Numbers 13
1 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Yahweh said to Moses/me,
2 “Send men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers, you shall send a man, every one a prince among them.”
“Send some men to Canaan [land] to explore it. That is the land that I will give to you Israelis. Send men who are leaders in their tribes.”
3 Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the commandment of Yahweh. All of them were men who were heads of the children of Israel.
So Moses/I did what Yahweh commanded him/me. He/I sent out twelve Israeli men who were all leaders of their tribes. He/I sent them from their/our camp at Paran in the desert.
4 These were their names: Of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur.
These are the names of the men [and the tribes they belonged to: ] Shammua, the son of Zaccur, from the tribe of Reuben;
5 Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori.
Shaphat, the son of Hori, from the tribe of Simeon;
6 Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Judah;
7 Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph.
Igal, the son of Joseph, from the tribe of Issachar;
8 Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun.
Hoshea, the son of Nun, from the tribe of Ephraim;
9 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu.
Palti, the son of Raphu, from the tribe of Benjamin;
10 Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi.
Gaddiel, the son of Sodi, from the tribe of Zebulun;
11 Of the tribe of Joseph, of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi.
Gaddi, the son of Susi, from the tribe of Manasseh;
12 Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli.
Ammiel, the son of Gemalli, from the tribe of Dan;
13 Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael.
Sethur, the son of Michael, from the tribe of Asher;
14 Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi.
Nahbi, the son of Vophsi, from the tribe of Naphtali;
15 Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
and Geuel, the son of Maki, from the tribe of Gad.
16 These are the names of the men who Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.
Those are the names of the men whom Moses/I sent out to explore Canaan. [Before they left], Moses/I gave Hoshea a new name, Joshua, [which means ‘Yahweh is the one who saves].’
17 Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way by the South, and go up into the hill country.
Before Moses/I sent them to explore Canaan, he/I said to them, “Go through the southern part of Canaan, and then go [north] into the hilly area.
18 See the land, what it is; and the people who dwell therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many;
See what the land is like. See if the people who live there are strong or weak. See if there are many people or only a few people.
19 and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds;
Find out what kind of land they live in [RHQ]. Is it good or bad? Find out about the towns in which they live [RHQ]. Do they have walls around them or not?
20 and what the land is, whether it is fertile or poor, whether there is wood therein, or not. Be courageous, and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes.
Find out about the soil [RHQ]. Is it (fertile/good for growing crops) or not? Find out if there are trees there [RHQ]. Try to bring back some of the fruit that grows in that land.” [He/I said that because] it was the beginning of the time to harvest grapes.
21 So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath.
So those men went to Canaan. They went [through the entire land], from the Zin desert [in the south] all the way to Rehob [town] near Lebo-Hamath [in the north].
22 They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
In the south, they went to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, [huge men] descended from Anak, lived. Hebron was a city that was built seven years before Zoan [city] was built in Egypt.
23 They came to the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it on a staff between two. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs.
In one valley, they cut from a grapevine one cluster of grapes. [Because it was very large, they needed] two men to carry it on a pole. They also picked some pomegranates and some figs [to carry back to their camp].
24 That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from there.
They called that place Eshcol [which means ‘cluster’] because they had cut that [huge] cluster of grapes there.
25 They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days.
After they explored the land for 40 days, they returned to their camp.
26 They went and came to Moses, to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them and to all the congregation. They showed them the fruit of the land.
They came to Aaron and Moses/me and the rest of the Israeli people in the desert at Paran. They reported to everyone what they had seen. They also showed them the fruit that they had brought back.
27 They told him, and said, “We came to the land where you sent us. Surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
But this is what they reported to Moses/me: “We arrived in the land that you sent us to explore. It is truly a beautiful land, and it is very fertile [IDM]. Here is some of the fruit.
28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the children of Anak there.
But the people who live there are very strong. Their cities are large and are surrounded by walls. We even saw some of the [huge] descendants of Anak there.
29 Amalek dwells in the land of the South. The Hittite, the Jebusite, and the Amorite dwell in the hill country. The Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along the side of the Jordan.”
The descendants of Amalek live in the southern part [of the land], and the descendants of Heth, Jebus, and Amor live in the hilly area [to the north]. The descendants of Canaan live along the coast of the [Mediterranean] sea and along the Jordan [River].”
30 Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, “Let’s go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it!”
[When they said that, the people were afraid and started to cry out very loudly]. But Caleb told the people who were standing near Moses/me to be quiet. Then he said, “We should go there and take the land, because we are certainly able to conquer it!”
31 But the men who went up with him said, “We aren’t able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.”
But the men who had gone with him said, “No, we cannot attack [and defeat] those people! They are much stronger than we are!”
32 They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people who we saw in it are men of great stature.
So those men gave to the Israeli people a bad report about the land that they had explored. They said, “The land that we explored is very large; we cannot conquer it. And all the people whom we saw are very tall.
33 There we saw the Nephilim, the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim. We were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”
We even saw the descendants of Nephili there. The descendants of Anak [whom we saw there] are descended from the giant Nephili people. When we saw them, we felt [as small] as grasshoppers [SIM], and they thought that we looked like grasshoppers too!”
