1And Jehovah spoke to Moses, saying, 2Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them. 3And Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the mouth of Jehovah, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel. 4Now these were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur; 5from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori; 6from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh; 7from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph; 8from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun; 9from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu; 10from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi; 11from the tribe of Joseph, that is, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi; 12from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli; 13from the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael; 14from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi; 15from the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi. 16These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua. 17And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, Go up this way into the south, and go up into the mountains, 18and see what the land is: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many; 19whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds; 20whether the land is fat or lean; and whether there are forests there or not. Be of good courage. And bring some of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. 21So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near the entrance of Hamath. 22And they went up through the South and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, those born to Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23And they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes; they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs. 24The place was called the Valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down there. 25And they returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days. 26And they departed and came to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27And they reported to him and said: We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28Nevertheless the people who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very great; moreover we saw those born of Anak there. 29The Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and beside the Jordan. 30And Caleb silenced the people before Moses, and said, Let us arise to go up and take possession, for we are able to prevail. 31But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. 32And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. 33There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak of the giants; and we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we were in their eyes.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 THE NAMES OF THE MEN WHO WERE SENT TO SEARCH THE LAND. (Num. 13:1-33)
The Lord spake unto Moses, Send thou men, that they may search the land, of Canaan--Compare
Deut 1:22, whence it appears, that while the proposal of delegating confidential men from each tribe to explore the land of Canaan emanated from the people who petitioned for it, the measure received the special sanction of God, who granted their request at once as a trial, and a punishment of their distrust.
3 those men were heads of the children of Israel--Not the princes who are named (
Num 10:14-
Num 10:16,
Num 10:18-
Num 10:20,
Num 10:22-
Num 10:27), but chiefs, leading men though not of the first rank.
16 Oshea--that is, "a desire of salvation." Jehoshua, by prefixing the name of God, means "divinely appointed," "head of salvation," "Saviour," the same as Jesus [
Matt 1:21, Margin].
17 Get you up this way . . . , and go up into the mountain--Mount Seir (
Deut 1:2), which lay directly from Sinai across the wilderness of Paran, in a northeasterly direction into the southern parts of the promised land.
20 Now the time was the time of the first grapes--This was in August, when the first clusters are gathered. The second are gathered in September, and the third in October. The spies' absence for a period of forty days determines the grapes they brought from Eshcol to have been of the second period.
21 So they . . . searched the land--They advanced from south to north, reconnoitering the whole land.
the wilderness of Zin--a long level plain, or deep valley of sand, the monotony of which is relieved by a few tamarisk and rethem trees. Under the names of El Ghor and El Araba, it forms the continuation of the Jordan valley, extending from the Dead Sea to the Gulf of Akaba.
Rehob--or, Beth-rehob, was a city and district situated, according to some, eastward of Sidon; and, according to others, it is the same as El Hule, an extensive and fertile champaign country, at the foot of Anti-libanus, a few leagues below Paneas.
as men come to Hamath--or, "the entering in of Hamath" (
2Kgs 14:25), now the valley of Balbeck, a mountain pass or opening in the northern frontier, which formed the extreme limit in that direction of the inheritance of Israel. From the mention of these places, the route of the scouts appears to have been along the course of the Jordan in their advance; and their return was by the western border through the territories of the Sidonians and Philistines.
22 unto Hebron--situated in the heart of the mountains of Judah, in the southern extremity of Palestine. The town or "cities of Hebron," as it is expressed in the Hebrew, consists of a number of sheikdoms distinct from each other, standing at the foot of one of those hills that form a bowl round and enclose it. "The children of Anak" mentioned in this verse seem to have been also chiefs of townships; and this coincidence of polity, existing in ages so distant from each other, is remarkable [VERE MONRO]. Hebron (Kirjath Arba,
Gen 23:2) was one of the oldest cities in the world.
Zoan--(the Tanis of the Greeks) was situated on one of the eastern branches of the Nile, near the lake Menzala, and was the early royal residence of the Pharaohs. It boasted a higher antiquity than any other city in Egypt. Its name, which signifies flat and level, is descriptive of its situation in the low grounds of the Delta.
23 they came unto the brook of Eshcol--that is, "the torrent of the cluster." Its location was a little to the southwest of Hebron. The valley and its sloping hills are still covered with vineyards, the character of whose fruit corresponds to its ancient celebrity.
and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes--The grapes reared in this locality are still as magnificent as formerly--they are said by one to be equal in size to prunes, and compared by another to a man's thumb. One cluster sometimes weighs ten or twelve pounds. The mode of carrying the cluster cut down by the spies, though not necessary from its weight, was evidently adopted to preserve it entire as a specimen of the productions of the promised land; and the impression made by the sight of it would be all the greater because the Israelites were familiar only with the scanty vines and small grapes of Egypt.
26 they came . . . to Kadesh--an important encampment of the Israelites. But its exact situation is not definitely known, nor is it determined whether it is the same or a different place from Kadesh-barnea. It is supposed to be identical with Ain-el-Weibeh, a famous spring on the eastern side of the desert [ROBINSON], or also with Petra [STANLEY].
27 they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey--The report was given publicly in the audience of the people, and it was artfully arranged to begin their narrative with commendations of the natural fertility of the country in order that their subsequent slanders might the more readily receive credit.
29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south--Their territory lay between the Dead and the Red Seas, skirting the borders of Canaan.
Hittites . . . dwell in the mountains--Their settlements were in the southern and mountainous part of Palestine (
Gen 23:7).
the Canaanites dwell by the sea--The remnant of the original inhabitants, who had been dispossessed by the Philistines, were divided into two nomadic hordes--one settled eastward near the Jordan; the other westward, by the Mediterranean.
32 a land that eateth up the inhabitants--that is, an unhealthy climate and country. Jewish writers say that in the course of their travels they saw a great many funerals, vast numbers of the Canaanites being cut off at that time, in the providence of God, by a plague or the hornet (
Josh 24:12).
men of a great stature--This was evidently a false and exaggerated report, representing, from timidity or malicious artifice, what was true of a few as descriptive of the people generally.
33 there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak--The name is derived from the son of Arba, a great man among the Arabians (
Josh 15:14), who probably obtained his appellation from wearing a splendid collar or chain round his neck, as the word imports. The epithet "giant" evidently refers here to stature. (See on
Gen 6:4). And it is probable the Anakims were a distinguished family, or perhaps a select body of warriors, chosen for their extraordinary size.
we were in our own sight as grasshoppers--a strong Orientalism, by which the treacherous spies gave an exaggerated report of the physical strength of the people of Canaan.