Numbers 13:2-26

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.” 13:3 So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command ⁴  of the Lord. All of them were leaders ⁵  of the Israelites.

13:4 Now these were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; 13:5 from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; 13:6 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; 13:7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; 13:8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun; 13:9 from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; 13:10 from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; 13:11 from the tribe ⁶  of Joseph, namely, the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi; 13:12 from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; 13:13 from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; 13:14 from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vopshi; 13:15 from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki. 13:16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to investigate the land. And Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua. ⁷ 

The Spies’ Instructions

13:17 When Moses sent ⁸  them to investigate the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev, ⁹  and then go up into the hill country 13:18 and see ¹⁰  what the land is like, ¹¹  and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, few or many, 13:19 and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or fortified cities, 13:20 and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether or not there are forests in it. And be brave, ¹²  and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” Now it was the time of year ¹³  for the first ripe grapes. ¹⁴ 

The Spies’ Activities

13:21 So they went up and investigated the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, ¹⁵  at the entrance of Hamath. ¹⁶  13:22 When they went up through the Negev, they ¹⁷  came ¹⁸  to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, ¹⁹  descendants of Anak, were living. (Now Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan ²⁰  in Egypt.) 13:23 When they came to the valley of Eshcol, they cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a staff ²¹  between two men, as well as some of the pomegranates and the figs. 13:24 That place was called ²²  the Eshcol Valley, ²³  because of the cluster ²⁴  of grapes that the Israelites cut from there. 13:25 They returned from investigating the land after forty days.

The Spies’ Reports

13:26 They came back ²⁵  to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. ²⁶  They reported ²⁷  to the whole community and showed the fruit of the land.

Numbers 14:2

14:2 And all the Israelites murmured ²⁸  against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died ²⁹  in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished ³⁰  in this wilderness!

Deuteronomy 1:22-23

1:22 So all of you approached me and said, “Let’s send some men ahead of us to scout out the land and bring us back word as to how we should attack it and what the cities are like there.” 1:23 I thought this was a good idea, ³¹  so I sent ³²  twelve men from among you, one from each tribe.

Joshua 14:6-7

14:6 The men of Judah approached Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said about you and me to Moses, the man of God, at Kadesh Barnea. ³³  14:7 I was forty years old when Moses, the Lord’s servant, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy on the land and I brought back to him an honest report. ³⁴ 

[13:2]  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.”

[13:2]  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.”

[13:2]  ³ tn Heb “one man one man of the tribe of his fathers.”

[13:3]  ⁴ tn Heb “mouth.”

[13:3]  ⁵ tn Heb “heads.”

[13:11]  ⁶ tc Some scholars emend “tribe” to “sons.” Cf. Num 1:10.

[13:16]  ⁷ sn The difference in the names is slight, a change from “he saves” to “the Lord saves.” The Greek text of the OT used Iesoun for Hebrew Yeshua.

[13:17]  ⁸ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb of the same formation to express a temporal clause.

[13:17]  ⁹ tn The instructions had them first go up into the southern desert of the land, and after passing through that, into the hill country of the Canaanites. The text could be rendered “into the Negev” as well as “through the Negev.”

[13:18]  ¹⁰ tn The form is the perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive; the word therefore carries the volitional mood of the preceding imperatives. It may be either another imperative, or it may be subordinated as a purpose clause.

[13:18]  ¹¹ tn Heb “see the land, what it is.”

[13:20]  ¹² tn The verb is the Hitpael perfect with vav (ו) consecutive, from the root חָזַק (khazaq, “to be strong”). Here it could mean “strengthen yourselves” or “be courageous” or “determined.” See further uses in 2 Sam 10:12; 1 Kgs 20:22; 1 Chr 19:13.

[13:20]  ¹³ tn Heb “Now the days were the days of.”

[13:20]  ¹⁴ sn The reference to the first ripe grapes would put the time somewhere at the end of July.

[13:21]  ¹⁵ sn Zin is on the southern edge of the land, but Rehob is far north, near Mount Hermon. The spies covered all the land.

[13:21]  ¹⁶ tn The idiom uses the infinitive construct: “to enter Hamath,” meaning, “on the way that people go to Hamath.”

[13:22]  ¹⁷ tc The MT has the singular, but the ancient versions and Smr have the plural.

[13:22]  ¹⁸ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the following clause. The first verse gave the account of their journey over the whole land; this section focuses on what happened in the area of Hebron, which would be the basis for the false report.

[13:22]  ¹⁹ sn These names are thought to be three clans that were in the Hebron area (see Josh 15:14; Judg 1:20). To call them descendants of Anak is usually taken to mean that they were large or tall people (2 Sam 21:18-22). They were ultimately driven out by Caleb.

[13:22]  ²⁰ sn The text now provides a brief historical aside for the readers. Zoan was probably the city of Tanis, although that is disputed today by some scholars. It was known in Egypt in the New Kingdom as “the fields of Tanis,” which corresponded to the “fields of Zoar” in the Hebrew Bible (Ps 78:12, 43).

[13:23]  ²¹ tn The word is related etymologically to the verb for “slip, slide, bend, totter.” This would fit the use very well. A pole that would not bend would be hard to use to carry things, but a pole or stave that was flexible would serve well.

[13:24]  ²² tn The verb is rendered as a passive because there is no expressed subject.

[13:24]  ²³ tn Or “Wadi Eshcol.” The translation “brook” is too generous; the Hebrew term refers to a river bed, a ravine or valley through which torrents of rain would rush in the rainy season; at other times it might be completely dry.

[13:24]  ²⁴ tn The word “Eshcol” is drawn from the Hebrew expression concerning the “cluster of grapes.” The word is probably retained in the name Burj Haskeh, two miles north of Damascus.

[13:26]  ²⁵ tn The construction literally has “and they went and they entered,” which may be smoothed out as a verbal hendiadys, the one verb modifying the other.

[13:26]  ²⁶ sn Kadesh is Ain Qadeis, about 50 miles (83 km) south of Beer Sheba. It is called Kadesh-barnea in Num 32:8.

[13:26]  ²⁷ tn Heb “They brought back word”; the verb is the Hiphil preterite of שׁוּב (shuv).

[14:2]  ²⁸ tn The Hebrew verb “to murmur” is לוּן (lun). It is a strong word, signifying far more than complaining or grumbling, as some of the modern translations have it. The word is most often connected to the wilderness experience. It is paralleled in the literature with the word “to rebel.” The murmuring is like a parliamentary vote of no confidence, for they no longer trusted their leaders and wished to choose a new leader and return. This “return to Egypt” becomes a symbol of their lack of faith in the Lord.

[14:2]  ²⁹ tn The optative is expressed by לוּ (lu) and then the verb, here the perfect tense מַתְנוּ (matnu) – “O that we had died….” Had they wanted to die in Egypt they should not have cried out to the Lord to deliver them from bondage. Here the people became consumed with the fear and worry of what lay ahead, and in their panic they revealed a lack of trust in God.

[14:2]  ³⁰ tn Heb “died.”

[1:23]  ³¹ tn Heb “the thing was good in my eyes.”

[1:23]  ³² tn Or “selected” (so NIV, NRSV, TEV); Heb “took.”

[14:6]  ³³ tn Heb “You know the word which the Lord spoke to Moses, the man of God, because of me and because of you in Kadesh Barnea.”

[14:7]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and I brought back to him a word just as [was] in my heart.”