Numbers 13

Numbers 13

Spying in Canaan

1And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

2“Send men that they may explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. Of every tribe of their fathers you will send a man, each one a chief among them.”[#Nu 32:8; Dt 1:22–25]

3And Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran according to the Lord . All those men were heads of the Israelites.[#Nu 12:16; 32:8]

4These were their names:

16These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to explore the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.[#Nu 13:8]

17Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up to this southland, and go up into the mountain.[#Ge 12:9; Jdg 1:9]

18And see what the land is, and the people that dwell in it, whether they are strong or weak, few or many;

19and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad, and what cities are that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in fortifications;

20and what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is wood in it or not. And you be courageous and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first ripe grapes.[#Ne 9:25]

21So they went up and explored the land from the Wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo Hamath.[#Nu 20:1; 33:36]

22They went up by the Negev and came to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the sons of Anak, were (now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt).[#Jos 15:13–14; #Ps 78:12, 43]

23And they came to the Valley of Eshkol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them, and they brought some of the pomegranates and of the figs.[#Nu 13:24; 32:9]

24The place was called the Valley of Eshkol because of the cluster of grapes which the Israelites cut down from there.

25They returned from exploring the land after forty days.

The Spies’ Report

26And they returned and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the assembly of the Israelites, to the Wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh, and brought back word to them and to the entire assembly and showed them the fruit of the land.[#Nu 20:1; 32:8]

27They reported to him and said, “We came to the land where you sent us, and surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it.[#Ex 3:8, 17]

28However, the people are strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are fortified and very great, and also we saw the sons of Anak there.[#Dt 1:28; 9:1–2]

29The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev, and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the edge of the Jordan.”[#Nu 14:43]

30Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are able to overcome it.”[#Nu 14:24]

31But the men that went up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people because they are stronger than we.”[#Dt 1:28; Jos 14:8]

32They gave the Israelites 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.[#Nu 14:36–37; #Am 2:9]

33And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come from the giants, and in our eyes we were like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”[#Ge 6:4]

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