Parshat Shelach5 min read

Willing Ears Devoured the Spies' Fear Whole

Moses told them to take the back paths and buy grapes if anyone asked. Ten men came home with a map of giants. The camp wanted that map.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. Back Paths and Fruit Cover
  2. Ten Mouths Against Two
  3. The Camp Quoted the Law
  4. The Land Waited Behind Graves

In the desert Israel never asked for scouts. Rock split. Manna fell. A cloud walked ahead and showed the way. When the edge of the promised land came near, the people pressed Moses for men to go first, mark the road, and name the cities.

Willing Ears Devoured the Spies' Fear Whole Click for full size

The young shoved the old. Leaders lost the line. They came without the order they had used for every other request. Moses heard prudence. Heaven heard a nation that wanted human eyes before it would take a gift already sworn.

"What?" God said. "When you went through pits and drought you wanted no scouts. Now that the land is full of good things, you want spies." He granted the sending and marked displeasure in the same breath. Permission is not always blessing. "If you wish to send them, send them. Do not pretend I ordered it."

Back Paths and Fruit Cover

Moses briefed the twelve anyway. Stay off the main roads. Use the back paths. The Shechinah (שכינה), God's presence, would watch them. They were still not to strut. When a city forced their presence, they were not to skulk like thieves. Walk in sight. If asked, say they had come to buy pomegranates and grapes. Speak no word of tearing down idols or cutting sacred trees.

Look at the land itself. If people lived in the open, they were strong. If they huddled behind walls, they were afraid. Hard soil meant fat country. Soft soil meant lean. Find out if Job still lived. His righteousness, Moses said, could cover a whole region. If Job was dead, Canaan was already open.

They reached the land and found the inhabitants at Job's grave, eating the funeral feast. The shield they had been told to fear was already in the ground. Twelve tribal chiefs still had to choose what to carry home in their mouths.

Ten Mouths Against Two

Joshua and Caleb came back ready to go up. Ten others came back with giants, walls, and a land that eats its settlers. Ammiel of Dan went further. He said the country was so strong that not even God could go up against it.

Shammua of Reuben did not obey. Sethur of Asher had a name that should have asked, "Who is like God?" He asked, "Who is God?" Nahbi of Naphtali shut truth in his mouth and let lies out. The roster had been chosen for trust. It returned as a choir of dread.

Moses had wanted soil that could feed faith. He received speeches that treated God as weaker than the sons of Anak. The two who refused the song could not drown ten voices the people already wanted to hear.

The Camp Quoted the Law

When Moses challenged the panic, the camp answered with legal cleverness. Two or three witnesses would have been enough under the law, they said. Here stood ten. How could a teacher demand they ignore such testimony?

"Our brethren have made us faint of heart," they said. "Because the Lord hated us, He brought us out only to hand us to the Amorites." They even tried a parable of fields. An earthly king with two sons gives the river field to his favorite and the rain field to the other. Egypt had the river. Canaan needed rain. Therefore, they claimed, God hated them.

Willing ears made the bad report a feast. Fear was more comfortable than the risk of entering. The same Torah that would have steadied them became a brief for retreat.

The Land Waited Behind Graves

God's anger and the decree of wandering followed. A generation that asked for spies after years of miracles received the answer its ears had already chosen. The land waited. The graves of the wilderness filled with men who preferred a report of walls to a word of promise.

Joshua and Caleb kept a minority report that history would vindicate only after the speakers of fear were dust. From that day the road to Canaan ran through years. Milk and honey stayed on the far side of an hour when prudence without faith asked for scouts and got a sentence instead of a shortcut.

The secret paths, the fruit cover, the careful silence about idols, none of it saved a mission poisoned from the request itself. Job was already dead when they arrived. The funeral feast had been eaten. They still came home describing a people they were ready to believe God could not beat. That belief became the longest detour in the national story.

SpiesMosesCanaanJoshuaCalebWilderness
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From the tradition

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4 sources

The texts behind this telling. Some cards carry a translation of the source; others are our own retelling of it, and each card says which. Every card links out to the original.

Legends of the Jews 4:87Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

Scope out the land, see what's what. But it goes so terribly wrong. According to Legends of the Jews, it's not just about the spies' report itself, but about the very desire to send them in the first place.

As the Israelites approached the borders of the Promised Land, they came to Moses with a request: "Let us send men ahead to scout out the land for us," they said, "and report back on the route we should take and the cities we should enter" (Numbers 13:2). But God, according to the legend, wasn't thrilled. Why? Because, the story goes, back when they were wandering through the treacherous desert, they didn't ask for scouts! Now that they were about to enter a land flowing with milk and honey, now they needed a reconnaissance mission?

