Numbers 13:33

33 and we even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that is how we must have looked to them." ¹

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 with Caleb said, "No, we are not strong enough to attack them; the people there are more powerful than we are."

32 So they spread a false report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, "That land doesn't even produce enough to feed the people who live there. Everyone we saw was very tall,

33 and we even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. We felt as small as grasshoppers, and that is how we must have looked to them."

Cross References

• 1. 13.33Genesis 6.4.