Numbers 13

¹ Yahweh spoke to Moses and said,

² ‘Send out men, one from each tribe, to make a reconnaissance of this land of Canaan which I am giving to the sons of Israel. Send the leader of each tribe.’

³ At Yahweh’s bidding, Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran. All these men were chiefs among the sons of Israel.

⁴ These were their names: For the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur;

⁵ for the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori;

⁶ for the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh;

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

⁸ for the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun;

⁹ for the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu;

¹⁰ for the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi;

¹¹ for the tribe of Joseph, for the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi son of Susi;

¹² for the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli;

¹³ for the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael;

¹⁴ for the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi;

¹⁵ for the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi.

¹⁶ These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to make a reconnaissance of the land. Then Moses gave to Hoshea son of Nun the name of Joshua.

¹⁷ Moses sent them to reconnoitre the land of Canaan, ‘Go up into the Negeb; then go up into the highlands.

¹⁸ See what sort of country it is, and what sort of people the inhabitants are, whether they are strong or weak, few or many,

¹⁹ what sort of country they live in, whether it is good or poor; what sort of towns they have, whether they are open or fortified;

²⁰ what sort of land it is, fertile or barren, wooded or open. Be bold, and bring back some of the produce of the country. It was the season for early grapes.

²¹ They went up to reconnoitre the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, the Pass of Hamath.[*a]

²² They went up by way of the Negeb as far as Hebron, where the Anakim lived, Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai. (Hebron was founded seven years before Tanis in Egypt.)

²³ They came to the Valley of Esheol; there they lopped off a vine branch with a cluster of grapes, which two of them carried away on a pole, as well as pomegranates and figs.

²⁴ This place was called the Valley of Eshcol[*b] after the cluster which the sons of Israel had cut there.

²⁵ At the end of forty days, they came back from their reconnaissance of the land.

²⁶ They sought out Moses, Aaron and the whole community of Israel, in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They made their report to them, and to the whole community, and showed them the produce of the country.

²⁷ They told them this story, ‘We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey; this is its produce.

²⁸ At the same time, its inhabitants are a powerful people; the towns are fortified and very big; yes, and we saw the descendants of Anak there.

²⁹ The Amalekite holds the Negeb area, the Hittite, Amorite and Jebusite the highlands, and the Canaanite the sea coast and the banks of the Jordan.’

³⁰ Caleb harangued the people gathered about Moses: ‘We must march in,’ he said ‘and conquer this land: we are well able to do it’.

³¹ But the men who had gone up with him answered, ‘We are not able to march against this people; they are stronger than we are’.

³² And they began to disparage the country they had reconnoitred to the sons of Israel, ‘The country we went to reconnoitre is a country that devours its inhabitants. Every man we saw there was of enormous size.

³³ Yes, and we saw giants there (the sons of Anak, descendants of the Giants).We felt like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.’