Numbers 13:32, commentary and pictures

The ten unfaithful spies brought Israel a discouraging report that the land devoured its people and was filled with men of great stature, magnifying the danger until possessing Canaan seemed impossible. They gave it even while admitting the land flowed with milk and honey and showing its fruit, yet they enlarged upon the difficulties and painted the obstacles in darker colors than at first. The charge that the land consumed its inhabitants was false, exaggerated and self-contradictory beside their own witness to its fruitfulness, while those who held the description correct in many respects taught that the fatal mistake lay not in the facts of walled cities and giants but in using them to distrust God's power. The report was unbelief that judged by human strength and left God out, forgetting His deliverance from Egypt and His promise to give the land though He was restraining its armies. It cast gloom over the whole camp, turning the people to weeping, murmuring against Moses and God, and plotting return to Egypt, for which God sentenced that generation to die in forty years of wilderness wandering. Against it stood the faithful witness of Joshua and Caleb that the land was exceeding good and to be taken in God's strength, a contrast that warns against spreading doubt and discouragement that holds back His work.

What the Report Said

The ten unfaithful spies brought Israel an evil, discouraging report that the searched land eats up its inhabitants and that all the people seen in it are men of great stature. They magnified the strength of the inhabitants and the danger of conquest, presenting possession of Canaan as impossible and turning the people from trusting that God would give them the land. After acknowledging its rich produce they declared it could not be taken, and that discouraging interpretation spread fear through the camp.

They gave this evil report after admitting the land flowed with milk and honey and was fertile, fruitful and prosperous, even displaying its fruit as proof. Yet they enlarged upon the difficulties and dangers and pictured the obstacles in darker colors than at first, declaring the land devoured its people and all its men were of immense size. Their gloomy, faithless account cast a shadow over the congregation and portrayed land and people as reasons for fear rather than trust.

That consuming-land claim was false witness, an exaggerated, distorted and lying contradiction of their own testimony to its fruitfulness and prosperity. They distorted the truth by representing the climate as unhealthful and all the people as of giant stature, setting their hearts against taking Canaan. If unhealthfulness had eaten up the inhabitants, such a population could not have thrived and grown to such massive proportions, so the charge refuted itself.

In many respects the description was correct, for the cities were walled and very great and the sons of the giants were a powerful race beside whom the spies were like mere pygmies. The fatal mistake was not in reporting those facts but in the use made of them, refusing to trust God to overthrow enemies and treating conquest as an utter impossibility. The searching belonged to twelve men sent over the Jordan to view the land and bring back word, near the end of the journey from slavery through the wilderness to the promised land. Israel had asked to send them and Moses had obtained God's consent, and that choice brought disaster when the evil report enlarged the walled cities and strong people into an unconquerable threat.

Unbelief Behind the Report

The evil report was unbelief and distrust toward the God who was leading Israel, judging whether Canaan could be taken by human strength and power of arms while ignoring His power and His promise to give the land. Although the spies acknowledged the advantages of the land and even displayed its fruit, they magnified its dangers, declaring that it consumed its inhabitants and that its people were exceptionally large, until Israel felt helpless, fearful, and despairing. In many respects their description was correct, for the cities were walled and very great and the sons of the giants were a powerful race beside whom the spies seemed like mere pygmies. The fatal evil was not in reporting the facts but in the use made of them, refusing to trust God to overthrow the enemies, declaring conquest an utter impossibility, when distrust alone kept Israel from entering at once and the Lord was holding back the Canaanite armies. The mighty walls of Jericho that frightened them then could have been possessed at that time if the people had trusted God.

The people left God out of the question, failing to reflect and reason that the God who had brought them thus far would certainly give the country He had declared He would give and fulfill His word. With unsubdued hearts not in harmony with His plans, they acted as though possessing Canaan, beginning with Jericho as its key, depended solely on arms, and in unbelief they limited the work of God and distrusted the hand that had safely guided them. They forgot how wonderfully He had wrought in bringing them out of Egyptian bondage, cutting a path through the waters of the sea, and destroying the pursuing host of Pharaoh, whom they should have fully trusted. Seeing only giants and fortified cities and difficulties rather than God's purpose, fear and limited human judgment obscured the victory that God and angels were ready to give to His truth.

The unfaithful, false report did the work Satan intended, confusing the people through leaders who led them into strange paths and helping bring about rebellion against God's plan to bring them into Canaan, so that God had to intervene. It was prompted by Satan, dishonoring God, where one word of unbelief prepares the way for more and served the satanic powers in complete rebellion. When men in responsible positions yield their hearts to unbelief there are no bounds to the advance they will make in evil as Satan leads them onward, setting their hearts against God and against Moses, Aaron, Caleb and Joshua and growing firmer with every step in discouraging every attempt to possess Canaan.

Rebellion and Judgment

The evil report cast a gloomy shadow over a camp of more than a million people, spreading fear, despair, discouragement and darkness until Israel's courage was broken. The congregation accepted the spies' interpretation of the land instead of trusting God's promise, seeing only difficulties and not God's purpose. That unbelief magnified the dangers and led the people into complete rebellion, doing the work of Satan who prompted the report and inspired the resistance to truth.

