And they brought to the children of Israel an evil report of the land which they had searched out, saying, The land, which we have passed through to search it out, is a land that eateth up its inhabitants; and all the people that we have seen in it are men of great stature;
The spies came back carrying the fruit of the land. Then ten of them told Israel that the country God had promised eats up the people who live in it. Their facts were true. So why does God call this a bad report?
The ten agreed the land was good and full of people. Then they said it destroys those who live in it.
Yes, the land is good; here is the fruit of it: God has told the truth about it; it is a land flowing with milk and honey. Only the people are strong, and their cities strong; and the land is filled with them. Faith in the true-hearted says, "Let us go up at once: we are well able to take possession." But most of the people have no faith... And then they contradict themselves twice over, as unbelief always does. Despite the strength of its swarming population, they declare that it eats up the people living in it.
The problem was not in what they measured. The men were tall and the cities did have walls.
The spies did not lie when they said the people were strong and the cities were great. All this would only make the power of God more obvious. The evil in their report was that it denied God's power, and His right to give the land to whomever He pleased. For unbelief the land belonged to giants, and they themselves were only grasshoppers: what could they do?
The Hebrew phrase behind "bad report" is sharper than the English sounds.
They could not deny that the LORD's promise was true. They carried the evidence of it on their shoulders while they carried unbelief in their hearts... The Hebrew for "bringing up an evil report" is translated "uttering a slander" in Proverbs 10:18. Unbelief slanders God; it is an insult to the Lord.
Notice who is missing from their speech. They set Israel against the giants, and no one else.
Not a word about God. He is entirely shut out. Suppose they had thought of Him. Suppose they had set the giants side by side with Him. Then it would have made no difference at all whether they were grasshoppers or men. But in fact, by their shameful unbelief, they reduced the God of Israel to the level of a grasshopper.
The ten told Moses one thing and the nation another. Their verdict shifted with their audience.
The first thing they told Moses was the simple truth — that it was a very good land. But then they see this unbelief at work in the minds of the people. Now their judgment is quite different, and they say it is a very bad land. The whole sense of the Lord's goodness in giving them the land is gone. So they break down in despair when they look at the difficulties on the way... Just so with the Christian. If I lose the joy of the glory, the difficulties I meet on the way are insurmountable.
The words spread fast, and the damage did not stop at discouragement.
As a result of this message of unbelief "the whole assembly raised their voices and wept" (ch. 14:1). Further, they murmured against Moses (v. 2), wished they had died in Egypt (v. 2) and accused God (v. 3). Their proposal is shocking: "Let us appoint a leader and go back to Egypt." When Joshua and Caleb brought a good report (vv. 6-9), the whole assembly said to stone them (v. 10).
Moses did not argue with how they saw themselves. He let their words stand.
The ten unbelieving spies had declared themselves grasshoppers in front of the giants. Moses takes them at their word, and tells them in effect that grasshoppers are no match for giants. It is true that "according to your faith, so be it to you." It is just as true that according to your unbelief, so be it to you.
Forty years later the next generation faced exactly what this generation had described — and walked straight through it.
The cities were walled, and they saw the giants too. But when they reached Canaan at last, the walls were just as high, and the children of Anak were still there. Not one of the difficulties of unbelief had gone. Only, when they go forward with God, difficulty is no difficulty.
- Contradiction. They called the land good, then said it eats up those who live in it. Unbelief contradicts itself.
- Slander. Their facts were true. Their sin was to report them with God left out, and the Hebrew word for it means slander.
- Shrinkage. They measured themselves against giants alone. So they became grasshoppers, and made God one too.
- Spread. The report spread fast: weeping, murmuring, a plan to go back to Egypt, and threats to stone the two who spoke faith.
- Sentence. God took them at their own word. The walls and the giants stayed just as they were. Those who went forward with God found the difficulty was no difficulty.
and there have we seen giants -- the sons of Anak are of the giants -- and we were in our sight as grasshoppers, and so we were also in their sight.
Twelve men went to explore Canaan. They came back agreed about the fruit and split about the future. This last line of their report shows where the split lay: ten of them measured themselves against the people of the land and shrank. The question the commentators press is not whether the giants were real. It is why the ten left God out of the count.
The verse names the Nephilim but says little about them. One reference work weighs what the name may mean, and rules out a common idea about where they came from:
The meaning of this word is uncertain. Some trace it to a root meaning "to fall." But it is not clear whether it means "fallen ones" or "those who fall upon." They were men of great stature, which made the Israelites think of themselves as grasshoppers by comparison. Scripture does not say (as some have supposed) that they were the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men... The Nephilim are only said to be "in the earth in those days." The spies also saw them about a thousand years afterwards. That is all the Bible tells us about them.
One name never appears in the report. Commentators call that silence the real failure:
Not a word about God. He is entirely shut out. If they had thought of Him, and set the giants beside Him, it would have made no difference at all whether they were grasshoppers or men. But in fact they, by their shameful unbelief, reduced the God of Israel to the level of a grasshopper.
The same facts can go two ways. It depends on what you set beside the difficulty:
What unbelief does is to compare ourselves and our own strength with circumstances. What faith does is to compare God with circumstances. Take the case of the spies... If the Israelites compared their stature with that of the Anakim, they had no business there. What did Caleb and Joshua say? They quieted the people: "They are bread for us; their protection is removed from them, and the LORD is with us; do not fear them." They compared these sons of Anak with God. What did it matter, then, whether they were giants or grasshoppers?
Reverse the comparison and the proportions reverse with it:
They looked at the children of Anak, the giants who lived in the land. They did not look to the Lord, who had rescued them from the Egyptians. If they had reckoned with the Lord and trusted Him, the giants, not they, would have looked like grasshoppers... In Proverbs 10:18 the Hebrew for "bringing up an evil report" is translated "uttering a slander." Unbelief slanders God; it is an insult to the Lord.
The last words report what the giants thought of them. The spies had no way of knowing that, and their fear spread:
In the presence of the sons of Anak they were, they said, as grasshoppers in their own sight. "And so," they added — and this could only be guesswork — "we were in their sight." Unbelief is always contagious, and it infected the whole congregation. They raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night.
Refusing to go up did not shrink the obstacle. Forty years later the same enemy was waiting:
The cities were walled, and they saw the giants too. But when they reached Canaan at last, the walls were just as high, and the children of Anak were still there. Not one of the difficulties of unbelief had disappeared. Only, when they go forward with God, difficulty is no difficulty.
The generation that did go forward met the same enemy and won:
Israel find in their path the very people who had struck terror into their hearts at the beginning and caused them to fall. These were the Anakim, who had kept them from going boldly up to take the land... But what impression can the children of Anak make on the mind of someone who is led by the word of God? Victory is his. "Joshua came and cut off the Anakim," and their towns, "cities great and fortified up to heaven."
- Omission. The report is accurate about the giants and silent about God. That silence, not the giants, sank Israel.
- Comparison. Unbelief measures itself against the problem. Faith measures God against it, and size stops mattering.
- Slander. The phrase for an "evil report" is the word for uttering a slander. Unbelief does not just doubt God — it insults Him.
- Guesswork. "So we seemed to them" is something the spies could not know. Fear invents what the enemy thinks of us, and it spreads to everyone listening.
- Delay. Refusing the fight left the walls just as high and the Anakim still there. The generation that went forward with God cut them off.