“Send you men” – this is what the verse said: “Like vinegar to the teeth, and like smoke to the eyes, so is the idle man to his senders” (Proverbs 10:26). It was obvious that the spies were disseminating slander about the Land, as it is stated: “They drew their tongue, their bow is falsehood” (Jeremiah 9:2). To what is the matter comparable? It is to a wealthy man who had a vineyard.
When he would see that wine was of high quality, he would say: ‘Take the wine into my house.’ But when he would see that the wine is vinegar, he would say: ‘Take the wine into your houses.’ The same is true of the Holy One blessed be He. When He saw the elders, that their actions were upright, He attributed them to His name, as it is stated: “Gather to Me seventy men” (Numbers 11:16), but when He saw the spies, who were destined to sin, he attributed them to Moses’s name, “send you men.”