That night the whole congregation wept in bitter disappointment, wailing and murmuring against Moses and Aaron. They blamed their leaders for bringing trouble and leading them astray, and accused Moses and God Himself of deception in promising a land they could not possess, acting as though the end of all hope of possessing it had come. In cruel, wicked unbelief they wished they had died in the wilderness, appointed a captain to lead them back to suffering and bondage in Egypt, and declared the conquest an utter impossibility to be accomplished only by power of arms. Inspired by satanic agencies they cried out against the only two who still possessed faith and courage, bidding to stone Joshua and Caleb for daring to bear the truthful representation that the land is exceeding good.

For that unbelief judgment was pronounced that Israel must wander forty years in the wilderness until all who had left Egypt from twenty years old and upward died there and their rebel bodies were buried in the wilderness. The ten unfaithful spies died, and by refusing to trust God to overthrow their enemies Israel failed to act at the right time and lost its opportunity, though the Lord had been holding back the Canaanite armies. Their choice to send the spies and then believe the evil report brought this disaster upon them.

After the decree they tried to enter the land too late and were defeated because their enemies were ready and the Lord was not with them. They later resented the forty-year delay and claimed they could have conquered the land sooner, though their own cowardly rebellion had brought it about.

The failure became a repeated test, for before Israel was led the second time to the borders of Canaan the sentence was fulfilled, making the later advance against Og and Sihon a severer repetition of the same test of faith. Thirty-eight years after the mere description of giants had terrified Israel into distrust, the memory made Moses tremble lest they distrust God again before Bashan, another land of giant inhabitants, mighty cities and a giant king where only God could subdue their enemies and where distrust would give them up to defeat. The mighty walls of Jericho had frightened them forty years before its capture, though they could have possessed the city then if they had trusted God. Its fall showed that victory depended on God's power and not human strength, for any warrior's attempt to breach the walls would have taken glory from God. Because the report had staggered the faith of the fathers, forty years later the people needed fresh assurance of God's presence and protection at the Jordan as they undertook that same task.

Faithful Witness Contrasted

The evil report declared that the land devours its inhabitants and that all its people are men of exceptional stature, a false and faithless distortion of its true goodness that dishonored God and was prompted by Satan, where one word of unbelief prepares the way for more. Joshua and Caleb refused to join in it, but as two of the twelve who searched the land they gave a faithful account of its richness and attractiveness and bore truthful representation that it is exceeding good. They urged the people to go up in the strength of God and enter and possess it. The congregation instead believed the spies' interpretation, took the wrong side, wept and murmured against Moses and Aaron and wanted to return to Egypt, and, inspired by satanic agencies and stirred to fear and rebellion, cried out against the faithful witnesses and bade stone them.

That faithful stand, together with long service beside Moses, sight of the wonderful works of God, and knowledge of the disposition of the people, qualified Joshua to lead Israel into Canaan after the death of Moses.

Warning for Today

The cowardly complaining and drawing back from action when risks are to be encountered springs from unbelief and unwillingness to heed faithful reports and true counsel. That same spirit is re-enacted among God's people as the time of the second advent nears, when darkness and unbelief do not decrease and truth becomes less and less palatable to the carnally minded whose hearts are slow to believe and tardy to repent. Few receive the faithful warnings given, and the self-denying servants who bear the burden of the cause and suffer privation to help the people are seldom better appreciated now than then. They become the target for hatred and malicious falsehood because they will not turn from integrity to gratify the selfish and unconsecrated, while false ideas, jealousy and distrust crowd God out. Few dare come boldly forward and stand firmly for God and the right as Caleb did.

The fearful spies who focused on the dangers of the land and the stature of its inhabitants, discouraging advance, represent those who counsel delay and retreat from burdens. Their discouraging report about supposed danger and great stature represents the kind of doubt that dwells on obstacles and obstructs the advance of truth. Caleb represents the opposite, courageous and faithful testimony urging immediate and bold action despite opposition and calling to press forward with courage.

The voicing of distrust by predicting defeat and disaster, discouraging instead of encouraging faith in divine leading, stirred despair and murmuring and stands as a warning against spreading doubt and discouragement when facing difficulties. Such discouraging reports that undermine confidence and discourage action must not be repeated in work that damages faith in God's work and its workers. Instead the lesson is to avoid evil reports and to labor with faith and patience, trusting God and speaking of what He has done. The evil report was brought under a spirit that holds back God's work for years and leaves an influence that ruins souls, and the same spirit of reporting and acting unwisely still retards His work and harms souls.

Magnifying difficulties and discouraging going forward is the same evil report when it presents formidable objections to where an institution is located and talks of its heavy indebtedness in order to favor closing it, as with the Health Retreat. Finding objections and emphasizing difficulties as insurmountable fosters unbelief and hinders progress. Such reporting follows self-will and self-pleasing plans instead of God's ways and shows the need for the mold of Christ in character building. Belief in the false reputation that the land was poor discouraged workers and limited how much land they cultivated, but the reputation was false, for properly worked the land would yield its produce as abundant crops demonstrated.