Numbers 13--Spies Sent into Canaan

Numbers 13
English Standard Version

Spies Sent into Canaan
13 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.” 3 So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel. 4 And these 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, Caleb the son of Jephunneh; 7 from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph; 8 from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea 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 (that is, 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 were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua.

17 Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up into the Negeb and go up into the hill country, 18 and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, 19 and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds, 20 and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it 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.

21 So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. 22 They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23 And they came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they also brought some pomegranates and figs. 24 That place was called the Valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster that the people of Israel cut down from there.

Report of the Spies
25 At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. 26 And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the people 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. 27 And they told him, “We came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. 28 However, the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negeb. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and along the Jordan.”

30 But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31 Then 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 are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”

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I'm taking both of these sections at the same times as I don't want to separate the story of the spies being sent out and the report that they brought back.  God instructs Moses to send out 12 men, each a chief from one of the 12 tribes.  The names of each of these chiefs is given and we see that the name of one of them is changed by Moses.  Hoshea, whose name means "salvation," the chief of the tribe of Ephraim was renamed Joshua, "the LORD is our Salvation" or "the LORD Saves."  The name Jesus is another translation of this name given to Joshua which is might be more correctly given as Yeshua (how many Messianic Jews refer to Jesus).  This should be an indication to us already that Joshua is going to be a "type" of Christ in the Old Testament, meaning that he will look as if he might be the Messiah, but falls short as he is going to continue to point forward to the work that only Jesus Christ will fulfill completely.

The spies are commanded to go into the Negeb (also correct to say Negev) which is "the dessert" or "the wilderness" that is to the south of the promised land.  If you were in Israel they would sometimes simply call this land "The South," but that wouldn't make sense here as they are coming form the south to approach this land.  The spies are being sent into enemy territory with specific instructions with what to look for--where the people live, what kinds of structures do they live in (tents or fortified cities), are they strong or weak in terms of military strength, do they have good land or not, and is the land full of tress or barren?  They are also commanded to be of good courage and that if they can, they should bring back some of the fruit that the land produces so that Moses can inspect it.  The text tells us that it was the season when the first harvest of grapes would be taken as an indication to what kind of fruit they might gather.

They spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin all throughout the Negev (the area to the south of Canaan) and came all the way to Hebron--where Abraham and his family used to live.  They found there that the people who had been Nomadic tribes at the time of Abraham were now living in cities--cities that were older than some of the cities in Egypt--and that the descendants of Anak were living there--we're told in a few more verses that these descendants of Anak were descended from the Nephilim that we haven't heard about since pre-Flood times in the book of Genesis.  That doesn't mean that people survived the Flood other than Noah and his family, but it does mean that whatever happened in the times of Genesis to create the Nephilim continued to happen even after the Flood too and that there were even more of these warrior peoples made by what some imagine to be the unnatural union between women and demons--there are other ideas, but this is one of the most common interpretations that you will hear.  The Valley of Eshcol where they took some pomegranates, figs and some grapes is near the location of Mamre where Abraham lived under the oak tree.  If you're looking at a map of the Promised Land as divided among the Twelve Tribes in your bible or online, the spies are mostly scouting out the land that would be given to the tribe of Judah and Simeon.

They are spying out the land for forty days as the Israelites stay camped out (notice this is the same amount of time that Moses was up on the Mountain with God each time Moses went up).  The spies comes back to Moses and the people who have not broken camp since they left, and show them the fruit and bring back the answers that they think Moses is looking for.  Ten of the twelve issue a unfavorable report that strikes fear in the hearts of the people because it is focused solely on the ability of Israel to conquer Canaan by their own power and with their own strength and resources, but there is a "minority report" from Joshua and Caleb--we'll see these two names much more later throughout Numbers, Deuteronomy and the book of Joshua.  They saw the same enemies, and the same fortified cities and the same resources ("a land flowing with milk and honey"), but Joshua and Caleb would say, "If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey." (Numbers 14:8).  They knew there wasn't anything too hard for the LORD and that if the LORD willed it, nothing--not even the presumed giants that were the sons of Anak could stand in their way.  God had promised this land to them and He was going to deliver it to them, even if they didn't see any human or earthly way for that to happen!