> as the israelites prepared to invade canaan, the prophet balaam foresaw a messianic figure, a star, who would come out of jacob to break down all the sons of sheth. these were the suteans, amorite nomads living in rephaim country east of the jordan. the suteans were known in former days throughout mesopotamia as the ditanu/didanu or tidanu, dead kings of old who were linked to the rephaim in ritual texts at ugarit > and, according to amar annus, the dit/did/tidanu tribe was where the greeks got the name of their old gods, the titans > heres the short equation: > sheth = shutu/shasu = suteans = ditanu/tidanu = titans. in other words, the sons of sheth were the sons of the titansthe rephaim, the spirits of the nephilim > repha'im have also been considered the residents of the netherworld (sheol in the hebrew bible) in more recent scholarship. possible examples of this usage appear as "shades", "spirits", or "dead" in various translations of the bible. see: isa 14:9, 26:14, 26:19; ps 88:10; prov 2:18, 9:18, 21:16; job 26:5, and possibly 2 chron 16:12, where repha'im may be read as "dead ancestors" or "weakeners", as opposed to rophe'im, "doctors". the heb. root  means "heal", and thus the masculine plural nominalized form of this root may indicate that these "deceased ancestors" could be invoked for ritual purposes that would benefit the living > various ancient northwest semitic texts are also replete with references to terms evidently cognate with rephaim as the dead or dead kings. lewis (1989) undertakes a detailed study of several enigmatic funerary ritual texts from the ancient coastal city of ugarit. lewis concludes that the "ugaritic funerary text" provides important evidence for understanding ugarit's cult of the dead, wherein beings called rapi'uma, the long dead, and malakuma, recently dead kings, were invoked in a funeral liturgy, presented with food/drink offering
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