Our brethren have discouraged our heart; literally, hate melted or made to flow down our heart ( הֵמַסּוּ, Hiph. cf מָסַס, to flow down or melt), have made us fainthearted. The cities are great and walled up to heaven; literally, are great and fortified in the heavens.
To their excited imagination, the walls and towers of the cities seemed as if they reached the very sky; so when men cease to have faith in God, difficulties appear insurmountable, and the power of the adversary is exaggerated until courage is paralyzed and despair banishes hope.
Sons of the Anakims; elsewhere (Numbers 13:22; Joshua 15:14; 1:20) children or sons of the 'Anak. 'Anak may originally have been the proper name of an individual, but it appears m the Bible rather as the designation of the tribe.
It is the word for neck, and this race, which were strong and powerful men, or their progenitor, may have been remarkable for thickness of neck; this, at least, is more probable than that it was from length of neck (Gesenius) that they got the name, for a long neck is usually associated with weakness rather than strength.
Some have supposed the Anakim to have been originally Cushites; but the origin of the tribe is involved in obscurity.