Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 12 · January 12
In Their Sight
“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.”
Perhaps someone has quoted this verse at you to tell you that your fear was all in your head. "We were in our own sight as grasshoppers," they said, as if the only trouble was how you saw yourself. That was unfair to you and to the text, because the giants were real. The scouts did not invent the sons of Anak. They reported that the cities were "walled, and very great," and years later Deuteronomy still describes them as "a people great and tall." Telling someone that a wall is only a matter of how they look at it may end the conversation, but it does not help anyone.
So be exact about what the ten scouts got wrong. It is one clause in their report: "and so we were in their sight." That second half is the mistake. They are reporting what was going on inside the giants' heads, and they had no way to know it. They had been spying out the land; they had not been talking with its people. They measured themselves, came up with a small figure, and passed it off as news about the enemy. Scripture gives their speech a name: "they brought up an evil report of the land."
Caleb spent the same forty days in the land. He passed the same cities and walked under the same walls, and yet he said, "Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it." Soon after, he and Joshua gave their reasons to the whole people: "their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us."
So where is the line between an honest report and an evil one? Both groups walked the same ground, and both told the truth about how big the problem was. The difference was what each group set beside the facts. The ten set a guess about what the giants thought of them, and the whole nation was turned back into the wilderness because of it. Caleb and Joshua set God beside the facts.
Not one person from Canaan is quoted anywhere in the chapter, so "and so we were in their sight" is a guess dressed up as a report. Much of what you believe about how other people see you is the same kind of guess. Tell the truth about the size of your problem, as Caleb did. Then set beside it the one thing in this story that was more than a guess: "the LORD is with us."
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 12 is All Things (Philippians 4:13).