Charles Ellicott Commentary Numbers 13:32

"And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature." — Numbers 13:32 (ASV)

A land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. — Some understand by this phrase a land of scarcity, unable to support its inhabitants; others understand it as denoting an unhealthy land, in which sense it appears to be still used in the East. (See Roberts’ Oriental Illustrations, p. 101, 8vo, 1844.) It seems more probable, however, that the allusion is to the strife and discord which prevailed among the various tribes who contended for its possession. (Compare to Leviticus 26:38.)

Men of great stature. — Literally, men of measures , where the word middah, measure, occurs in the singular number, “men of stature.” Such persons did undoubtedly exist in the land of Canaan, but there is no evidence that the inhabitants generally were of extraordinary size.