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 34:2

34:2 “Give these instructions ⁶  to the Israelites, and tell them: ‘When you enter Canaan, the land that has been assigned to you as an inheritance, ⁷  the land of Canaan with its borders,

Numbers 35:33

35:33 “You must not pollute the land where you live, for blood defiles the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed there, except by the blood of the person who shed it.

[13:32]  ¹ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  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.

[13:32]  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.

[13:32]  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.

[13:32]  ⁵ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[34:2]  ⁶ tn Or “command.”

[34:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “this is the land that will fall to you as an inheritance.”