The issue at hand is a consideration of the time when, as recorded within the Tanakh-the Old Testament, Caleb and others went to spy out the land and their subsequent reports to Moses.
The issue is not merely one of interpretation but of what is made of the whole scenario within those in circles of research pertaining to the Nephilim giants or, rather, Nephilim giants vs. human giants.
The Book of Numbers chapter 13 states:
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them.
Moses sent Shammua, Shaphat, Caleb, Igal, Oshea (aka Jehoshua), Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi and Geuel. It is specified that “And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were.” We then learn the following:
And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel…And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.
Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan. And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. 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.
Numbers 14 follows this thought by noting:
And all the congregation lifted up their voice, and cried; and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron: and the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would God we had died in this wilderness!
And wherefore hath the LORD brought us unto this land, to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey? were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.
Some people have taken the issue of bloodlines / seedlines way too far and end up thinking that some cannot be saved not on the basis of by grace through faith but due to genetics. Some trace such bloodlines / seedlines to the serpent seed of Satan via Cain (a theory I dealt with in the various articles found here) and some, such as in this case, trace the genetic lines via the Genesis 6 affair when the sons of God Angels married and copulated with the human daughters of men.
For example, the Nephilim Hybrids site notes:
If you have been told you are a Nephilim, or part Nephilim, alien hybrid, or any other sort of hybrid, or believe you are or may be, please know there is hope, and you can be saved by [grace through] faith in Jesus Christ. If you are human enough to be reading this, then the Bible teaches you can be saved by [grace through] faith in Jesus Christ. We would encourage you to reach out to Jesus Christ right now, and receive His free gift of salvation and eternal life.
The same site also tackles the issue of Caleb and the spies head on within the context of the whether there are Nephilim hybrids and whether such personages could be saved; they note the following in the article, Modern Nephilim Hybrid Deception Part 3 – The Nephilim (continued?):
That the giants after the flood were human-giants and not Nephilim-giants is confirmed in the Bible in Numbers13-14. This is the only time after the flood in which the word “Nephilim” is used, and the Bible makes clear that the statement made was a slander, a lie, and that those who told this lie were punished with death, as a result of the harm they caused with this lie.
“And they brought up a slander of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, [is] a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it [are] men of a great stature. 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.” Num 13:32-33
“And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, Even those men that did bring up the evil slander upon the land, died by plague before the LORD.” Num 14:36-37 [bold emphasis in original]
As an FYI, the Hebrew word dibbah (Strong’s H1681) in the chapter 13 text is translated as evil in the KJV, RSV, ASV, YLT, DBY WEB and HNV and as bad in the NKJV, NLT, NIV, ESV and NASB.
Within chapter 14 the Hebrew word is ra’ (Strong’s H7451) and is translated as evil in the KJV, NKJV, RSV, ASV, YLT, DBY, WEB and HNV and as bad in the NIV, ESV and NASB.
In his book Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection, pp. 363-364, Gary Bates notes:
At first reading, this may seem like a factual account, but it is part of the quoted false report of the spies. Of the 12 spies, only Joshua and Caleb, trusting God, were keen to enter and take possession of the land; the other 10 did not want to. Because of the false report, the whole nation was too terrified to enter the Promised Land, and they turned against Moses for bringing them there. God responded: The Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will these people treat me with contempt?… I will strike them down with a plague and destroy them’ (Num. 14:11)… Some Christians have actually added to the false account of the Nephilim in the Promised Land. They say that during the time that the children of Israel wandered in the desert (38 years), fallen angels were once again cohabiting with women to produce more Nephilim as part of a satanic strategy to prevent the Hebrews entering the land. This is unlikely because, although they encountered the Anakim, they defeated them, as well as many others inhabiting tribes.
When they eventually entered the land of Canaan, there was no mention of the Nephilim or encounters with them. Surely, among the descriptions of all the battles that ensued, encounters with Nephilim would have been mentioned if they occurred. And it should be remembered, according to the fallen angel view, the original angels who stepped out of line in this manner were now in chains in Tartarus.
In Antiquities of the Jews, book III, chap 14, Flavius Josephus refers to when Moses “chose twelve spies” to “learned the nature of the land, and of its inhabitants” as is recorded in Numbers 13. Josephus notes that “they terrified them again with the great difficulty there was in obtaining” the fruit of the land.
He adds that “They” the spies “told them” the people to whom they reported upon returning to their camp “that they found at Hebron the posterity of the giants.” Now, I am unsure as to what term Josephus used for “giant” but it is very insightful on his part, or so it seems to me, that he continues directly by writing, “Accordingly these spies, who had seen the land of Canaan, when they perceived that all these difficulties were greater there than they had met with since they came out of Egypt, they were aftrighted at them themselves, and endeavored to affright the multitude also.”
This can get a little tricky if one ignores detailed research. For example, the KJV has Numbers 13:33 as “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.” The italics indicate words that are not being translated from manuscripts as they do not appear therein. Rather, they are being inserted by the translators for easy of reading and/or comprehension. Thus, the text states, “the sons of Anak, of the giants.” Now, herein giants is the Hebrew nephiyl (Strong’s H5303) referring to what in English is generally referred to as Nephil or Nephilim (in the masculine plural).
