Numbers 13:33

33 We even saw the Nephilim^[a] there." (The offspring of Anak were descended from the Nephilim.^[b]) "To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them."

Numbers 13:33 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 13:33

And there we saw the giants
Not throughout the land, and yet it is so expressed, and in such connection with what goes before, that it might be so understood, and as they might choose it should; that as there were men everywhere of an uncommon size, and were generally so, there were some larger than they in all places, of a prodigious size, of a gigantic stature; and yet this was only in Hebron where they saw them;

the sons of Anak;
whose names are given, ( Numbers 13:22 ) ; and there were but three of them:

[which came] of the giants;
they, were of the race of giants; for not only Anak their father, but Arba their grandfather was one; ( Joshua 14:15 ) ( Joshua 15:13 ) ;

and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers;
little diminutive creatures in comparison of them; an hyperbolical exaggeration of the greatness of the giants, and of their own littleness:

and so we were in their sight;
but this they could not be so certain of, and could only make conjectures by their neglect or supercilious treatment of them. Jarchi makes them to speak of them more diminutively still, as that they heard those giants saying one to another,

``there are ants in the vineyards like men.''

Numbers 13:33 In-Context

31 But the men who had gone up with him responded, "We can't go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!"

32 So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: "The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size.

33 We even saw the Nephilim there." (The offspring of Anak were descended from the Nephilim.) "To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them."

Footnotes

• [a]. Possibly means "fallen ones"; traditionally, giants; Gn 6:4
• [b]. Dt 2:10-11,20-21