Musar su Salmi 50:3

And expounding on "it is very stormy round about Him" (Ps. 50:3) - "this teaches that the Holy One blessed be He scrutinizes judgment on His pious ones to the degree of a hair's breadth" (Yevamos 121a).

We find that before people engage in litigation, that the judges have to attempt to settle the dispute by arbitration first, and not immediately to explore the legal situation. All of this emulates the way of G–d Himself, who on occasion is exceedingly strict (see our sages' interpretation of Psalms 50,3, וסביביו נשערה מאד, "around Him it storms fiercely;" (compare Yevamot 121). On other occasions, He employs a large measure of the attribute of Mercy; this universe would otherwise be incapable of continuing. By modelling themselves after G–d, terrestrial judges are entitled to be referred to as אלוהים. Our sages have said that whenever the word אלוהים means a human being, these people can be said to enjoy ordination by G–d (Exodus 22,7 explained by Sanhedrin 56).

The moral lesson is that just as strangers must not take for granted their right to live in their host country, so Jews must not take for granted their entitlement to the Holy Land not even after they have settled there. When our sages criticise Jacob of whom the Torah said: וישב יעקב בארץ כנען, "Jacob settled down in the land of Canaan," this is exactly what they had in mind. The fact that the Torah underlines in that very verse that Jacob's fathers had only sojourned there, only reinforces our sages' criticism (compare Genesis 37,1 and Bereshit Rabbah 84,1). An allusion to the fact that the tendency of Jews who display a vested interest in their residence in the Holy land can be counter-productive is found in the description of the land by the spies as ארץ אוכלת יושביה היא, "It is a land that consumes those who settle in it" (Numbers 13,32). This is expressed more forcefully in connection with someone selling his house in the Holy Land permanently. The Torah states clearly that the land cannot be sold permanently by ignoring the laws of return to the original owners in the Jubilee year, when G–d goes on record in Leviticus 25,23: כי גרים ותושבים אתם עמדי, "For you are strangers and settlers with Me." The moment Jews want to treat the Holy Land as the Gentiles treat their soil, i.e. for merely secular enjoyment, the land is liable to react by "consuming" those who presume to "own" it. The spies portrayed the land of Canaan in a derogatory manner and thus profaned something sacred; their mouthings had no effect on the land. The Torah has seen fit to quote their words in order to instill in us a positive teaching: