and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or fortified cities,

The men whom Moses sent to investigate the land, who returned and made the whole community murmur against him by producing ¹  an evil report about the land,

‘If Balak would give me his palace full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond ¹  the commandment ²  of the Lord to do either good or evil of my own will, ³  but whatever the Lord tells me I must speak’?

those men who produced the evil report about the land, died by the plague before the Lord.

Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ²  to investigate is a land that devours ³  its inhabitants. ⁴  All the people we saw there ⁵  are of great stature.