Numbers 13:32

Which consumes its inhabitants. Wherever we passed we found them burying the dead. But the Holy One, Blessed is He, did this for their benefit, so that they would be preoccupied with their grief and pay no attention to them.

Men of dimensions. Big and tall, who need to be measured, like Golias, “Whose height was six amos and a zeres.” Similarly, “ אִישׁ מָדוֹן,” a man of dimensions.

And they brought out an evil report about the land which they had surveyed, to the sons of Israel, saying, The country through which we have passed to explore it is a land that killeth its inhabitants with diseases; and all the people who are in it are giants, masters of evil ways.

AND THEY BROUGHT FORTH ‘DIBATH’ (AN EVIL REPORT OF) THE LAND WHICH THEY HAD SPIED OUT UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL. The meaning of this is that the spies left Moses and Aaron and [went around] saying in the [people’s] tents that it is a Land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. For at first when they spoke to the people in front of Moses and Aaron [saying] that the Land … floweth with milk and honey but that the people are fierce, and Caleb said, for we are well able to overcome it, the people hesitated [between these two opinions], and there were some of them who [still] trusted in their power and strength, and some of them [who trusted] in the help of the Eternal against the mighty. Then the spies spread the evil report in front of the people themselves, as it is written, the Land through which we have passed to spy it out, is a Land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, etc., until they caused the whole congregation to complain, this being the sense of the verse stating, and they returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up an evil report against the Land., Verse 36. This happened because when the spies saw the [Amorite] people whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was strong as the oaks, the fear of them was fallen upon them and they made the hearts of their brothers melt. And when they saw that the Israelites were still considering going up [to the Land], and that Joshua and Caleb were encouraging them to do so, they invented a false report in order to frustrate their [intention of] going up by all possible means.
Know that he who “bringeth forth ‘dibah’” is a fool who speaks falsely, but he who tells a truthful [bad report] is called “one who ‘brings’ dibah,” as it is said, and Joseph brought ‘dibatham ra’ah’ (evil report of them) unto their father.” it means that he tells the truth as he sees, and when it uses the expression “bringeth forth” [which is in Hebrew a different verb], it means a false report. See also Ramban ibid., Vol. I, p. 449. It was for this [false report] that they were punished by death through a plague, as it is said, And those men that ‘brought forth’ an evil report of the Land, died by the plague before the Eternal., Scripture by using the word ra’ah (evil) wishes to emphasize that not only was their report false but that it was also of an exceedingly evil nature.

ארץ אוכלת יושביה, even though the people living there are strong, this is not a compliment to the land; rather it means that it is only due to their exceptionally hardy constitution that they were able to survive in that land. Ordinary people would die there because the climate is so hard to take.

וכל העם אשר ראינו בתוכה אנשי מדות, “and all the people we saw inside it are men of great size.” The spies said that they did not attribute the fact that people seemed to die like flies in that land to their having a weak constitution to start with. Alternate interpretation: “do not think that these people died from excessive drinking and eating; they are very robust persons and appear to eat and drink quite normally.”