As for the reference to the issue of “during the time that the children of Israel wandered in the desert (38 years), fallen angels were once again cohabiting with women to produce more Nephilim” please see my article Nephilim – one or multiple incursions?
The bottom line for some, such as the Nephilim Hybrids website, is that:
…a slander is a lie…Numbers makes clear that these men brought a slander against the land in particular by: “saying… there we saw the giants (Nephilim) the sons of Anak, of the giants (Nephilim)”…God punished these men for their lie about there being Nephilim in the land…as a result of this lie, the people of Israel refused to take the land in battle, refusing to obey God…no mention is made of Nephilim after the flood, and besides Gen 6 and Num 13 the word Nephilim is not used anywhere else in the Bible. The interbreeding of the ‘sons of God’ and women is not recorded to have occurred again after the flood. [emphasis added for emphasis]
It takes some trudging to draw out the details but the bottom line seems to be that even those taking the point of view of the Nephilim Hybrids site conclude that there, indeed, were the children / sons of Anak in the land but that the false part of it is that they were of the giants / nephiyl.
This would seem to be the dividing line as we are told that “they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were” before we are told about the evil / bad report which specifies that these were of the giants / nephiyl.
There are more indications that there indeed, were children / sons of Anak (generically stated in general) as in Joshua 14 we learn:
Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadeshbarnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadeshbarnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God. And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children’s for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God…Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said…
Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel. And the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war.
Then, in Joshua 15 we are told:
And the border went up by the valley of the son of Hinnom unto the south side of the Jebusite; the same is Jerusalem: and the border went up to the top of the mountain that lieth before the valley of Hinnom westward, which is at the end of the valley of the giants [rapha’ (Strong’s H7497)] northward…And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a part among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the LORD to Joshua, even the city of Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron. And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.
Fascinatingly, ‘Anaq / Anak (Strong’s H6061) means neck or long neck so even all of these millennia later and with translating from Hebrew to English: anak is still a neck.
The term appears in the following texts:
Numbers 13:22 And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
Numbers 13:28 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.
Numbers 13:33 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.
Deuteronomy 9:2 A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!
Joshua 15:13-14 And unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh he gave a part among the children of Judah, according to the commandment of the LORD to Joshua, even the city of Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron.And Caleb drove thence the three sons of Anak, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, the children of Anak.
Josuah 21:11 And they gave them the city of Arba the father of Anak, which city is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah, with the suburbs thereof round about it.
Judges 1:20 And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak.
The plural form of the word ‘Anaqiy / Anakim (Strong’s H6062) appears in the following (the KJV translates as a form of double plural, only in a manner of speaking, as Anakims which is combines the Hebrew (masculine) plural im with the English plural s):
Deuteronomy 1:28 Whither shall we go up? our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.
Deuteronomy 2:10-11 The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; Which also were accounted giants, as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.
Deuteronomy 2:21 A people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; but the LORD destroyed them before them; and they succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead.
Deuteronomy 9:2 A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!
Joshua 11:21-22 And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities. There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained.
Joshua 14:15 And the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war.
Take particular notice that in Joshua 14:12, Caleb himself affirms the presence of the Anakim in the land during the reconnoitering:
Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said.
Note how Moses relates this event is Deuteronomy 1, “…our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven; and moreover we have seen the sons of the Anakims there.” Thus, he affirms the presence of the Anakim but states nothing of the Nephilim.
For that matter, God Himself affirms the presence of the Anakim (and Canaanites) but states nothing about the Nephilim, “But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it. (Now the Amalekites and the Canaanites dwelt in the valley.) To morrow turn you, and get you into the wilderness by the way of the Red sea” (Numbers 14:24-25).
The bottom line is who’s word do we take for it? Do we believe the spies who were said to be offering a bad/evil report?
Or, do we believe Caleb, Moses and, oh yeah, God?
Also, note that Genesis 14:5 states that Chedorlaomer and the kings with him smote the Rephaim [rapha’ or Rephaim (Strong’s H7497)], the Zuzim and the Emim. Also, Deuteronomy 2:10-11 states that “The Emims dwelt therein in times past, a people great, and many, and tall, as the Anakims; Which also were accounted giants [also rapha’], as the Anakims; but the Moabites call them Emims.”
Thus, different peoples had different names for giants. And yet, the issue is whether they are merely human giants or Nephilim hybrid giants; half Angel and half human.
Actually, my purpose has not been to iron out that aspect of the issue but to note that the evil bad report seems to be about more than simply the alleged insertion that the Anakim were of the Nephilim.
Let us review the texts referenced above; the other spies emphasize that “the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land.”
Caleb basically says, get’er’done! as he “stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.”
But the others said, “We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we…they brought up an evil report…saying, The land…eateth up the inhabitants…all the people…are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants [Nephilim]…the people wept that night. And…murmured against Moses…And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.”
My point is that this is actually deeper than whether the Anakim were just human giants of were hybrid giants. The fact is that regardless, God had told them that He would be with them and that they were to conquer the land which they would be able to do with Him on their side.
The evil bad report was a contradiction of this—for whatever reason; human or hybrid—and that is what was really an evil bad.
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