Numbers 13:25

"And they returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us; and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. Howbeit the people that dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. Amalek dwelleth in the land of the South; and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, dwell in the hill-country; and the Canaanite dwelleth by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan."

"The wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh ..." One of these names most certainly referred to a large area, and Kadesh referred to a particular station that served as the headquarters of Israel for some 38 years after the events of this chapter.

"Kadesh was the scene of a great number of important events described in the following chapters of Numbers, and it stands out as the most important and conspicuous place of Israel's encampment after their departure from Sinai."[21] The most important event of all, however, was the rebellion of Israel in this very chapter. It drastically changed the course of their history.

The spies, at least the ten faithless ones, had gone on that expedition looking for reasons why they should NOT try to take Canaan, and, of course, they found what they were seeking. They presented their report very skillfully, pretending to be very factual and objective in their report, but the facts they presented were designed for one thing only, that of discouraging the people from moving as God commanded.

Note that obtrusive "howbeit" (Numbers 13:28). They meant only one thing, "WE CANNOT TAKE THE LAND." The whole trouble here was that the leaders simply did not believe God.

It is a bad sign when unbelief sends out sense to be its scout, pretending to verify God's Word by human confirmation. Not to believe God unless a jury of twelve of ourselves agrees is the same as not believing God at all, for it is not God but their own contemporaries that they believe after all.[22]