The Lord spoke to Moses: “Send men to scout out the land of Canaan I am giving to the Israelites. Send one man who is a leader among them from each of their ancestral tribes.” Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran at the Lord’s command. All the men were leaders in Israel. (13:1-3)
One of the saddest stories in the bible begins with one of the greatest notes of hope. Israel has escaped from bondage and has finally reached their land promised to them by the Lord. Now they need to scout out the land, and it is not ordinary people who are chosen for this task. No, it is the leaders who are chosen; those with the greatest potential and the greatest responsibility. The ones who should be capable of delivering are the ones who are chosen for the job. Yet, you all know the outcome. All of them, except for Joshua and Caleb, fail miserably because they lead from a place of fear instead of a place of faith. Moses was not asking them to have a false sense of reality or bring back an inaccurate report. He tells them plainly to “see what the land is like, if the people there are strong or weak, few or many.” He wants to know if some cities or fortifications will have to be overcome. In short, Moses makes it clear from the beginning that he is expecting a fight and he has no “pie in the sky” perspective on taking this land that God has promised to give them. He wants the truth and the men do not fail by reporting the truth; all 12 concur that the land is amazing and the inhabitants are formidable. The issue is not that the 10 saw one thing and the other 2 saw something different. They all saw the same obstacles; but Joshua and Caleb saw the challenges in the light of God’s promises, God’s past displays of power, and His present glory.
The other 10, though, were leaders who led from a place of fear. The fear was real and legitimate under normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances. The God of the universe had promised them He would give them the land. The God who had never failed them, not once, was saying that He would accomplish this. They had faced many enemies along the way and God had defeated them so they knew He could do it, and His glory was present with them so there was no question of His presence. The bottom line is that their gaze was on their fear and not on their faith. Their fear changed their perspective where they felt like grasshoppers (which they weren’t) compared to the inhabitants who looked like giants (which they weren’t). We’re not sure who the Nephilim were (see 13:33) but they were wiped out in the flood so these were not their descendants. This was a legend from their past (likely misunderstood) being brought into their present because their fear had warped their sense of reality. The issue with these spies was not what they observed but the angle from which they observed it. No matter what you are facing today, your circumstances (or your interpretation of those circumstances) do not define your reality; God is the definer of reality, and seeing things in His light will give you the courage to face things that would make others run for Egypt.
