The Spies' Report
Numbers 13:32-33
The second and only other direct use of 'Nephilim' — spoken by frightened scouts in what the text itself calls a bad report.
Primary text
The scouts bring back 'an evil report', saying the land devours its inhabitants, that all the people there are of great size, and that they saw the Nephilim there — the sons of Anak, who come of the Nephilim — and 'we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight'.
Documented detail
The verse is inside a speech that the narrative labels as a discouraging and unfaithful report. Caleb and Joshua, present at the same reconnaissance, do not repeat the Nephilim claim.
Why it matters
This is the hinge for the post-Flood problem. If the report is accurate reporting, Nephilim survive the Flood in some form. If it is terrified exaggeration, the word is being used as a byword for 'terrifyingly large enemy'.
Open question
Does the narrator condemn the fear, the exaggeration, or both? The text condemns the report; it does not explicitly say the Nephilim detail was invented.