Deuteronomy 1:28

Deuteronomy 1:28 . The people is greater — In number, and strength, and valour. The cities are great, and walled up to heaven — An hyperbole, signifying that their cities were fenced with very high walls, which Moses himself allows to be true, Deuteronomy 9:1 . But, however strong they were, the Israelites had no reason to fear, since they were assured of the divine protection and aid in the execution of his command.

Verse 28. - Our brethren have discouraged our heart ; literally, hate melted or made to flow down our heart ( הֵמַסּוּ , Hiph. cf מָסַס , to flow down or melt), have made us fainthearted . The cities are great and walled up to heaven ; literally, are great and fortified in the heavens . To their excited imagination, the walls and towers of the cities seemed as if they reached the very sky; so when men cease to have faith in God, difficulties appear insurmountable, and the power of the adversary is exaggerated until courage is paralyzed and despair banishes hope. Sons of the Anakims ; elsewhere ( Numbers 13:22 ; Joshua 15:14 ; Judges 1:20 ) children or sons of the ' Anak . 'Anak may originally have been the proper name of an individual, but it appears m the Bible rather as the designation of the tribe. It is the word for neck , and this race, which were strong and powerful men, or their progenitor, may have been remarkable for thickness of neck; this, at least, is more probable than that it was from length of neck (Gesenius) that they got the name, for a long neck is usually associated with weakness rather than strength. Some have supposed the Anakim to have been originally Cushites; but the origin of the tribe is involved in obscurity. Deuteronomy 1:28

The plan of sending the spies originated with the people; and, as in itself a reasonable one, it approved itself to Moses; it was submitted to God, sanctioned by Him, and carried out under special divine direction. The orator's purpose in this chapter is to bring before the people emphatically their own responsibilites and behavior. It is therefore important to remind them, that the sending of the spies, which led immediately to their complaining and rebellion, was their own suggestion. The following verses to the end of the chapter give a condensed account, the fuller one being in Numbers 13-14, of the occurrences which led to the banishment of the people for 40 years into the wilderness.

28. the cities are great, and walled up to heaven—an Oriental metaphor, meaning very high. The Arab marauders roam about on horseback, and hence the walls of St. Catherine's monastery on Sinai are so lofty that travellers are drawn up by a pulley in a basket. Anakims—(See on [112]Nu 13:33). The honest and uncompromising language of Moses, in reminding the Israelites of their perverse conduct and outrageous rebellion at the report of the treacherous and fainthearted scouts, affords a strong evidence of the truth of this history as well as of the divine authority of his mission. There was great reason for his dwelling on this dark passage in their history, as it was their unbelief that excluded them from the privilege of entering the promised land (Heb 3:19); and that unbelief was a marvellous exhibition of human perversity, considering the miracles which God had wrought in their favor, especially in the daily manifestations they had of His presence among them as their leader and protector.

28 . Whither are we going up? ] That is, to what kind of a land or a fate? In the Hex. the Heb. prep is used only of place by JE and D, only of time by P. made our heart to melt ] In the Hex. the phrase either thus or with the intrans. form of the verb is found only here, Deuteronomy 20:8 , and in the deuteronomic Joshua 2:11 ; Joshua 5:1 . greater and taller ] Sam. and LXX greater and more numerous , J, Numbers 13:28 ; Numbers 13:31 , strong … stronger than we ; E id. 33, we were in our own sight as grasshoppers ; P, id. 32, men of great stature . cities ] So Sam.; LXX and cities . great and fenced up to heaven ] So Deuteronomy 9:1 ; J, Numbers 13:28 , fenced, very great . The presumably pre-Israelite walls of two cities have been excavated: Lachish (Bliss, A Mound of Many Cities , 27 ff.) and Gezer (Macalister, Bible Side Lights from … Gezer , 141 ff.). Each is about 14 ft thick; the latter (a little later than 1450 b.c.) still in parts from 10 to 14 ft. high ‘can hardly be regarded as much more than the underground foundations.’ If, as is usually reckoned, the thickness was from ⅓ to ⅔ of the height this wall was from 21 to 42 ft, its impressive-ness increased by the scarps and slopes from which it rose and by the towers that crowned it. Sellin has laid bare in Jericho a ‘cyclopean’ outer stone wall 5 m. (16.4 ft), crowned by a brick wall 2 m. thick and 6 or 8 m. (19½ to 26¼ ft) high. So that up to heaven , the height at which birds fly, is hardly an exaggeration.

Emerging from the desert, Israel were startled by two facts which still startle the tent-dwelling nomads—the walls of cities and the stature of the settled inhabitants. No Arab enters without fear a walled city for the first time, nor willingly passes the night there. Egyptian bas-reliefs and paintings distinguish the ampler figures of settled Syrians from the lean and meagre desert Arabs. To-day, as the present writer has frequently noticed, the same difference of average stature is obvious between the two classes. Cp. Burton ( Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Mecca , ii. 83, mem. ed.) on the short stature of the Arabs of the Hiǧaz. The cause of this is the difference in nutriment (Doughty, Ar. Des. passim , Musil, Ar. Petr. iii.). That early Israel felt these two impressions is one of many indications that they belonged to the nomad or Arab type of Semite. So far we are in the region of fact. sons of the Anakim ] Heb. without the art. as in Deuteronomy 9:2 a ; but sons of the ‘A . Deuteronomy 2:11 ; sons of ‘Anak , Deuteronomy 9:2 b ; J, Numbers 13:28 , children of ( yelîdê , Scot. ‘bairns’) the ‘Anak ; cp. 22, 33. Both forms in Joshua 15:14 . The Ar. ‘anaḳa is ‘to overtop,’ ‘ unḳ , ‘neck,’ and in plur. ‘outstanding men,’ a‘naḳ , ‘long-necked,’ ‘tall’ (‘anḳa, a mythical beast, Wellh. Reste , 158, 216). In Joshua 15:13 ; Joshua 22:11 (P or edit.) ‘Anaḳ has become the name of the ancestor of the ‘Anaḳim (cp. LXX mother-city of the ‘A ., which shows how the personification arose)