Numbers

13.1-33

At the near Southeasternmost edge of the Promised Land, Yahweh commanded Moses to select leaders from each tribe to spy out the land of Canaan. Among these were Caleb of the tribe of Judah (v6) and Hoshea of the tribe of Ephraim (v8). But Moses called Hoshea - Jehoshea (Joshua) (v16), prefixing the name of God to Hoshea, changing the meaning of his name from "a desire of salvation" to " divinely appointed," "head of salvation," "Savior," the same as Jesus (Mt 1:21). After 40 days spying out the land, 10 of the leaders returning from Canaan gave a bad report of the land, saying that the people dwelling there were too strong for the Israelites to overcome. But Caleb (v30) and Joshua (14:6) said that the land was exceedingly good and that the Israelites were surely able to overcome it. As the untrusting spies were prone to deceit, exaggerating the hostility of the land to its inhabitants (v32), it is uncertain if they were also exaggerating the presence of Nephilim (v33) and "all" men of great size (v31) in the land. The descendants of Anak (v28) being present did not necessarily mean they would be giants like the Nephilim. But we do know that by the time Israel possessed the land during the time of King Saul, one such descendant was well known. Yet God delivered that man of great size to a faithful servant who did not fear an enemy larger in stature than himself. Young David trusted in the strength of Yahweh and slew the most famous of the descendants of the Nephilim - Goliath (1 Sam 17:50-53).

CHAPTER 13

The Spies Sent into Canaan

1 Then Yahweh spoke to Moses saying,
2 “Send out for yourself men so that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the sons of Israel; you shall send a man from each of their fathers’ tribes, every one a leader among them.”
3 So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of Yahweh, all of them men who were heads of the sons of Israel.
4 These then were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur;
5 from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori;
6 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh;
7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph;
8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun;
9 from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu;
10 from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi;
11 from the tribe of Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi;
12 from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli;
13 from the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael;
14 from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi;
15 from the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land; but Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.
17 So Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up there into the Negev; then go up into the hill country.
18 “And see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many.
19 “And how is the land in which they live, is it good or bad? And how are the cities in which they live, are they like open camps or with fortifications?
20 “And how is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? Make an effort then to get some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.
21 So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, at Lebo-hamath.
22 And they had gone up into the Negev and came to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23 Then they came to the valley of Eshcol and from there cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes; and they carried it on a pole between two men with some of the pomegranates and the figs.
24 That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there.

The Spies Recount What They Saw

25 Then they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,
26 and went and came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.
27 Thus they recounted to him and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
28 “Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there.
29 “Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”
30 Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we are surely able to overcome it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.”
32 So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land, which we have passed through to spy out on, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.
33 “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Legacy Standard Bible (Three Sixteen Publishing, 2022), Nu 13.