Numbers 13:2

13:2 “Send out men to investigate ¹  the land of Canaan, which I am giving ²  to the Israelites. You are to send one man from each ancestral tribe, ³  each one a leader among them.”

Numbers 13:32

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ⁴  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ⁵  to investigate is a land that devours ⁶  its inhabitants. ⁷  All the people we saw there ⁸  are of great stature.

Numbers 16:14

16:14 Moreover, ⁹  you have not brought us into a land that flows with milk and honey, nor given us an inheritance of fields and vineyards. Do you think you can blind ¹⁰  these men? We will not come up.”

Numbers 22:5

22:5 And he sent messengers to Balaam ¹¹  son of Beor at Pethor, which is by the Euphrates River ¹²  in the land of Amaw, ¹³  to summon him, saying, “Look, a nation has come out of Egypt. They cover the face ¹⁴  of the earth, and they are settling next to me.

Numbers 32:29

32:29 Moses said to them: “If the Gadites and the Reubenites cross the Jordan with you, each one equipped for battle in the Lord’s presence, and you conquer the land, ¹⁵  then you must allot them the territory of Gilead as their possession.

Numbers 34:2

34:2 “Give these instructions ¹⁶  to the Israelites, and tell them: ‘When you enter Canaan, the land that has been assigned to you as an inheritance, ¹⁷  the land of Canaan with its borders,

¹ tn The imperfect tense with the conjunction is here subordinated to the preceding imperative to form the purpose clause. It can thus be translated “send…to investigate.”

² tn The participle here should be given a future interpretation, meaning “which I am about to give” or “which I am going to give.”

³ tn Heb “one man one man of the tribe of his fathers.”

⁴ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

⁵ 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.

⁶ 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.

⁷ 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.

⁸ tn Heb “in its midst.”

⁷ tn Here אַף (’af) has the sense of “in addition.” It is not a common use.

⁸ tn Heb “will you bore out the eyes of these men?” The question is “Will you continue to mislead them?” (or “hoodwink” them). In Deut 16:19 it is used for taking a bribe; something like that kind of deception is intended here. They are simply stating that Moses is a deceiver who is misleading the people with false promises.

¹⁰ sn There is much literature on pagan diviners and especially prophecy in places in the east like Mari (see, for example, H. B. Huffmon, “Prophecy in the Mari Letters,” BA 31 [1968]: 101-24). Balaam appears to be a pagan diviner who was of some reputation; he was called to curse the Israelites, but God intervened and gave him blessings only. The passage forms a nice complement to texts that deal with blessings and curses. It shows that no one can curse someone whom God has blessed.

¹¹ tn Heb “by the river”; in most contexts this expression refers to the Euphrates River (cf. NAB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT).

¹² tn Heb “in the land of Amaw” (cf. NAB, NRSV, TEV); traditionally “in the land of the sons of his people.” The LXX has “by the river of the land.”

¹³ tn Heb “eye.” So also in v. 11.

¹³ tn Heb “and the land is subdued before you.”

¹⁶ tn Or “command.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “this is the land that will fall to you as an inheritance.”