Spies View the Land

13 Then ^(A)the Lord spoke to Moses saying, ² “^(B)Send 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 ^[a]command 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, ^(C)Caleb the son of Jephunneh; ⁷ from the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph; ⁸ from the tribe of Ephraim, ^(D)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, 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 ^(E)Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.

¹⁷ When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up ^[b]there into ^(F)the ^[c]Negev; 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 ^[d]like open camps or with fortifications? ^20 (G)How is the land, is it fat or lean? Are there trees in it or not? ^[e]Make an ^(H)effort 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 ^(I)the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, ^[f](J)at Lebo-hamath. ²² When they had gone up into ^(K)the Negev, ^[g]they came to Hebron where ^(L)Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the ^[h]descendants of ^(M)Anak were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before ^(N)Zoan in Egypt.)

²³ Then they came to the ^[i]valley of ^[j](O)Eshcol 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 ^[k]Eshcol, 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 ^[l]in the wilderness of Paran, at ^(P)Kadesh; 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 ^(Q)it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and ^(R)this is its fruit. ²⁸ Nevertheless, ^(S)the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw ^(T)the ^[m]descendants of Anak there. ²⁹ Amalek is living in the land of ^(U)the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and ^(V)the Amorites are living in the hill country, and ^(W)the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”

³⁰ Then Caleb quieted the people ^[n]before 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, “^(X)We 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 ^(Y)a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is ^(Z)a land that devours its ^[o]inhabitants; and ^(AA)all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. ³³ There also we saw the ^(AB)Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and ^(AC)we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”