Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. (N. 13:32)
The phrase used for “they spread calumnies” is an odd word: vayotzeeu. Why is it used in this phrase?
The first time the root word is used is very early in the Torah: The earth brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. (G. 1:12)
Could there be a connection? Is the Torah hinting that the spies fomented despair in the people; growing something that grew from a single utterance, much as a plant grows from a single seed?
Isn’t this much like a mind virus? That our words can take root and bud and grow in the minds of listeners?
Might this also explain why the word aretz, land, is used in both verses? In the first instance, what grows is physical in nature. But with the spies, the aspersions cast are “merely” weeds of the mind?