It wasn't just the request itself that rubbed God the wrong way, but how they made it. Instead of approaching Moses with respect and order – the elders speaking for the younger, leaders leading – they were a chaotic, jostling crowd. The young pushed aside the old, and everyone seemed to be ignoring their leaders. Ginzberg, in Legends of the Jews, paints a picture of a people driven by something other than faith.

Their bad conscience, the story suggests, stemmed from their lack of faith. And that made them invent excuses, justifications for their plan. "While we were in the wilderness," they told Moses, "the clouds acted as scouts, guiding us. But they won't lead us into the Promised Land, so we need human spies.

But they didn't stop there. They piled on the excuses. "The Canaanites are hiding their treasures, fearing an attack," they claimed. "We need spies to find out where they're hidden!" They even tried to frame their request as an act of religious piety, attempting to show Moses that they only wanted to carry out the law. "You taught us," they said, "that an idol no longer worshipped can be used, but others must be destroyed. How will we know which is which when we enter Palestine?" They even suggested that since God promised to "drive out the Canaanites little by little," spies were needed to determine which cities to attack first. Clever. Moses, influenced by their arguments and perhaps even intrigued by the idea himself, decided to take the matter to God. "Should we send spies?" he asked. God’s response, according to the legend, was pretty sharp: "This isn't the first time they've doubted Me. They ridiculed Me even in Egypt! It's become a habit. I know their real motive. If you want to send spies, go ahead, but don't pretend I ordered it."

So, what are we to make of all this? It seems the story isn't just about the spies' failure, but about the underlying lack of faith that prompted the mission in the first place. It's a reminder that sometimes, our attempts to control the situation, to gather information and plan meticulously, can actually be a sign that we don't trust in something greater than ourselves. Are we truly seeking guidance, or are we just trying to justify our own lack of faith?

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Legends of the Jews 4:93Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

It was a full-blown reconnaissance mission with some fascinating, almost cloak-and-dagger instructions. sending spies into a new territory is serious business. According to Legends of the Jews, Moses gave his team very specific guidelines. He told them, "Don't strut down the main roads. Stick to the back paths!" Now, why would he do that? Well, even though the Shekinah (the Divine Presence) – that divine presence, the very essence of God – would be watching over them, they weren't supposed to be reckless. No need to tempt fate. But here's the twist. If they did have to go into a city, they weren’t supposed to sneak around like thieves. No way! They were to be seen. And if anyone asked what they were up to, they had one simple answer: "We just came to buy some pomegranates and grapes." Can you imagine? A little bit of ancient espionage with a side of fruit shopping. And most importantly, they were emphatically told not to mention anything about destroying idols or cutting down sacred trees.

Moses wasn’t just worried about appearances, though. He wanted to know the lay of the land – literally. "Look carefully," he told them, "at what kind of land it is." Because, as we find in Legends of the Jews, different lands produce different kinds of people. Some lands make people strong, others weak. Some teem with inhabitants, others are sparsely populated.

Moses told them to observe how the people lived. If they lived out in the open, without walls, then they were likely mighty warriors, confident in their strength. But if they huddled behind fortifications, that meant they were weak and fearful. “Examine also the nature of the soil," he continued, "If it be hard, know then that it is fat; but if it be soft, it is lean.” Fertile land meant a strong, well-fed population.

The most intriguing instruction of all? Moses told them to find out if Job was still alive. Yes, that Job, the one from the Bible, known for his unwavering faith and piety. Why Job? Because, as the verse says, if Job was dead, then they didn't need to fear the Canaanites. Seriously! The idea was that Job's righteousness was so great that it could protect the entire region. If he was gone, well, then the Canaanites were vulnerable.

And, as fate would have it, when the spies reached Palestine, Job did die. According to Legends of the Jews, the spies even found the inhabitants of the land at Job's grave, partaking in the funeral feast. Talk about timing!

So, what does this all tell us? It's not just a story about spies and fruit. It's a reminder that leadership requires careful planning, keen observation, and a healthy dose of understanding human nature. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of divine intervention, too. What other secrets are waiting to be uncovered, hidden just beneath the surface?

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Legends of the Jews 4:108Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

Legends of the Jews turns to The Spies Terrified Israel and Faith Crumbled.

