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Numbers 13:1
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Spies Sent into Canaan

1 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,
2 a“Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the children of Israel; from each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”  
3 So Moses sent them afrom the Wilderness of Paran according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the children of Israel.  
4 Now 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 afrom the tribe of Judah, bCaleb 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 are the names of the men whom Moses sent to1 spy out the land. And Moses called aHoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.  
17 Then Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way into the South, and go up to athe mountains,  
18 and see what the land is like: whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few or many;
19 whether the land they dwell in is good or bad; whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds;
20 whether the land is rich or poor; and whether there are forests there or not. aBe 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 afrom the Wilderness of Zin as far as bRehob, near the entrance of cHamath.  
22 And they went up through the South and came to aHebron; Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of bAnak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)  
23 aThen they came to the1 Valley of Eshcol, and there cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes; they carried it between two of them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs.  
24 The place was called the Valley of1 Eshcol, because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there.  
25 And they returned from spying out the land after forty days.
26 Now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation of the children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at aKadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.  
27 Then they told him, and said: “We went to the land where you sent us. It truly1 flows with amilk and honey, band this is its fruit.  
28 Nevertheless the apeople who dwell in the land are strong; the cities are fortified and very large; moreover we saw the descendants of bAnak there.  
29 aThe Amalekites dwell in the land of the South; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the mountains; and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.”  
30 Then aCaleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”  
31 aBut 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.”  
32 aAnd they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and ball the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature.  
33 There we saw the giants (athe descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were blike grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were cin their sight.” 
Book Notes:
Barnes' Book Notes



Introduction to Numbers

The title commonly given to this book is evidently suggested by the two numberings of the people recorded in Num. 1 and Num. 26.

The book narrates the history of the Israelites during their sojourn in the wilderness from the completion of the law-giving at Sinai, Leviticus 27:34, to their mustering in the plains of Moab for actual entry into the land of promise.

The incidents are generally given in their chronological order, except in the third part. The five chapters comprised in this part appear to deal with a long period, from which only isolated episodes are given; and of these the dates can only be conjectured.

Between the two dates "the first day of the second month of the second year after they were come out of Egypt" Numbers 1:1, and the death of Aaron Numbers 33:38, intervene no less than 38 years and 3 months (compare Deuteronomy 2:14), the long and dreary period of tarrying in the wilderness until the disobedient generation had wasted away.

From the death of Aaron to the date given in the opening verses of Deuteronomy Deuteronomy 1:1-3, occurred a space of exactly six months, in which all the events narrated in the fourth part of the Book of Numbers, from Numbers 20:1 to the end, would seem to have occurred, with the probable exception of the defeat of the king of Arad Numbers 21:1-3.

As regards the authorship and date of composition, the notes of time, the tenor of the contents, no less than the direct assertions of the text itself, lead to the conclusion that Moses is properly spoken of as the writer of the Book of Numbers. It is in substance his work; though many portions of it were probably committed to writing many years before the whole was completed; and the concluding chapters were not written until toward the close of the 40th year after the exodus.

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