[Illustration:  A cluster of grapes so large that two men carried it]

So Moses chose out some men of high rank among the people, one ruler from each tribe, twelve men in all.  One of these was Joshua, who was the helper of Moses in caring for the people, and another was Caleb, who belonged to the tribe of Judah.  These twelve men went out and walked over the mountains of Canaan and looked at the cities and saw the fields.  In one place, just before they came back to the camp, they cut down a cluster of ripe grapes which was so large that two men carried it between them, hanging from a staff.  They named the place where they found this bunch of grapes Eshcol, a word which means “a cluster.”  These twelve men were called “spies,” because they went “to spy out the land”; and after forty days they came back to the camp, and this was what they said: 

“We walked all over the land and found it a rich land.  There is grass for all our flocks, and fields where we can raise grain, and trees bearing fruits, and streams running down the sides of the hills.  But we found that the people who live there are very strong and are men of war.  They have cities with walls that reach almost up to the sky; and some of the men are giants, so tall that we felt that we were like grasshoppers beside them.”

One of the spies, who was Caleb, said, “All that is true, yet we need not be afraid to go up and take the land.  It is a good land, well worth fighting for; God is on our side, and he will help us to overcome those people.”

But all the other spies, except Joshua, said, “No, there is no use in trying to make war upon such strong people.  We can never take those walled cities, and we dare not fight those tall giants.”

And the people, who had journeyed all the way through the wilderness to find this very land, were so frightened by the words of the ten spies that now, on the very border of Canaan, they dared not enter it.  They forgot that God had led them out of Egypt, that he had kept them in the dangers of the desert, that he had given them water out of the rock, and bread from the sky, and his law from the mountain.

All that night, after the spies had brought back their report, the people were so frightened that they could not sleep.  They cried out against Moses, and blamed him for bringing them out of the land of Egypt.  They forgot all their troubles in Egypt, their toil and their slavery, and resolved to go back to that land.  They said: 

“Let us choose a ruler in place of Moses, who has brought us into all these evils, and let us turn back to the land of Egypt!”

But Caleb and Joshua, two of the spies, said, “Why should we fear?  The land of Canaan is a good land; it is rich with milk and honey.  If God is our friend and is with us, we can easily conquer the people who live there.  Above all things, let us not rebel against the Lord, or disobey him, and make him our enemy.”