Before Israel ever swung a sword or marched around Jericho's walls or the first trumpet sounded, Joshua sent spies to scout out the land.
These spies came back the the color drained from their faces.
“We saw them…” they said, their voices trembling. “We seemed like grasshoppers compared to them.” (Numbers 13:33)
The Anakim.
Their name alone carried a chill… a whisper from older days when the world felt darker.
They were a remnant of ancient giants… wicked, terrifying, imposing… But I submit to you this thought, dear reader…
I don’t think these giants posed a significant threat. Let’s talk about it.
Biblically: Who Were the Anakim?
The Anakim appear in Scripture sporadically. According to the Bible, they were descendants of Anak (Deuteronomy 9:2), renowned for their size and ferocity.
They were also associated with the Nephilim tradition (Numbers 13:33), linking them to those ancient, mysterious giants.
They were occupants of the very land God had promised to His people.
Joshua later drove them out (Joshua 11:21), which reveals a crucial point:
When reading Genesis, we could argue that the Nephilim were a metaphor. Perhaps they weren’t actual giants or angel/human hybrids. The literary structure of Genesis 1-6 lends itself to some mixed interpretations. However, Joshua 11 tells us that these giants were, in fact, real!
These were flesh-and-blood giants whose presence exerted psychological, spiritual, and political pressure on Israel's entire identity.
They were the living, breathing proof that the Promised Land wasn't going to be handed over easily.
Jewish tradition, from Josephus to Septuagintal expansions, paints the Anakim with eerie, vivid color:
• Hulking figures whose height distorted the skyline
• Warriors who made seasoned soldiers tremble
• Survivors of the mysterious pre-flood world
• A remnant of ancient corruption
Whether these accounts heighten or embellish the biblical narrative, one thing is absolutely certain:
The ancient Israelites believed they were up against something more than ordinary humans.
And that belief paralyzed them.
Ten of the twelve spies came back and said, essentially, "God may have promised us that land, but He clearly didn't account for them."
As if the God who split the Red Sea was somehow caught off guard by tall people.
But here's what grips me about this story: The fear the Anakim provoked wasn't just about their size.
It was about intimidation. About history. About the overwhelming sense that Canaan was guarded by forces older, darker, and stronger than Israel's courage could ever overcome.
When the spies saw the Anakim towering over them, they revealed something about their own souls: "We seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers..." (Numbers 13:33)
Read that again.
Not "they made us feel small."
But "we seemed to ourselves."
The Anakim didn't defeat Israel. Israel defeated themselves.
Because giants don't just stand in front of ancient lands, they stand inside your imagination, growing larger with every fearful thought.
Fear reverses reality. It turns obstacles into monsters.
Sometimes the greatest threat to God's promise isn't the giant standing in front of you but the shrinking of your own trust.
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Friend, you and I may never stand before literal warriors nine feet tall.
But we stand before giants of a different kind:
A diagnosis.
A betrayal.
A failing marriage.
A pattern you can't break.
A future you're afraid to walk into.
The Anakim are alive and well.
They're in the boardroom. In the anxious thoughts we rehearse at 3 AM. In the moments we feel too small, too weak, too broken to obey God.
But praise be to God that the story doesn't end in Numbers 13. Years later, after a generation of wandering and waiting, Joshua marches into Canaan.
He drives out the Anakim from Hebron, from Debir, from the hill country. (Joshua 11:21)
Why? What changed?
The giants didn't get smaller.
God didn't suddenly give Israel superpowers.
Israel's imagination shifted. They stopped seeing themselves as grasshoppers and started seeing God as He actually is:
Bigger than any giant.
Stronger than any fear.
Faithful to every promise He's ever made.
