Gary Wayne: The Giant Lion-Like Men of Moab

Nephilim were prideful beasts filled with hubris. Hubris derives from a Greek word “hjubris”

meaning “pride, excessive behavior, dangerous overconfidence, and the refusal to stay within due bounds.” Oddly, a group of lions forming a social unit is also called a “pride.” One wonders as to the relationship between “pride of lions” and Nephilim.

Certainly, lion imagery surrounds royalty just as serpent/ dragon imagery does. One ponders over “lion king” fairy tales and cryptic lion-man and lion-god mythologies. King Richard “Lionheart” Plantagenet was so-called for his exploits as a brave warrior. Is there a hidden connection between lions, Nephilim and kingship? Certainly lions are renowned as the “king of beasts” even in the Bible:

“A lion [which is] strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any.” Proverbs 30:30 

Urmahlullo of Sumerian legend were a ruthless lion-man race; warriors showing no mercy. Lion-men warriors of ancient Babylon and Akkad possessed lion heads, men’s bodies, bird’s feet and identified with Nergal, god of the underworld. Then we have the lion-men sculptures found in Germany that unaccountably go back into the mists of time and are also associated with Nergal somehow.

King Hambada of the Cedar forest (“Epic Of Gilgamesh”) had the face and paws of a lion, bull horns, vulture claws, serpents’s tail, and was covered in snake-like scales. The Greek Chimera had a body and head of a lion, a goat’s head on its back, a serpent tail and breathed fire. Mithra of the Zoroastrian cult of Persia and India was often depicted as a lion-headed god with a snake wrapped around him.

Ialdoboth/ Demiurge of Gnosticism is often depicted with a snake’s body, a lion’s face, and sun rays radiating from him. Ialdaboth is the thirteenth archon from the house of Leo. Gnostic Lion Archons guarded gates to the underworld. Apedemak was a lion-headed warrior god worshiped by the Meroitic of Nubia; depicted in the temple of Naqa as a three-headed lion-god with four arms, and as a snake with a lion’s head, but usually depicted as a man with a lion’s head.

The Egyptians recorded lion-men with lion heads and bodies on reliefs in Luxor. They were offspring Maahes/ Mysis (son of Ra/ Ptah) the powerful Egyptian god of war, noting “ma” was Egyptian for lion. The Egyptian Warrior Goddess Sekhmet was depicted as a lioness-god, the fiercest of warriors, and a terrifying goddess worshipped as “the destroyer.”

The hieroglyph for Tepi-Aui was a large, slouched lion with its head down. Tepi means “first,” but it can also be translated as “ancestors,” while Tepi-Aui was also applied as a title for ancestral Egyptian deities.

The lion hieroglyph is reminiscent of the Sphinx, likely built in the age of Leo, 10,970- 8810 BCE. The slouching lion hieroglyph was also employed to describe a group of shadowy gods, the ancestors of Re (Ra), the Akeru. The lion and Sphinx were both called Aker, noting the Sphinx is generally depicted with the head of a lion and/ or a human, a lion’s body.

In the “Egyptian Book of the Dead”, a lion-god guardian protected gateway to the underworld or heavenly domains. In the ancient world, guardian leonine sphinxes were placed at temples, pyramids, and tombs all across Eurasia as guardians.

Biblical Cherubim are Sphinx-like, possessed the face of a lion, man, ox, and eagle; and guardian cherubs (Ez 28:16). Cherubs with six wings guard God’s throne (Rev 4:6-9); two-winged cherubs guard the Ark of the Covenant (Ex 25:19, 37:1; 2 Chron 3:11-12; 1 Kings 6:24-27); four winged cherubs guard God on His chariot (Ez 1:5-12; 10:14).

So it seems, lion-men were likely warrior-king offspring of powerful gods/ angels just like Nephlim. These lion-like men surface at the time of David when he and his mighty men are killing giants – Rephaim, the descendants of Nephilim:

“And of the Gadites there separated themselves unto David into the hold to the wilderness men of might, [and] men of war [fit] for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler, whose faces [were like] the faces of lions, and [were] as swift as the roes upon the mountains.” 1 Chronicles 12:8

These Gadites were “wilderness men” that derive from “gibborim”, which can mean giant as Nephilim were described as mighty ones, gibborim, in Genesis 6:4. Lion in 1 Chronicles derives from Hebrew #738 “ariy” meaning lion or an image of a lion and deriving from #717 in the sense of violence.

These Gadites were men of might, mighty warriors who were as fleet of foot as gazelles, and as Titans were renowned for. They certainly seem to be lion-like Nephilim, heroes of renown; a connection I missed until recently.

Angelic names tend to end in “el” as in Gabriel or Azaziel. If one adds the suffix “el” to ariy one arrives at Ariel as a possible connect-the-dots as to who spawned these lion-men beasts. Now, lion-men surface again in 2nd Samauel, where Benaiah slays two lion-men of Moab:

And Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the son of a valiant man, of Kabzeel, who had done many acts, he slew two lion-like men of Moab” 2 Samuel 23:20

The “lionlike men” in 2 Samuel derives from #739 “ariyel” meaning heroic [Nephilim mighty ones]; lionlike; and lion of God from #738 root for lion. Hebrew Mysticism also notes an angel named Ariel meaning “lion of God.” To this same conclusion Hebrew #740 Ariel is noted as the same as #739 “ariyel” for lion, with Ariel meaning “lion or lioness of God”.

One wonders whether a powerful angel named Ariel created a second race of “prideful beasts” with lion characteristics that dwelled alongside the serpent like Nephilim created by Seraphim Watchers. One wonders if this why lions are called the “king of beasts;” why lions are intimately connected with imagery for royalty, flags, coats of arms along with dragons and unicorns.

Q. Is the above skull [on display at the University of Bologna] that supposedly shows the effects of the disease known as “Leontiasis Ossea,” really evidence of a nephilim-lion-like hybrid?