Bible Strands
Numbers 13:33
We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The ten spies who returned from Canaan address the assembled Israelite congregation after completing their forty-day exploration.
The words — The Hebrew בְּנֵי עֲנָק מִן־הַנְּפִלִים (benei Anak min-hannephilim) literally reads “descendants of Anak from/among the Nephilim,” describing a known association rather than a direct genealogical claim.
The thread — The spies’ self-comparison to grasshoppers anticipates the imagery in Isaiah 40:22, while their report of towering inhabitants resurfaces in Deuteronomy 1:28 and echoes the earlier Nephilim mention in Genesis 6:4.
Why it lands — The text records the spies’ subjective fear and distorted perspective without endorsing it, demanding the reader recognize how terror can warp perception of reality and divine promise.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Cross-references
- Deuteronomy 1:28 Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’”
- Genesis 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown.
- Isaiah 40:22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
- Deuteronomy 9:2 The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them, and you have heard it said, “Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?”
- 1 Samuel 17:42 When the Philistine looked and saw David, he despised him because he was just a boy, ruddy and handsome.
- Deuteronomy 3:11 (For only Og king of Bashan had remained of the remnant of the Rephaim. His bed of iron, nine cubits long and four cubits wide, is still in Rabbah of the Ammonites.)
- Numbers 13:22 They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, dwelled. It had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.
- Deuteronomy 2:10 (The Emites used to live there, a people great and many, as tall as the Anakites.
- 1 Samuel 17:4 Then a champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out from the Philistine camp. He was six cubits and a span in height,
- 1 Chronicles 11:23 He also struck down an Egyptian, a huge man five cubits tall. Although the Egyptian had a spear like a weaver’s beam in his hand, Benaiah went against him with a club, snatched the spear from his hand, and killed the Egyptian with his own spear.