Numbers 13

V 1–2: CANAAN God commands Moses to send a spy from each tribe, twelve in total, into the land of Canaan. This is the promised land which He is going to give to Israel. V 3–16: COMMAND Moses obeys the command of God and sends out twelve named people. This includes Caleb, son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Judah, and Joshua (whose name is changed from Hoshea), the son of Nun, from the tribe of Ephraim. Hoshea means ‘desire for salvation’ whereas Joshua means ‘The Lord is salvation’ or ‘God saves’, and is the same name as ‘Jesus’ in the Greek. V 17–25: CONSIDER Moses tells them to consider every aspect of the land and its people and return with some of the fruit of the land. They return accordingly after forty days of espionage. V 26–29: CAUTIOUS The cautious consensus from the spies is that this is a land of plenty in every way, but that the people are strong, the cities are fortified and very large, and the feared descendants of Anak are there. They report back the location of the inhabitants of the land—the Amelakites, Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites and Canaanites. V 30: CALEB Caleb encourages the people and urges immediate advance to take possession knowing that ‘we are well able to overcome it’. V 31–33: COWARDLY The cowardly response from the other spies (except Joshua, as we learn later) is that the land cannot be taken because the people are too strong and that there are giants in the land (Anak’s descendants). They feel like grasshoppers in comparison to the physical appearance of the descendants of Anak.