Spies Give A Bad Report / Caleb, Joshua & The Nephilim (Numbers Chapter 13)

Numbers 13 and the Call to Courage

Let's turn to Numbers chapter 13. We'll pray and get into the lesson. Heavenly Father, we thank you again. You brought us back here on another Wednesday evening to pray to you, to thank you, to praise you in the music.

And now to look at another chapter from this book of Numbers, which has so many great stories and lessons, and we're gonna see more to come. But Lord, as we look at chapter 13, just prepare our hearts that we may receive blessing and encouragement from your word, I pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Numbers 13.

And the Lord spoke to Moses.

Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, everyone a leader among them.

So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the command of the Lord, all of the men who were heads of the children of Israel. Now, these were their names. From the tribe of Reuben, Shammuah, the son of Zechariah.

From the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat, the son of Horah. From the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephunneh. From the tribe of Issachar, Igo, the son of Joseph. From the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea, the son of Nun.

From the tribe of Benjamin, Pelti, the son of Raphael. From the tribe of Zebulun, Gariel, the son of Sodai. From the tribe of Joseph, that is from the tribe of Manasseh, Gadai, the son of Susai. From the tribe of Dan, Ammiel, the son of Gemalai.

From the tribe of Asher, Sethu, the son of Michael. From the tribe of Naphtali, Nabal, the son of Vaphsai. From the tribe of Gad, Geuilu, the son of Mekhi. These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land.

And Moses called Hoshea, the son of Nun, Joshua. Then Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them...

Go up this way into the south and go up to the mountains and see what the land is like, whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many, whether the land they dwell in is good or bad.

Whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds, whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are forests there or not, be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land.

Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehab, near the entrance of Haman. And they went up through the south and came to Hebron.

Ahimon, Shishai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zohan in Egypt. Then they came to the valley of Eshkal and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes.

They carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. The place was called the Valley of Eshkal because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there.

And they returned from spying out the land after 40 days. Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Perun at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

Then they told him,.

We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey. And this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.

The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south. The Hittites, the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses.

Let us go up at once and take possession. For we are well able to overcome it.

But the men who had gone up with him said,.

We are not able to go up against the people for they are stronger than we.

And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out.

The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants. And all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.

There we saw the giants. The descendants of Anak came from the giants and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. And so we were in their sight.

God’s Promise of the Land and the Need for Courage

And before we look at numbers 13, let's remember one thing. Why did the Lord deliver his people out of Egypt in the first place? The naysayers and the rebels of the children of Israel, they're saying, well, God just brought us out here to kill us.

He just brought us out into the wilderness so that we would die here. Of course, that wasn't true. The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt to bring them into the promised land. That was the whole purpose.

Get them out of here to bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey.

Why?

Because this is the land that God promised to Abraham and his descendants. So this is about fulfilling, or at least partially fulfilling that prophecy to Abraham. So Israel, at this point, they have their leader, Moses.

They have a covenant with God. They have the Mosaic law. So we think of that as like the nation's constitution, if you will. They have their religion headed up by Aaron, the high priest. They have the 70 elders.

Really, they have everything they need for this newly established nation, except for one thing. They lack what?

Courage.

Well, they do lack courage, that's true, but they lack the land. So the time has come for them to take the land that God promised to them. Look at 13 verses one through three. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "'Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel.

From each tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, everyone a leader among them.'. So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who are heads of the children of Israel.".

And then it lists all the names that we're not gonna go through, because frankly, most of the men are forgettable. But there are two men that stand out. There are two names that we remember, because these men didn't lack courage.

And who are these two men?

Caleb.

Yeah, Caleb. And hold on, it's Caleb and Hosea, right?

Hosea.

So Caleb is the representative from the tribe of Judah, the largest tribe, strongest tribe. And then Hosea is from the tribe of Ephraim, which split off, Joseph split into two, Ephraim and Manasseh. Look at verse 16.

Says, "'These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hosea the son of Nun, N-U-N. He called him Joshua.'". Okay, so these are the men that we remember. These are the men of courage and faith, Caleb and Joshua.

