Difficulties
Numbers 13:32-33
And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched to the children of Israel, saying, The land…


I. There is the Anak SPECULATIVE. He is bred by much of the scientific tendency of the time. Men make everything of law, and forget a personal God.

1. While science has revealed law, it has also revealed marvellous manipulation of law to special uses, viz., telegraph, telephone, phonograph. Now, if man can so use law to special ends without breaking law, cannot God use His own laws, so that they shall come to focus in blessing on my head, and without breaking them?

2. The most capacious mind is most attentive to details. The infinite mind does not find details burdensome. Therefore God can care for me, and help me.

3. The revelation of the Divine Fatherhood; and fatherhood always means care, love, help, particular attention.

II. There is the Anak EXPERIMENTAL. He takes such shapes as these — I cannot believe, it is hard to serve God; I cannot make myself love; I have no assurance, &c., &c. If we will only confront this son of Anak by a determined doing of precisely what Christ tells us, we shall soon discover that he cannot stand before us and prevent entrance into the Canaan of forgiveness and of peace.

III. There is the Anak VOLITIONAL. And he is the main Anak that really prevents us. Two sailors going to their boat past midnight, and getting into it that they might row themselves to their ship yonder, with brains fuddled by a spree on shore, laid hold of the oars and tugged and tugged; and when the morning broke found they had not moved an inch. And with clearer brains and in the advancing light they discovered the reason — they had not lifted the anchor. Ah, how often an unlifted anchor of some known sin is the real Anak keeping back and holding back!

(W. Hoyt, D. D.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.

WEB: They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature.




The Magnanimous Character and Wisdom of Caleb
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