After 400 years and all this talk of the promised land, the Israelites are getting ready to go in, they send 12 scouts, for after all, none of them has seen this land during their lifetime.
They scout the land for 40 days and return. They bring back a cluster of grapes so big that two people had to carry it on a pole. I don't think this means the individual grapes were huge, but rather the cluster was.
To balance the report, they talk about the people and the cities - walls, fortifications, and giants, descendants of Anak. Plus, the Amalekites, who they previously fought and beat live there.
It was the scouts' job to report on all this, so up to now, the report was fair. What is not is what happens next. One scout, Caleb urges that they can take the land. The other scouts say that they cannot defeat the giants and even go through the Israelites saying the same. Interestingly, Joshua was one of the scouts, but the text is silent as to what exactly he is doing or saying. We would like to think he is with Caleb in this since he replaces Moses as leader, but the text is silent.
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