; or,"the Rephaim were they accounted, even they as the Anakims;''they were reckoned Rephaim, a name for giants in early times, even as the Anakims were; see Genesis 14:5.

but the Moabites called them Emims; to distinguish them from the Rephaim; so that it seems this name of Emims was not originally their name, but they are called so by a prolepsis, or anticipation, in Genesis 14:5 since they had it from the Moabites, a people of a later date.

To confirm the fact that the Moabites and also the Edomites had received from God the land which they inhabited as a possession, Moses interpolates into the words of Jehovah certain ethnographical notices concerning the earlier inhabitants of these lands, from which it is obvious that Edom and Moab had not destroyed them by their own power, but that Jehovah had destroyed them before them, as is expressly stated in Deuteronomy 2:21, Deuteronomy 2:22. "The Emim dwelt formerly therein," sc., in Ar and its territory, in Moabitis, "a high (i.e., strong) and numerous people, of gigantic stature, which were also reckoned among the Rephaites, like the Enakites (Anakim)." Emim, i.e., frightful, terrible, was the name given to them by the Moabites. Whether this earlier or original population of Moabitis was of Hamitic or Semitic descent cannot be determined, any more than the connection between the Emim and the Rephaim can be ascertained. On the Rephaim; and on the Anakites, at Numbers 13:22.

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

2:8-23 We have the origin of the Moabites, Edomites, and Ammonites. Moses also gives an instance older than any of these; the Caphtorims drove the Avims out of their country. These revolutions show what uncertain things wordly possessions are. It was so of old, and ever will be so. Families decline, and from them estates are transferred to families that increase; so little continuance is there in these things. This is recorded to encourage the children of Israel. If the providence of God has done this for Moabites and Ammonites, much more would his promise do it for Israel, his peculiar people. Cautions are given not to meddle with Moabites and Ammonites. Even wicked men must not be wronged. God gives and preserves outward blessings to wicked men; these are not the best things, he has better in store for his own children.