Why the Spies Were Called Men and Then Fools in Sh'lach

[(Numbers 13:2:) "Send for yourself men ( anashim)."] In every place where "men" ( anashim) is stated, they are righteous, [for so it says (Exodus 17:9): "And Moses said to Joshua: Choose for us men ( anashim)."] And so it says (1 Samuel 17:12): "And the man in the days of Saul was old, advanced among men ( anashim)." And so too Hannah says (1 Samuel 1:11): "And You will give to Your handmaid offspring of men ( anashim)." Yet these you call fools, (Proverbs 26:6:) "one who sends words by the hand of a fool!" And they were called fools only because they brought forth an evil report against the land, as it is said (Proverbs 10:18): "And one who brings forth a slander is a fool." And even so they were great men, but they made themselves into fools. And concerning them Moses says (Deuteronomy 32:20): "For they are a generation of reversals," and so forth — for they were chosen from all Israel by the word of the Holy One, blessed be He, and by the word of Moses, as it is said (Deuteronomy 1:23): "And the matter was good in my eyes, and I took from you," and so forth. [From here] you say that they were righteous in the eyes of Israel and in the eyes of Moses. And Moses too did not wish to send them until he had taken counsel with the Holy One, blessed be He, about each and every one, [and he said:] "So-and-so [of such-and-such a tribe]," and the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: "They are worthy," as it is said (Numbers 13:3): "And Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran by the word of the Lord, [all of them men, heads of the children of Israel were they]." And afterward, at the end of forty days, they turned about and wrought all that distress, and they caused that generation to be struck with that plague, as it is said: "For they are a generation of reversals" — for they had been proven righteous [and then they reversed]. Therefore it is said: "Send for yourself men."