Numbers
13:21 ¶ So they went up, and searched
the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath. 22 And they ascended by the south, and came unto
Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were.
(Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23 And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and
cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it
between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of
the figs. 24 The place was called the
brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut
down from thence. 25 And they returned
from searching of the land after forty days.
Numbers
13:26 ¶ And they went and came to Moses,
and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the
wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all
the congregation, and shewed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, and said, We came unto the
land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and
this is the fruit of it. 28
Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the
cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the
children of Anak there. 29 The
Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites,
and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea,
and by the coast of Jordan. 30 And Caleb
stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess
it; for we are well able to overcome it. 31
But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against
the people; for they are stronger than we. 32 And they brought up an evil report of the
land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land,
through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the
inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a
great stature. 33 And there we saw the
giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our
own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
An evil report is a report
that is negative, has some bad things to say about a subject. We first saw
mention of it in the story of Joseph.
Genesis
37:2 These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and
the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s
wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.
Another thing of note is that these scouts or spies saw giants.
Remember what was said in the first part of Genesis.
Genesis
6:4 There were giants in the earth in
those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the
daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men
which were of old, men of renown.
Keep in mind that since Genesis 6:9 says that Noah was perfect in
his generations it is possible there was no genetic taint of the fallen sons of
God and human women so this genetic abnormality that produced giants would come
through his wife to his sons. I want to repeat what I said in my comments on
Genesis 6:4.
“The
resultant offspring of these sons of God and human women were giants, famous as
heroes in myth and legend. The mythologies of the world have brought us stories
of these great men of renown with
various names and in various forms. The phrase and also after that shows that this was an ongoing problem even after
the Flood. I will not go into the many websites about and books written on
findings of giant remains in graves and tombs as it is difficult to distinguish
fact from fancy and outright fraud. Sticking with the Bible account, though, we
have many references that would render some of the modern stories about
archaeological finds understandable and believable. Here are a few examples of
the many references to giants with the measurement given so that we see these
were not just National Basketball Association (NBA) style large men.
Deuteronomy
3:11 For only Og king of Bashan remained
of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it
not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof,
and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man. [that
is between
13 ½ to 18 feet long depending on the actual length of
a cubit]
1Samuel
17:4 And there went out a champion out
of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six
cubits and a span. [Goliath was between around 9 feet plus
and 12 feet tall]
Other
references to show that there were places where such giants were common are;
Numbers
13:33 And there we saw the giants, the
sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as
grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Deuteronomy
2:10 The Emims dwelt therein in times
past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; 11 Which also were accounted giants, as the
Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.
Deuteronomy
3:13 And the rest of Gilead, and all
Bashan, being the kingdom of Og, gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh; all
the region of Argob, with all Bashan, which was called the land of giants.
Joshua
15:8 And the border went up by the valley
of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is
Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before
the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants northward:”
The conditions in Canaan at this point in time are
vastly different than they were during the famine time of Joseph’s rule in
Egypt. It was clearly going through a time of great agricultural abundance and
plenty, ripe for the picking.
Ancient Canaan was at a strategic point between
Europe, Asia, and Africa and while under Egyptian control up until the loss of
the Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea, they would have been militarily strong
contending before and after that against each other and other conquerors as we
saw in Genesis 14. These were walled towns, mini-kingdoms, with a history of
warfare. Caleb recommended an immediate assault to overwhelm the Canaanites,
probably not united at this point with their master Egypt not on the scene
still harboring their petty jealousies and conflicts between each other. Now
was the time.
No comments:
Post a Comment