Remember the spies? Twelve men sent by Moses to scout out Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey that God promised them. When they returned, ten of them were terrified. They spoke of giants, of fortified cities, of a land impossible to conquer. And the people… they listened.

The spies’ words “were heard by willing ears.” for a second. Willing ears. The people wanted to believe the bad news. Why? Maybe it was easier than trusting in the unknown. Maybe fear is just more comfortable than faith.

When Moses challenged their lack of faith, they doubled down. “O our teacher Moses, if there had been only two spies or three, we should have had to give credence to their words, for the law tells us to consider the testimony of even two as sufficient, whereas in this case there are fully ten! Our brethren have made us faint of heart. Because the Lord hated us, He hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.”

The audacity! They used the very laws given to them by God to justify their disbelief. They claimed God hated them.

But here's a fascinating insight from the text: "whatever a man wisheth his neighbor, doth he believe that his neighbor wisheth him.” In other words, they projected their own feelings onto God. They hated God, so they believed God hated them.

They even tried to use logic against Moses, twisting the narrative to fit their fear. “If an earthly king has two sons and two fields, one watered by a river, and the other dependent upon rains, will he not give the one that is watered by the river to his favorite son, and give the other, less excellent field to his other son? God led us out of Egypt, a land that is not dependent upon rain, only to give us the land of Canaan, which produces abundantly only if the rains fall.”

They argued that Egypt, which relies on the Nile, was the "favored" land, and Canaan, dependent on rainfall, was the lesser. Therefore, God must hate them. A truly remarkable piece of twisted logic. It’s like they were saying, “God brought us this far, just to abandon us.”

The irony, of course, is that the land of Canaan was the Promised Land! It was the blessing! But their fear blinded them to the truth.

This story, from the book Legends of the Jews, compiled by Rabbi Louis Ginzberg, is more than just an ancient tale. It’s a mirror reflecting our own struggles with faith, fear, and the choices we make when faced with the unknown. How often do we, like the Israelites, let fear dictate our actions? How often do we project our own insecurities onto the divine? Perhaps the real giants weren't in Canaan, but within their own hearts – and within ours, too.

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Legends of the Jews 4:90Legends of the Jews

Retold in our words. Read the original at the link below.The Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg (1909) · Public Domain

Consider the story of the spies sent to scout out the Land of Israel, a pivotal moment that shaped the fate of a generation. Their very names, according to ancient interpretations, spoke volumes about their wickedness and the doom they brought upon themselves. These weren't just random guys picked from a crowd. They were representatives of their tribes, hand-picked leaders entrusted with a sacred mission. But instead of bringing back a message of hope and courage, they returned with fear and doubt, poisoning the hearts of the Israelites and delaying their entry into the Promised Land for forty long years.

The Talmud, particularly in Tractate Sotah, delves deeply into the sins of these men. But even before we get to their actions, their names themselves provide a clue. According to the Legends of the Jews, their names were their sins, almost a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure.

Consider Shammua, the representative of Reuben, son of Zaccur. His name, it's said, revealed his disobedience to God, an act likened to sorcery. Then there was Shaphat, representing Simeon, whose name suggested he failed to conquer his evil inclination, leaving him empty-handed, without a portion in the Land. It's a pretty devastating assessment. And what about Igal, from the tribe of Issachar? His name, It’s a harsh judgment, but these weren't ordinary mistakes; they were acts of betrayal that had profound consequences.

Palti, representing Benjamin, “spat out” his good qualities, as his name implied, and withered away. Gaddiel, from Zebulun, spoke "infamous things" against God while executing the spies' secret plan. These names aren't just labels, they're indictments. They’re glimpses into the character flaws that led these men to fail.

Perhaps the most egregious of them all was Ammiel, the representative of Dan. His name means "He cast a shadow upon God's strength," and the story goes that he blasphemed by saying the land was too strong even for God to conquer. Talk about hubris! He, fittingly, never entered the promised land, punished for his own words.

According to Ginzberg's retelling in Legends of the Jews, the others weren't much better. Gaddi, Manasseh's representative, blasphemed God, stirring His wrath. Sethur, from Asher, questioned God's very existence. Nahbi, representing Naphtali, suppressed the truth and spread lies. And finally, Geuel, from Gad, was humbled for urging falsehoods against God.

It’s a powerful, if sobering, lesson. According to the midrash, the ancient rabbinic interpretations of scripture, everything has significance. Even a name. These stories remind us that our words and actions have weight. They shape not only our own destinies but also the destinies of those around us.

What does your name mean? And more importantly, what kind of name are you making for yourself in the world?

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