Matthew Poole and continuators on Numbers 13:32

32 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.

Heb. brought forth, to wit, out of their mouthes: they uttered a reproach or reproachful words.

(i. e.) Against, or, concerning the land. It is the genitive case of the object, as Mat. 10. 1. and 14. 1.

Not so much by civil wars, as most think, for that was likely to make their conquest more easie; nor by the barrenness of the soil, which consumed the people with the excessive pains it required to make it fruitful, as others think, for they confessed the excellency of the land, ver. 27. but rather by the unwholesomness of the air and place which they guesse[illegible: 1+ letters] from the many funerals, which, as some Hebrew Writers not without probability affirm, they observed in their travels through it: though that came to pass from another cause, even from the singular providence of God, which, to facilitate the Israelites conquest, cut off vast numbers of the Canaanites either by a plague, or by the hornet sent before them, as is expressed, Ios. 24. 12. or some other way.

Marginal references: Lev. 2[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ [illegible: 1 word] ▪; Amos 2[illegible: 1+ letters] ▪ [illegible: 1 word] ▪; Heb. [illegible: 1 word] statures.