maintain the possibility of conquering Canaan.
Verse 31
But his companions were of an opposite opinion, and declared that the people in Canaan were stronger than the Israelites, and therefore it was impossible to go up to it.
verses 32-33
Thus they spread an evil report of the land among the Israelites, by exaggerating the difficulties of the conquest in their unbelieving despair, and describing Canaan as a land which “ate up its inhabitants.” Their meaning certainly was not “that the wretched inhabitants were worn out by the laborious task of cultivating it, or that the land was pestilential on account of the inclemency of the weather, or that the cultivation of the land was difficult, and attended with many evils,” as Calvin maintains. Their only wish was to lay stress upon the difficulties and dangers connected with the conquest and maintenance of the land, on account of the tribes inhabiting and surrounding it: the land was an apple of discord, because of its fruitfulness and situation; and as the different nations strove for its possession, its inhabitants wasted away (Cler., Ros., O. v. Gerlach). The people, they added, are מדּות אנשׁי, “men of measures,” i.e., of tall stature (cf. Isa 45:14), “and there we saw the Nephilim, i.e., primeval tyrants (see at Gen 6:4), Anak's sons, giants of Nephilim, and we seemed to ourselves and to them as small as grasshoppers.”
Chap. 14
verses 1-4
Uproar among the People. - Num 14:1-4. This appalling description of Canaan had so depressing an influence upon the whole congregation (cf. Deu 1:28 : they “made their heart melt,” i.e., threw them into utter despair), that they raised a loud cry, and wept in the night in consequence. The whole nation murmured against Moses and Aaron their two leaders, saying “Would that we had died in Egypt or in this wilderness! Why will Jehovah bring us into this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should become a prey (be made slaves by the enemy; cf. Deu 1:27-28)? Let us rather return into Egypt! We will appoint a captain, they said one to another, and go back to Egypt.”
verses 5-10
At this murmuring, which was growing into open rebellion, Moses and Aaron fell upon their faces before the whole of the assembled congregation, namely, to pour out their distress before the Lord, and move Him to interpose; that is to say, after they had made an unsuccessful attempt, as we may supply from Deu 1:29-31, to cheer up the people, by pointing them to the help they had thus far received from God. “In such distress, nothing remained but to pour out their desires
