When the Israelites said the giants made them feel like grasshoppers, was this an exaggeration?

Question:

In Numbers 13:33, how could there have been giants that made them feel like the size of grasshoppers? Or is this just a figure of speech or are they just exaggerating?

Answer:

"There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight" (Numbers 13:33).

There is a figure of speech that is called hyperbole where an idea is exaggerated to the extreme to emphasize a point. This is a case of hyperbole. Imagine being 5'6" and seeing a city of people around the height of Goliath who was 9'6" tall (I Samuel 17:4). You'd be feeling like an insect someone might step on accidentally. In other words, the hyperbole is not so much a comparison of actual size as an expression of the helplessness they felt seeing these people.

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