Like the Anakites, they were also regarded as Rephaim, though the Moabites called them Emites.
It is observable here that Moses, speaking of the Edomites (Deu 2:8), calls them, "our brethren, the children of Esau." Though they had been unkind to Israel, in refusing them a peaceable passage through their country, yet he calls them brethren.
Commenting on Deuteronomy 2:8-23
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 Gen 14:5.
Deu 2:11-12 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...
Commenting on Deuteronomy 2:11-12