33 There we saw those great men, the sons of Anak, offspring of the Nephilim: and we seemed to ourselves no more than insects, and so we seemed to them.
There were men of great strength and size on the earth in those days; and after that, when the sons of God had connection with the daughters of men, they gave birth to children: these were the great men of old days, the men of great name.
Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts feeble with fear by saying, The people are greater and taller than we are, and the towns are great and walled up to heaven; and more than this, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.
A people great and tall, the sons of the Anakim, of whom you have knowledge and of whom it has been said, All are forced to give way before the sons of Anak.
It is he who is seated over the arch of the earth, and the people in it are as small as locusts; by him the heavens are stretched out like an arch, and made ready like a tent for a living-place.
(In the past the Emim were living there; a great people, equal in numbers to the Anakim and as tall;
And a fighter came out from the tents of the Philistines, named Goliath of Gath; he was more than six cubits tall. And he had a head-dress of brass on his head, and he was dressed in a coat of metal, the weight of which was five thousand shekels of brass. His legs were covered with plates of brass and hanging on his back was a javelin of brass. The stem of his spear was as long as a cloth-worker's rod, and its head was made of six hundred shekels' weight of iron: and one went before him with his body-cover.
And again there was war at Gath, where there was a very tall man, who had twenty-four fingers and toes, six fingers on his hands and six toes on his feet; he was one of the offspring of the Rephaim. And when he was purposing to put shame on Israel, Jonathan, the son of Shimei, David's brother, put him to death. These four were of the offspring of the Rephaim in Gath; and they came to their end by the hands of David and his servants.
And he made an attack on an Egyptian, a very tall man about five cubits high, armed with a spear like a cloth-worker's rod; he went down to him with a stick, and pulling his spear out of the hand of the Egyptian, put him to death with that same spear.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Numbers 13
Commentary on Numbers 13 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 13
It is a memorable and very melancholy story which is related in this and the following chapter, of the turning back of Israel from the borders of Canaan, when they were just ready to set foot in it, and the sentencing of them to wander and perish in the wilderness for their unbelief and murmuring. It is referred to Ps. 95:7, etc., and improved for warning to Christians, Heb. 3:7, etc. In this chapter we have,
Num 13:1-20
Here we have,
Num 13:21-25
We have here a short account of the survey which the spies made of the promised land.
Num 13:26-33
It is a wonder how the people of Israel had patience to stay forty days for the return of their spies, when they were just ready to enter Canaan, under all the assurances of success they could have from the divine power, and a constant series of miracles that had hitherto attended them; but they distrusted God's power and promise, and were willing to be held in suspense by their own counsels, rather than be brought to a certainty by God's covenant. How much do we stand in our own light by our unbelief! Well, at length the messengers return, but they agree not in their report.