Just a few comments on this name change. This is the first time, I think, that we learn his original name. All throughout, he's been called Joshua. We read about him in the book of Exodus as Joshua. So it's somewhat in dispute of when this name change happened.

Did it happen right here? Or has it happened in the past? And this is the first time we hear about it. I think it happened here, but we don't know that for certain. The name Hosea means salvation. And Joshua means the Lord is salvation.

And the New Testament equivalent is Jesus. So Jesus, Joshua, the Hebrew and the Greek name. So I was reading up on this and I found this interesting. Apparently in Jewish tradition, it is believed that Moses changed his name right here for a specific reason.

That Jehovah saves essentially means what Moses was trying to get across. May the Lord save you from the conspiracy of the scouts or the spies. The idea is that Moses knew that they were going to bring back a bad report.

And that Moses is seeing what's happening and he knows they're trying to form a coup against him. That they would convince the people to overthrow his, the Bible doesn't spell all this out. Again, this is Jewish tradition.

But he fears a coup that the people, these spies or some ringleaders were gonna convince the people, overthrow Moses, get a new leader so they can do what? Bring the children of Israel back to Egypt. And of course there are some indications of that.

So this name change could be Moses praying to God that he would protect his protege Hosea or Joshua. And again, I'll say it one more time. This is Jewish tradition. That may be 100 accurate. It might be 50%, we don't know.

But I thought that was interesting. How many of you have heard that before? Something like that. Okay, I think it's possible. But the way I looked at it before, still look at it, and both can be true, is that Caleb and Joshua are men that trusted in God, feared God.

The other 10 spies didn't. I mean, I think that's obvious. Joshua and Caleb are courageous. The others were, what? Begins with a C, the word I'm thinking of. Right, they were cowardly. In the next chapter, chapter 14, it is said about Caleb, the Lord said, because Caleb's the one who speaks up.

Let's take the land, God is giving it to us. What are we waiting for? Says about Caleb that he had a different spirit. He stood out from the rest. Numbers, let me just read the verse. Numbers 14, verse 24, the Lord said, but my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land where he went and his descendants shall inherit it.

So if this is a little repeat from what some of you heard on Sunday night, just a few pieces, okay? Some of this is brand new, but that term, a different spirit, is found in the Bible twice. Once here in Numbers 14, and then it's found again in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians chapter 11.

So in Numbers, this is a positive usage of the term. It's a good thing to have a different spirit. When Paul mentions having a different spirit in the New Testament, that's bad because he's talking about having a different spirit other than the Holy Spirit.

So people who preach another Jesus in a different gospel, it causes people to receive a different spirit. But this different spirit is good. Okay, I saw a hand.

Jim.

I'm not sure if it's the Greek Septuagint or if it's the Hebrew, but Jesus's name is Jehoshua. And that's what the King James calls Joshua. Same thing, and the meaning is the same, salvation.

Right, yeah, because Joshua would lead the people into the promised land. And the analogy some people make is Jesus leads us into the promised land, which in that case would be a symbol for heaven. Okay, any other questions or comments so far?

Faith, Fear, and the Bad Report

All right, so we have been hearing this and now it's happening again. The children of Israel, right? They grumble, they complain, they lack faith in God's promise, but these certain men stand out. When everyone else said, no, we can't do it, they said, yes, because why?

They believed God. It's that simple. God said, I'm giving you this land. They said, okay, let's go. They didn't have any excuses. The spies had a whole bunch of excuses why they could not take the land.

And when you have excuses and you're doubting God, that's discouraging towards other people. So when they come back with this bad report, it kind of sours everybody and the people are crying all night and oh no, what are we going to do?

Caleb, however, had words of encouragement. So it doesn't matter what is going on in the world. It doesn't matter what's going on in the church. We need people who will always be there to have a word of encouragement because God's promises are true.

Can't lose sight of that. And I think of the way things are today in our country and in churches, let's face it, there's a lot of discouragement out there. And I'm sure some of you have felt it. People say, well, the country is just going downhill and the church and churches in general and oh no, what are we going to do?

And it's just getting so bad, where is God? Okay, if you're tempted to think that way, remember what 2 Corinthians 5, 7 says. The apostle Paul said, we walk by faith and not by sight. Yeah, there's a lot of things going on that don't look very good, that's true.

