Context No. 3391 of 4322 · Numbers

Numbers 13:21-33: in context

21So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath. 22They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23They came to the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it on a staff between two. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. 24That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from there. 25They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. 26They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them and to all the congregation. They showed them the fruit of the land. 27They told him, and said, “We came to the land where you sent us. Surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there. 29Amalek dwells in the land of the South. The Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country. The Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along the side of the Jordan.” 30Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, “Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!” 31But the men who went up with him said, “We aren’t able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.” 32They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature. 33There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

The spies return from the promised land carrying its astonishing fruit, a cluster of grapes so large it takes two men to carry on a pole, and they confirm the land flows with milk and honey. But then most of them add a fatal however: the people are strong, the cities fortified, and there are giants; we are not able to go up. Only Caleb says, let us go up at once, for we are well able.

The difference between them is not in what they saw. All of them saw the same land, the same fortified cities, the same giants. The difference is in what they measured it against. The ten measured the giants against themselves and felt like grasshoppers; Caleb measured them against God and knew Israel was well able. Fear shrinks us in our own eyes; faith remembers the size of God. The same facts can be read two ways, through fear that magnifies the obstacle until we feel like insects, or through faith that trusts the One who promised to give the land.

When I face obstacles, do I measure them against my own strength and feel like a grasshopper, or against God, remembering he is well able to bring me through?

Sources

Numbers 13:30: "Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let's go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!"
Numbers 13:31: "We aren't able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we."
Numbers 13:33: "We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."