Twelve men had just finished exploring the most beautiful land any of them had ever seen. A land so abundant that the twelve brought back a single cluster of grapes, carried on a pole between two men. They had arrived at the very edge of everything they dreamed of; all that remained was to simply step on in.
Instead, ten of those men brought back a report so filled with fear, it halted an entire nation in it's tracks. That one, single night of fear would cost them forty long years and an entire generation. It is perhaps one of the bibles most poignant lessons on how doubt can derail even the closest encounter with destiny.
Stand at the Border
Having just escaped Egypt, and received the law from Sinai, Israel had reached the borders of the land promised to them by God. Their camp was set at the southern end of Canaan, near a place called Kadesh. The long march was almost over.
Prior to entering the land, Moses sent twelve men, his own choice, one from each tribe, to spy out the land. Their task was simple: go and see what the land is like, whether it is good or bad, whether it's produce is plentiful or scant, whether the cities are unwalled or fortified, and what the people living there are like. Two of the twelve, however, would have far more impact on the final decision than the rest put together: Joshua, the lone assistant to Moses, and Caleb of Judah. The twelve men set out on the task of spying out the land.
Moses selects twelve men, one from each tribe of Israel, and sends them to scout the Promised Land from the camp at Kadesh on the southern edge of Canaan.
Forty Days in a Land of Plenty
For forty days the twelve men wandered over the land, taking note of everything they were ordered to see. The land kept it's promise: a land flowing with milk and honey, a place of abundance, where huge crops of grapes grew wild in valleys, and where the people were more than willing to share samples of their pomegranates and figs. They brought back proof of plenty, a sign that this was truly the land which God had spoken of.
They returned to the camp carrying a single cluster of grapes, so large it had to be carried on a pole between two men. This was the testimony of all twelve: the land was truly bountiful. It was good soil and the fruit was plentiful. If this had been all there was to the report, Israel's fate may well have been different.
Two Reports, One Land
The scout's report was not all good news. When the twelve stood before the gathered multitude, relating everything they had seen, their words took two different directions. Ten of them related only bad things. The people living there were huge, they said, far taller and stronger than anyone in Israel. Then they said something truly frightening. We were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so were you.
They saw giants in the land, but their words reveal that the people of Israel were giants in their own eyes as well. The two saw the giants, but their faith in God kept them from doubting Him. The ten and the two saw the same things, but the two did not let the giants overshadow their faith in God.
The Night Fear Won
Their testimony caused the people to murmur and complain. They spent the night wailing and moaning, wishing desperately that they had died in Egypt, rather than suffering under the judgment of God. Then they turned to Moses and Aaron and blamed them for leading them into this miserable situation. Then the people began to talk of choosing a new leader and returning to Egypt. The people would rather have been slaves in Egypt, than free men in the face of overwhelming odds. When Joshua and Caleb spoke up, trying to reason with them, the people grew so angry that they almost stoned the two. Think for a moment about what this means. This is a nation that had seen God bring plagues upon Egypt, part the Red Sea and bring them across on dry ground, keep them fed with manna from heaven and speak to them from a flaming mountain. And yet, because of what these ten men said, they stood on the border of the land God had promised them, unable to enter, because they allowed the words of ten fearful men to drown out the voice of God.
A nation that had witnessed plague, the parting of the Red Sea, and manna from heaven spent the night in tears at the border of the Promised Land, wishing they had never left Egypt.
Forty Years for Forty Days
God's punishment was as amazing as their disobedience. He declared that because they had shown such incredible unbelief, none of that generation would see the land God had promised them. Because they had taken forty days to explore the land, they would spend forty years wandering the wilderness, until that entire generation died in the desert. The land would belong to their children, not to them.
The only exceptions to this were the two men who had brought the good news. In a perverse twist, the ten men who stirred up such fear against the advice of Moses and Aaron, died along with the rest of the people who had doubted God. The last thing these people did was attempt to go to war with the people of Canaan, with no permission from God, and were soundly defeated. The opportunity had passed and forty years of wilderness wandering began.
The Giants and the Walls
It is interesting to note that the ten men were not completely off base in their report to Israel. There were some things in Canaan that they should have taken notice of. The giants in Edom were real enough, according to later passages. The Bible refers to them as the descendants of Anak, the Anakim, a race of giants, and also refer to the Nephilim as giants connected with the old world before the flood. Whatever race of giants these were, they were real enough in Israel's eyes and so they should be taken notice of by Israel's leaders.
The other thing which should be taken notice of is the walls the people of Canaan had built around their cities with. Canaan in those days was not a unified country, it was more a loose collection of independent city-states, each of which was walled and strongly fortified with gates. Excavations of the ruins of Canaanite fortresses have unearthed massive walls and towers, some of which had rooms built into them. Such formidable defenses would have been a terrifying sight to an Israelite who had no experience with such things. So real were these things in Israel's eyes, that some of them actually believed they saw the enemies of their own land marching around the walls, trying to get at them.
It is interesting to note that Joshua and Caleb actually spoke of these things as real, but they did something few others seem to have done. They saw the strengths of the Canaanites, but they saw these things in the light of Gods power and not their own personal strength. The ten men saw the walls of Canaan and the giants among the people living there, and they feared these things. They saw these as things too strong to be overcome with the power Israel had at hand. The two men saw the same things, but believed their faith in God was stronger than anything the enemies of Israel could throw at them.
Archaeological excavations have confirmed what the spies reported: the city-states of Canaan were defended by enormous walls and towers, a terrifying sight to a people who had never faced such defenses.
A Tale of Two Kinds of Faith
Joshua and Caleb become two of the most interesting men of the Old Testament, and it is worth noting what happened to them in the many years that followed. Years later, when Israel finally took possession of the land, Joshua was still living, and an old man at that. He still insisted on taking back this very land which had defied Israel for so long, saying it was just as he had spoken of all those years ago. He was just as strong at eighty-five as he had been forty years earlier when he stood on the border of the land and spoke boldly of Gods promise.
These two stood out from the rest, not because they saw things any differently. They saw the same things as the rest did, but they placed their faith in a power that had proven itself over and over again, rather than the strength and cunning of their own enemies. It is the difference between seeing giants and walls, and seeing a God who could deliver them right over those walls.
