Numbers 13:32
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses, saying, “Let us go up and occupy it, for we are well able to conquer it.” 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!” 32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through to investigate is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people we saw there are of great stature. 33 We even saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed like grasshoppers both to ourselves and to them.”
Ezekiel 36:13
11 I will increase the number of people and animals on you; they will increase and be fruitful. I will cause you to be inhabited as in ancient times and will do more good for you than at the beginning of your history. Then you will know that I am the Lord. 12 I will lead people, my people Israel, across you; they will possess you, and you will become their inheritance. No longer will you bereave them of their children. 13 “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because they are saying to you, “You are a devourer of men and bereave your nation of children,” 14 therefore you will no longer devour people and no longer bereave your nation of children, declares the Sovereign Lord. 15 I will no longer subject you to the nations’ insults; no longer will you bear the shame of the peoples, and no longer will you bereave your nation, declares the Sovereign Lord.’”
Notes and References
"... Ezekiel 36 crafts a “counterstory” to a particular message about the land from Numbers 13–14. When the people claim that the land devours its inhabitants in Numbers, YHWH destroys the entire generation who wanted to return to Egypt. In Ezekiel, however, supposedly the land will stop devouring its inhabitants, indicating that perhaps it actually did so at one point. Ezekiel uses the Numbers narrative to highlight the danger in trusting anything but YHWH, whether this is a report from spies or a land that has usurped YHWH. One of the themes in the original narrative of Numbers is a negation of identity as YHWH’s people. Suzanne Boorer argues that negation of the good land by the spies has specific ties to important themes and moments articulated in the priestly narrative. Some of these same problems have recurred in the present. For example, just as the wilderness generation longed for a return to Egypt, Ezekiel’s generation reaches to Egypt despite YHWH’s provision to them under Babylonian rule (Ezekiel 17). Just as the wilderness generation forgot the care and provision of YHWH (as exemplified in the provision of manna and water in Exodus), Ezekiel’s generation is described as forgetting their adoption by YHWH (Ezekiel 16) ..."
Williams, Lindy K. Zion in Transition: The Eden Garden in the Book of Ezekiel (pp. 33-34) University of Manchester, 2020