Numbers 13:32

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ²  to investigate is a land that devours ³  its inhabitants. ⁴  All the people we saw there ⁵  are of great stature.

Numbers 33:53

33:53 You must dispossess the inhabitants of the land and live in it, for I have given you the land to possess it.

Joshua 17:16-18

17:16 The descendants of Joseph said, “The whole hill country ⁶  is inadequate for us, and the Canaanites living down in the valley in Beth Shean and its surrounding towns and in the Valley of Jezreel have chariots with iron-rimmed wheels.” ⁷  17:17 Joshua said to the family ⁸  of Joseph – to both Ephraim and Manasseh: “You have many people and great military strength. You will not have just one tribal allotment. 17:18 The whole hill country ⁹  will be yours; though it is a forest, you can clear it and it will be entirely yours. ¹⁰  You can conquer the Canaanites, though they have chariots with iron-rimmed wheels and are strong.”

¹ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

² tn Heb “which we passed over in it”; the pronoun on the preposition serves as a resumptive pronoun for the relative, and need not be translated literally.

³ tn The verb is the feminine singular participle from אָכַל (’akhal); it modifies the land as a “devouring land,” a bold figure for the difficulty of living in the place.

⁴ sn The expression has been interpreted in a number of ways by commentators, such as that the land was infertile, that the Canaanites were cannibals, that it was a land filled with warlike dissensions, or that it denotes a land geared for battle. It may be that they intended the land to seem infertile and insecure.

⁵ tn Heb “in its midst.”

⁶ tn The Hebrew text has simply “the hill country,” which must here include the hill country of Ephraim and the forest regions mentioned in v. 15.

⁷ tn Heb “and there are iron chariots among all the Canaanites who live in the land of the valley, to those who are in Beth Shean and its daughters and to those who are in the Valley of Jezreel.” Regarding the translation “chariots with iron-rimmed wheels” see Y. Yadin, The Art of Warfare in Biblical Lands, 255 and R. Drews, “The ‘Chariots of Iron’ of Joshua and Judges,” JSOT 45 (1989): 15-23.

⁸ tn Heb “house.”

⁹ tn The Hebrew text has simply “the hill country,” which must here include the hill country of Ephraim and the forest regions mentioned in v. 15.

¹⁰ tn Heb “and its limits will be yours.”