Upon the completion of Moses special scouting mission of spying out the Promised Land, the scouting party of twelve returned unto Israel after spending 40 days evaluating the land and its defenders. However their highly anticipated return unfortunately did not produce a high degree of hope for occupying the Promised Land. In fact the quotation from the fourteenth chapter of the book of Numbers says it all, “And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night.” and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
The reason the people wept was not because the scouts had returned with information indicating that they'd had been misled by God almighty about the goodness of the land.
Rather, they wept because the occupiers of the land that God had promised unto them were mightier, stronger, and were in fact giants, men of legendary exploits. These giants presented an intimidating obstacle. They were descendants of the infamous Nephilim, (Nephiyl) whose physical exploits and deeds were insurmountable. Their legend was acquired not only through the mere fact of their immense size and strength, but also because of their horrible reputation as bullies and tyrants. These giants were notoriously known for their feats of power, and enormous cruelty in warfare. The children of Israel quickly surmised that extracting the Promised Land from their possession was a hopeless venture, and could not believe that a sovereign God would entreaty them into encroaching upon these enormous people, nor upon a particular land of promise that they already occupied.
Numbers 13:25-33 And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.
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. 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. Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great:
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.
In essence, the giants then residing in the Promised Land symbolized the epic historic supernatural conflict between the God of Israel and the god of this world, and the conflict between the seed of Israel and the seed of the serpent. (Gen. 3:15)
Indeed, it must have been a frightful thing to behold the giants that occupied the land, and to reflect upon the task of extracting the land from their possession. The children of Israel were completely overcome with anxiety and hopelessness, as they could envision no possible way to contend with the tribes of the Canaanites, the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites and the Hivites that dominated the landscape before them.
The fact that Israel lifted up its voice against Moses and God, and wept all that night is circumstantial evidence that the children of Israel simply lacked faith in Jehovah. It is also emblematic of the fact that they failed to surmise that God's power and providence superseded the power and strength of any enemy that might be encountered in possessing the land that God had promised unto them. I can easily imagine the accusations and criticism that Moses encountered that fateful night. Undoubtedly, Moses relived the contentious incidents of the wilderness where God categorized the children of Israel as a stiff-necked people, and Moses had to plead with God to remember his promise. (Deut. 9:6,13, Exodus 32:9, 33:3, 34:9)
As their fathers in the wilderness before them lacked faith in God, and thus wondered about in a barren land for forty years, now the stiff-necked children of Israel and the 10 reluctant scouts recoiled in faithlessness. Their lack of faith would result in another forty year delay in the acquisition of the Land, and in their own deaths outside of the Promised Land. Because they had not hearkened unto the voice of the Lord, through his manifold miracles since Egypt, they provoked him to anger. Their murmuring against the Lord, and their preoccupation with fabricating an evil report of the land brought a curse upon them.
The military geo-politics of the hour kept them from expressing their faith in God. They sought to dissuade the chosen people from following God's command to take the land and rid it of the evil tribes that possessed it. As a result, the Lord preserved only Caleb and Joshua, the faithful scouts, and brought them forth victoriously into the Promised Land!
Deuteronomy 7:1-7 When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
Deuteronomy 9:1-3 Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven,
A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak! Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said unto thee.
The Lord promised to deliver the Anakim, and the rest of the Canaanite tribes unto the hands of Israel. That was all the children of Israel should have ever been concerned with. Victory was assured! All that was necessary to win the land was to follow God. The giants in the land were simply just a test of Israel's faith in God. God had already decreed that the land was theirs! And indeed, God had already weighed the enormous iniquities of the Canaanite peoples, and judged that their sins had finally come to the full. (Genesis 15:16)
Today, within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and the ongoing Middle East Peace Processes, Israel stands at the threshold of another supernatural conflict over the possession of the Promised Land. Once again, the faith of the children of Israel are being put to the test. However this time instead of the Giants being within the borders of the Promised Land, the Giants are positioned all around the world, and with one voice (United Nations) raises a cry of opposition to Israel's re-occupation of the Land. The US is forcing Israel to concede portions of the Covenanted Land. Russia, the EU, and China all demand that Israel comply with UN resolutions that dictate that Israel transfer land to agitating Middle East nations, in return for an overture of peace with security. Once again, the children of Israel are weeping in the night, and once again raising a voice against God, and yet gain expressing its own lack of faith in God to overcome the Giants that today deny Israel's Covenant with God almighty! Once again, Israel is preoccupied with negotiating away its Biblical right to the Promised Land in lieu of the overwhelming superiority and numbers among the giants in the world that incessantly work on behalf of the Satanic conspiracy against Israel. Therefore, Israel continues to be inhibited by the giant nations in the world from realizing the promise of God to simply restore the land unto them.
But God has decreed that he will bring all the giants down into the valley of Jehoshapat and once again deliver the giants into the hand of Israel. The Giant forces of Gentile dominion in this present age will not prevail against the Deliver, Jesus Christ, when he returns unto Israel! And Israel will find delight in the Lord's eyes on that Day!
Joel 3:9-16 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.
Author: Darrell G. Young