When Moses sent twelve spies into the land of Canaan to scout the territory before the Israelite invasion, ten of them came back terrified. "We saw giants there," they reported. "The Nephilim, the sons of Anak. And we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes" (Numbers 13:33).
The biblical text gives us the fear. The folk tradition gives us the details. According to the midrash (rabbinic interpretive commentary)ic elaboration preserved in various manuscripts including the Parma codex (541), the giants of Canaan were so enormous that the spies literally could not comprehend what they were seeing. These were not merely tall men. They were beings of impossible scale.
One tradition holds that the spies hid in a pomegranate, and even the fruit of that land was large enough to conceal twelve grown men. Another describes the giants picking up the spies between their fingers, examining them the way a person might examine an insect, then flicking them away in contempt. The spies were not exaggerating when they called themselves grasshoppers. From the giants' perspective, that is exactly what they were.
The giants ate entire cattle in single meals. Their footprints in the earth were large enough to serve as irrigation ditches. Their voices could be heard from miles away. When they walked, the ground shook, and smaller creatures fled in every direction.
But Joshua and Caleb — the two spies who brought back a favorable report — were not impressed. "Do not fear the people of the land," Caleb declared, "for they are our bread" (Numbers 14:9). The giants were large. God was larger. And size, the faithful spies understood, means nothing when the Creator of the universe is on your side.
The tale reminded Jewish communities across the centuries that the obstacles in front of you are never as large as the God behind you.