Chapter 13

Spies View the Land

1 Then athe Lord spoke to Moses saying,

2 “aSend 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 1command of the Lord, 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, aCaleb the son of Jephunneh;

7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph;

8 from the tribe of Ephraim, aHoshea 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 aHoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.

17 When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up 1there into athe 2Negev; then go up into the hill country.

18 “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 “How is the land in which they live, is it good or bad? And how are the cities in which they live, are they 1like open camps or with fortifications?

20 “aHow is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? 1Make an beffort 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 athe wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, 1bat Lebo-hamath.

22 When they had gone up into athe Negev, 1they came to Hebron where bAhiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the 2descendants of cAnak were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before dZoan in Egypt.)

23 Then they came to the 1valley of 2aEshcol 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 1Eshcol, because of the cluster which the sons of Israel cut down from there.

The Spies’ Reports

25 When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days,

26 they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel 1in the wilderness of Paran, at aKadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

27 Thus they told him, and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and ait certainly does flow with milk and honey, and bthis is its fruit.

28 “Nevertheless, athe people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw bthe 1descendants of Anak there.

29 “Amalek is living in the land of athe Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and bthe Amorites are living in the hill country, and cthe Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”

30 Then Caleb quieted the people 1before Moses and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we will surely overcome it.”

31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “aWe 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 aa bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is ba land that devours its 1inhabitants; and call the people whom we saw in it are men of great size.

33 “There also we saw the aNephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and bwe became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”