But do we walk by sight? No, we walk by faith. We need to make sure we don't become like the children of Israel. And we start grumbling and complaining all the time. Oh no, nothing's ever going to change.

What are we going to do? The Lord said, has my arm been shortened?

No.

All right, so look at verse 17. Before God delivered the Israelites, things looked pretty bleak, but then they saw how God worked. And it seems like they just forgot about it. Verse 17, then Moses sent them to spy out the land and said to them, go up this way into the south and go up to the mountains and see what the land is like, whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many, whether the land they dwell in is good or bad, whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds, whether the land is rich or poor and whether there are forests there or not.

And what's the next statement?

Be of good courage.

Amen, yes. Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land. And it says, now was the time, the season of the first ripe grapes. So they went out and gathered, they went out, spied out the land and they gathered some of the fruit and they brought it back.

And it really was a land flowing with milk and honey. They acknowledged that, right? But they have all their excuses. Verse 22, here's one excuse. It mentions the descendants of Anak. And what was significant about the descendants of Anak?

They were big. Okay, so they're, is that what you said? Yeah, they're giants. We can't defeat these people. There's giants in the land. Is that true? Well, we're gonna look at that in a moment. So it says they returned from spying out the land for how long?

40 days. So this number 40 is very significant. What does the number 40 represent? It represents a time of testing. This is like a probationary period. You think of when God was up on the Mount, when Moses was up on the Mount with God, he was up there for 40 days.

And the children of Israel were down below being tested and they failed and they worshiped the golden calf. Fast forward to the New Testament, Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted of the devil or tested for 40 days.

And where Israel failed, the Lord Jesus succeeded and stayed faithful. So there's 40 days. So this is a test. Did they pass the test? Yeah, spoiler alert, no. No, they don't. No, they don't. And of course, because they give the bad report, the Lord makes them wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

One year for every day that they spied out the land. But thankfully, Joshua and Caleb, who are the only two of that generation that are allowed to enter, another spoiler, they're the only two allowed to enter the land.

They were not cowardly, they had faith. So how many spies total? 12, 12 tribes. Two were good, 10 are bad. Look at verse 26. And by the way, the Lord struck the 10. I'm giving too much away in the next chapter.

These 10 spies are gonna drop dead. Verse 26, now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the children or all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

Then they told him and said, we went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey. This is its fruit. But nevertheless, and now come all the excuses. So the land is just like God said, but we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak.

Skip down to verse 32. And they gave the children of Israel a what? A bad report of the land, which they had spied out saying the land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants.

And all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak came from the giants. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. And so we were in their sight.

And I find that first comment really kind of pathetic. We were like grasshoppers in our own sight. They're looking at this from a very carnal, just worldly humanistic point of view. We can't do this. Well, no, you can, but God can.

And that's how we have to look at things. If God is left out of the equation, then what are you even doing? So who are these giants? We're gonna spend a little time on this. I find this to be a fascinating subject.

I hope you do as well. Let's go back to Genesis chapter six. Genesis six. So the Hebrew word translated giant is Nephil. And maybe you have heard of the Nephilim. How many of you are familiar with the Nephilim?

Now you're not gonna see that word Nephilim or Nephilim in the New King James Version. I don't know. There might be some Bible translation that has that word, but it comes from the Hebrew. It just basically means giant.

So that's what we see in our Bibles. The Nephilim were giants. Okay, that's how it's translated. I looked up the word online just to see what others were saying about it. This is what the Encyclopedia Britannica says about the Nephilim.

It says, the Nephilim in the Hebrew Bible is a group of mysterious beings or people. It's like, okay. People or beings.

Okay.

So a group of mysterious beings or people of unusually large size and strength who live both before and after the flood. I'm gonna take issue with that in a second. The Nephilim are referenced in Genesis and Numbers and are possibly referenced too in Ezekiel, which we're not gonna spend time on.

So I think that statement about they lived before and after the flood is incorrect. Even though the spies are saying, well, we saw them, they're in the land. I don't think that's true. So what's happening here?

