The Spies Wear Shrouds and Mourn to Turn Israel Against Moses

"And the men whom Moses sent" (Numbers 14:36). And it is written, "and they returned and made all the congregation murmur against him" (Numbers 14:36). This teaches that they made themselves profane and put on their burial-shrouds and were mourning. And when Israel would come in to visit them, they would ask them, "Why have you done this?" And they would say, "Thus—would that all Israel were dead like this, in their shrouds, and would not be dying in the wilderness—they too, and their wives, and their sons, and their daughters." Israel, seeing this, thus supposed that they were doing the truth. Immediately, at once, they all murmured against Moses.