Numbers 13:30-33

But they come back with a third argument. Actually, their third argument is a distortion and contradiction of their first two arguments. And that is this, "The land will devour us!" Then they say that all the warriors are giants.

If nothing else, these are exaggerations, if not outright lies. These spies should have known better. But, they saw the way that the crowd was going, and they saw how fearful the people were, and so they went and took their original argument to the next level of incredulity.

What they meant by, "The land will devour us," could mean two different things. It could mean either their armies, when they would go into the land, would be easily beset by attackers—in other words, if we go in there, the land is not conducive to attack by us coming in from the south. We would be fully exposed to the other armies. There were no defensible positions. They would actually have to go into the land of Canaan as the aggressor, and Israel was already at a disadvantage.

Or it could mean that even if they were to succeed, they would become so depleted that they would not be able to hold up against the next nation to take, or to hold out against an aggressor themselves. It is sort of the flip side of the first. They would be going in there, using up all their strength, and then somebody stronger than them would come in behind them, and take it from them. They would be in a position of weakness.

There is a bit of truth to this argument. First, from the standpoint of militarily coming in and taking the land, it was difficult, especially from the south where they were coming from at that time. The majority of the people were in the mountains, and they would have to be assaulted while they were in their fortified positions.

Their excuse regarding the giants is a huge exaggeration—pun intended. As far as we know, only a few of the Anakim were truly giants like Goliath. Goliath may have been nine, ten, or even up to 13 feet tall, and that would indeed be a big guy, especially coming at him with a sling shot. But through the faith in God, David was able to slay that giant. But, these men with Joshua and Caleb did not see it that way. They saw all these giants as invincible warriors. They could not defeat a whole army of giants. That did not mean much to David, a faithful man, but these people were not like David. These Anakim seemed not invincible at all.

"Giants," in verse 33, is the Hebrew "nephilim." It is the same word used in Genesis 6 about the giants living before the flood. Think about this logically. They are saying that the Anakim—the sons of Anak—came from the giants of old. This parenthetical phrase—that the Anakim came from the giants—is what they said.

How many people went onto the ark? It was only the eight people in the family of Noah. How in the world would the sons of Anak be descended from the Nephilim in Genesis 6? Did they not all die, or were they too tall to drown?

What is happening here is that they are all gathered around their campfires and telling 'ghost stories.' "These giants are the sons of the Nephilim, you know! They come from before the flood, and they were like 92 feet tall, and they had wings, and big claws! We cannot go up against them!"

Do you see how their fears are getting into the people and stoking them into a frenzy? They are so fearful that they believe that they would all go in there and be chopped down and die. So they try the argument of the boogie-man. And it works.

Numbers 13:28-33

The people of the land were the same, regardless of who was looking at them. The difference in the reports was due solely to whether the spies had their eyes on God, as was the case with Joshua and Caleb, or whether they had forgotten God, which was the case with the ten others.

On the other hand, when the ten forgot God, the giants seemed overwhelming and they appeared to be grasshoppers in their own eyes. That is how fearful they were because of how they were viewing it.