We're gonna look at Genesis 6. This is the Nephilim. And what happens after Genesis 6? Chapter 7, 8, 9. Yeah, the flood. There are some professing Christians who believe in a localized flood. We believe in a worldwide flood.

See, we believe the book of Genesis is real history. We take it literally. So when it says that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, that's what it means. It doesn't mean 6 billion years.

It means six days. When it said the whole earth was flooded or every mountain was covered. It's talking about a worldwide flood. But there are some people who think, well, no, just this area in the Middle East was flooded.

False. Okay, false. So every being or every person and all the beasts of the field, everything was wiped out in the flood. So the Nephilim that are there in Genesis 6 that we're gonna read about, they all died.

It's just Noah and his family that survived the flood and the animals on the ark. They couldn't live beyond that. So whatever the spies are seeing, whoever they're seeing, it's not the Nephilim of Genesis 6, just to put that out there.

If you wanna challenge that, I mean, feel free, just be prepared to defend it with Bible verses. All right, let's look at Genesis 6, verse one. Says, now it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.

And the Lord said, my spirit shall not strive with man forever for he is indeed flesh, yet his days shall be 120 years. There were giants on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them.

So it seems clear to me that when they produce offspring, this was the Nephilim, this was the giants. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. How did the Lord react to this? He didn't like it very much.

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.

So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

So who are, we're gonna talk about the Nephilim, the offspring, but first, who are the sons of God and the daughters of men? Okay, who wants to answer that question?

Jim.

I'm not sure that I have the total answer, but my understanding is that sons of God, and it's a hotly debated, well, I don't say hotly, but it's a debated portion of scripture because some are saying the sons of God were angels.

Right, okay.

And some say, no, they were just big men and they came from a painfully heritage.

Okay.

And the daughters were the daughters of the Hebrews.

Okay, all right. So there may be people in this room who take a different view. If you do, that's fine. You're wrong, but you know, that's okay. Everyone's wrong about some things, even me on a few things, I'm sure.

But you know, in all seriousness, though, I am serious, but yeah, I think a lot of Christians disagree on this. I think if you went out and surveyed churches, there'd be all sorts of different ideas. And it's okay to disagree on a subject like this, but there are different views.

Some say that the sons of God are the godly line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve. And the idea that some people have is that this godly line from Seth, they were pure, but then they intermarried with the daughters of men who were sinful and corrupt.

So then because their offspring, well, now everything's corrupt, and God decided, well, we need to just start over because, you know, the godly line has been defiled. So how many of you have heard that?

So they say the sons of God are descendants of Seth. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me for the reason, first, sons of God in the Old Testament, that term usually refers to angels. You think about Job chapter one, for example, talks about the sons of God, and they're clearly angels because they present themselves before the Lord, and Satan is among them, and you know that story.

So sons of God being the descendants of Seth, I just don't see that. I think it's a reference to angels. Also, why would the term daughters of men represent ungodly people? I mean, didn't the godly people have daughters too?

Like, why would that represent? So to me, it just doesn't add up. And why would their cohabitation result in giants? They're both human, why would that be any? So to me, none of that really makes a whole lot of sense.

So the other view is that the sons of God here are angels, but they are fallen angels, or at least they fall after doing this at the very least, and that angels are cohabitating with human women. Some people, I just don't see how that's possible.

God created everything out of nothing. Why is that so hard to believe? I don't know, to me.

Well, angels can't procreate.

Well, that's the argument, but the Bible never says that angels can't procreate. I mean, you might assume they don't. Here's the argument against it. Well, Jesus said that the angels in heaven neither marry nor are given in marriage.

That's true. In heaven, they're not doing that. But this is on the earth. This is a long time ago, and technically Jesus didn't say they can't procreate. So I just don't see that statement as having any reference or any real connection to this.

So this is the other view that the sons of God are angels, and they produced offspring with these human women, and the result of that was the Nephilim, and that sets the Nephilim apart. Okay, they're a distinct race.

I mean, it was really an abomination, and it was such an abomination that God took the angels, sent them to a special place, the bottomless pit where they are chained, because fallen angels are demons, and they're everywhere.

