Numbers 12–13

Aaron and Miriam Murmur Against Moses

12And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he took (because he took a Cushite wife); ²and they said, “Has Yahweh spoken only through Moses? Has not Yahweh also spoken through us?” And Yahweh heard it. ³Now the man, Moses, was more humble than any other person on the face of the earth, ⁴and Yahweh said suddenly to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Go out, you three, to the tent of assembly.” So the three of them went out. ⁵And Yahweh went down in a column of cloud and stood at the doorway of the tent, and he called Aaron and Miriam, and the two of them went, ⁶and he said,

“Please hear my words:

If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh,

will make myself known to him in a vision.

I will speak to him in a dream.^a

⁷Not so with my servant Moses;

in all my house he is faithful.

⁸I will speak to him mouth to mouth,

in clearness, not in riddles;

and he will look at the form of Yahweh.

Why were you not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?”

⁹And Yahweh became very angry^b with them, and he went away. ¹⁰And the cloud departed from on the tent, and behold, Miriam was infected with a skin disease^c white like snow; when Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was afflicted with a skin disease. ¹¹So Aaron said to Moses, “Please, my lord, please do not put on us this sin in which we were foolish and in which we have sinned. ¹²Please do not let her be like the dead, whose flesh is half consumed when coming out from the womb of its mother.” ¹³And Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, “God, please heal her!”^{d 14}But Yahweh said to Moses, “If her father had surely spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be confined for seven days to an outside place of the camp, and afterward she may be gathered.” ¹⁵So Miriam was confined to the outside place of the camp seven days, and the people did not set out until Miriam was gathered. ¹⁶And afterward the people set out from Hazeroth, and they encamped in the desert of Paran.

Spies Sent to Spy Out the Land of Canaan

13And Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Send for yourself men, and let them explore the land of Canaan, which I am about to give to the Israelites;^a from each tribe of his father send one man,^b everyone a leader among them.” ³So Moses sent them from the desert of Paran on the command of Yahweh; all of the men were leaders^c of the Israelites.^{d 4}And these are their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; ⁵from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; ⁶from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; ⁷from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; ⁸from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun; ⁹from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; ¹⁰from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; ¹¹from the tribe of Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi; ¹²from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; ¹³from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; ¹⁴from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi; ¹⁵from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki. ¹⁶These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to explore the land. And Moses called Hoshea son of Nun Joshua.

¹⁷Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan, and he said to them, “Go up like this to the Negev,^e and go up into the hill country, ¹⁸and you will see what the land is like and if the people who inhabit it are strong or weak, or whether they are few or many, ¹⁹and whether the land that they are inhabiting is good or bad, and whether the cities they are inhabiting are camps or fortifications, ²⁰and whether the land is fertile or lean, and whether there are trees on it or not. You will show yourself courageous, and you will take some of the fruit of the land.” It was the time of first ripe grapes.

²¹So they went up and explored the land from the desert of Zin until Rehob, at Lebo Hamath.^{f 22}They went up through the Negev^g and came to Hebron, where^h Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai the descendants of the Anakites were. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) ²³And they came up to the valleyⁱ of Eshcol, and they cut off a vine branch and one cluster of grapes from there; they carried it on a pole between two men, with pomegranates and figs. ²⁴That place he called the valley^j of Eshcol on account of the cluster of grapes that the Israelites^k cut off from there.

The Spies Return

²⁵They returned from exploring the land at the end of forty days.^{l 26}And they came^m to Moses and Aaron and to the entire community of the Israelitesⁿ in the desert of Paran at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the community, and they showed them the fruit of the land. ²⁷And they told him,^o “We came to the land that you sent us, and it is flowing of milk and honey; this is its fruit. ²⁸Yet the people who are inhabiting it are strong and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the descendants of the Anakites there. ²⁹The Amalekites are living in the land of the Negev;^p the Hittites, Jebusites, and the Amorites are living in the hill country; and the Canaanites are living at the sea and on the banks of the Jordan.”

³⁰And Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “Surely, let us go up and let us take possession of it because surely we will be able to prevail over it.” ³¹And the men who went up with him said, “We are not able to go up to the people because they are stronger than us.” ³²And they presented the report of the land that they explored to the Israelites,^q saying, “The land that we went through to explore is a land that eats its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in its midst are men of great size.^{r 33}There we saw the Nephilim (the descendants^s of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their eyes.”