The Rabbis teach that by bringing back the report that they did, the Spies changed the whole reality of how the Jewish Nation would enter the Land of Israel and how they would live there. If the Spies would have come back with the report that they were supposed to, that the Land of Israel is good, the Jewish People would have reached the Land of Israel sooner and entered in a more spiritual fashion. In addition to the travelling time, our living in the Land would not require such a large physical effort to make the crops grow and the Land flourish. However, after the spies came back and said what they did and the Jewish People listened to them and believed them, the whole essence of the relationship between God and the Jewish People changed as did the relationship with the Land of Israel. Why? Because the majority of the Jewish Nation shifted away from God. Today, we still have the task of trying to draw ourselves back to where we were before the sin of the Spies.