They're not bound. This group of angels are bound in chains in the bottomless pit, and God Yeah, and God saw this abomination. It was so severe. That's what caused him to take this extreme measure of just starting over to get rid of this from the face of the earth.

So that's my viewpoint. I know probably half of the Christians out there don't view it that way, but that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. All right, hey, all right, I got a second. We have a third.

All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All right.

How come we didn't learn this in Sunday school?

Well, I don't know. We'll have to cover this next fall maybe.

You can have that in the children's story.

So the Nephilim are all destroyed in the flood. They can't be still around in Numbers 14, so I'll explain that in just a moment. Just a few verses though. 1 Peter 3, 19 and 20 says, "'Jesus went and preached to the spirits in prison who formerly were disobedient when once the divine long-suffering waited in the days of Noah.'".

So these spirits in prison, I believe, are the sons of God who did this thing and it's connected to the days of Noah. Also 2 Peter 2, 4 and 5 says, "'For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them up into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment, and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah.'".

And it goes on. So there's angels, they're chained, and it has something to do with their fall around the time of Noah. So to me, this is very clear. All right, let's go back to Numbers chapter 13. Yes, Larry.

Well, I was just thinking here in Genesis 6, God did destroy everyone except for Noah and his family and to start over.

Yeah.

And that's what he said. He wanted to do with Moses.

Right.

So it's very similar.

Right, yeah. The descendants of Abraham, God was gonna start over with Moses. Moses would be like the new Abraham, sort of, but that didn't end up happening. Okay, so you're going back to Numbers 13. So now we have centuries later, the spies are claiming that, hey, the Nephilim are in the land.

That cannot possibly be true because they're all wiped out in the flood. So I think what happened is that word just, you know, these were legendary creatures or people, and that legend just kind of continued.

And anyone of large stature, a fierce warrior, they just got slapped with that label, Nephilim, when they weren't actually the original Nephilim. Okay, I think that's what's going on here.

Jim.

You've got very tall people anyways. Your average height is between 5 '6 and 5 '8.

Yeah.

And there were evidence today in Northern Europe that the population in Northern Europe are very tall people. Most of them are six feet or more. So when you have someone that's 5 '6 looking at a six foot or greater, you're gonna think they're giants, especially at this point.

So that's one of the things that I saw, and I looked it up as well, that they weren't real giants, they were just tall people.

Right, if you're 5 '6 and you're looking at someone who's 6 '8, I mean, they're like a giant. I mean, Shaquille O 'Neal looks like a giant compared to standing next to some people.

I used to be 6 '8, but then as I age, I shrink.

Yeah, gravity has a way of just shrinking us, I guess.

I was sitting here and I said,.

Please.

So that's what's happening. I think they're just, it's really more of an excuse. I think they went out and they know what they're gonna do. They're gonna bring back this bad report, or they're just cowards or both.

So they come back with all these excuses, why we can't obey God, why we should go back to Egypt. Moses doesn't know what he's doing. It's just the kind of the same old, same old from these rebels who are rebelling, not just against Moses, this is a rebellion against God, because God said, go take the land.

I'm giving it to you, and they say no. All right, so excuses, they're cowards. Thankfully though, with their bad report, and they wanna lead people back to Egypt, thankfully, that doesn't happen. There were still some faithful servants of God who stood firm, in particular, Caleb and Hosea, who became known as Joshua.

So they stuck with the Lord. They believed in his word, even when it seemed difficult, they stuck with God, they believed his promise. And that's what we need to do. Even when things seem to be, the odds are stacked against us, we can't figure out, how are we going to do this?

Hey, God made promises. His word is still true. It doesn't matter what other people say. We need to stick with the Lord. We need to believe his word, and not be like the children of Israel. So we'll close with verses, well, just verse 30, numbers 13, verse 30, it said, "'Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "'Let us go up at once and take possession, "'for we are well able to overcome it.'".

So the church today needs men like Caleb and Joshua, not the naysayers, not the 10 spies who say that, we can't do what God says, or what God says can't happen. All right, so be like Caleb, amen? Have a different spirit.

Be different from everybody else.