The Sin of the Spies and the Decree of the Ninth of Av

A little over a year after the Exodus the people stood at the gates of the Land. Moses sent twelve men, one per tribe, all heads of households, to see the country. They travelled forty days and came back carrying a cluster of grapes on a pole between two of them. The report began truthfully: the land flows with milk and honey, here is its fruit. Then came the small word efes, however: the people are strong, the cities fortified to the sky, and there are giants there — we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in theirs. Only Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun objected. The people wept all night. The decree followed: a year for each day of scouting — forty years; the whole generation over twenty would die in the wilderness and their children would enter. Tradition places that night of weeping on the ninth of Av: you wept for nothing, I shall give you a weeping for the generations.