Numbers 13:26-29

They go into the land, and they search it from south to north, then back again, and they see where everybody is, and they bring back their report.

In terms of the land itself, the report is glowing and very positive. "It is a good land, and truly flows with milk and honey. And look at the fruit." Do you remember the picture of the two men holding a single cluster of grapes the size of plums in the old Bible Story Series illustrated by Basil Wolverton? It was a very verdant land.

A land that flows with milk and honey suggests not only an abundance of natural resources, but also an abundance of prime agricultural lands. It was far better than the wilderness where they were. It was far superior. It hardly rained in the wilderness of Paran. It was indeed a wilderness with few, if any, people there. It just could not support many people at all. It was desert-like.

Basically, what they said when they returned was: "This land is everything that God advertised it was. It is a great land! There is so much there, and look at the fruit we brought back!"

The problem, as you can see as we get to verse 25 which starts with the word, "Nevertheless," was that the spies felt that there was a downside. The problem was the people who currently occupied the land. The spies list five different peoples, and the places where they lived. Initially their argument has two basic prongs to it.

Numbers 13:27-30

Those are interesting words there. If God was just going to go before them, why would Caleb say, "Hey! We can overcome them!"? He knew that there was going to be war.