Bilangan 13:1-2
Konteks13:1 1 The Lord spoke 2 to Moses: 13:2 “Send out men to investigate 3 the land of Canaan, which I am giving 4 to the Israelites. You are to send one man from each ancestral tribe, 5 each one a leader among them.”
Bilangan 13:26-33
Konteks13:26 They came back 6 to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. 7 They reported 8 to the whole community and showed the fruit of the land. 13:27 They told Moses, 9 “We went to the land where you sent us. 10 It is indeed flowing with milk and honey, 11 and this is its fruit. 13:28 But 12 the inhabitants 13 are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. 13:29 The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the banks 14 of the Jordan.” 15
13:30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses, saying, “Let us go up 16 and occupy it, 17 for we are well able to conquer it.” 18 13:31 But the men 19 who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!” 13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging 20 report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through 21 to investigate is a land that devours 22 its inhabitants. 23 All the people we saw there 24 are of great stature. 13:33 We even saw the Nephilim 25 there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves 26 and to them.” 27
[13:1] 1 sn Chapter 13 provides the names of the spies sent into the land (vv. 1-16), their instructions (vv. 17-20), their activities (vv. 21-25), and their reports (vv. 26-33). It is a chapter that serves as a good lesson on faith, for some of the spies walked by faith, and some by sight.
[13:1] 2 tn The verse starts with the vav (ו) consecutive on the verb: “and….”
[13:2] 3 tn The imperfect tense with the conjunction is here subordinated to the preceding imperative to form the purpose clause. It can thus be translated “send…to investigate.”
[13:2] 4 tn The participle here should be given a future interpretation, meaning “which I am about to give” or “which I am going to give.”
[13:2] 5 tn Heb “one man one man of the tribe of his fathers.”
[13:26] 6 tn The construction literally has “and they went and they entered,” which may be smoothed out as a verbal hendiadys, the one verb modifying the other.
[13:26] 7 sn Kadesh is Ain Qadeis, about 50 miles (83 km) south of Beer Sheba. It is called Kadesh-barnea in Num 32:8.
[13:26] 8 tn Heb “They brought back word”; the verb is the Hiphil preterite of שׁוּב (shuv).
[13:27] 9 tn Heb “told him and said.” The referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
[13:27] 10 tn The relative clause modifies “the land.” It is constructed with the relative and the verb: “where you sent us.”
[13:27] 11 sn This is the common expression for the material abundance of the land (see further, F. C. Fensham, “An Ancient Tradition of the Fertility of Palestine,” PEQ 98 [1966]: 166-67).
[13:28] 12 tn The word (אֶפֶס, ’efes) forms a very strong adversative. The land was indeed rich and fruitful, but….”
[13:28] 13 tn Heb “the people who are living in the land.”
[13:29] 14 tn Heb “by the side [hand] of.”
[13:29] 15 sn For more discussion on these people groups, see D. J. Wiseman, ed., Peoples of Old Testament Times.
[13:30] 16 tn The construction is emphatic, using the cohortative with the infinitive absolute to strengthen it: עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה (’aloh na’aleh, “let us go up”) with the sense of certainty and immediacy.
[13:30] 17 tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive brings the cohortative idea forward: “and let us possess it”; it may also be subordinated to form a purpose or result idea.
[13:30] 18 tn Here again the confidence of Caleb is expressed with the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense: יָכוֹל נוּכַל (yakhol nukhal), “we are fully able” to do this. The verb יָכַל (yakhal) followed by the preposition lamed means “to prevail over, to conquer.”
[13:31] 19 tn The vav (ו) disjunctive on the noun at the beginning of the clause forms a strong adversative clause here.
[13:32] 20 tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.
[13:32] 21 tn Heb “which we passed over in it”; the pronoun on the preposition serves as a resumptive pronoun for the relative, and need not be translated literally.
[13:32] 22 tn The verb is the feminine singular participle from אָכַל (’akhal); it modifies the land as a “devouring land,” a bold figure for the difficulty of living in the place.
[13:32] 23 sn The expression has been interpreted in a number of ways by commentators, such as that the land was infertile, that the Canaanites were cannibals, that it was a land filled with warlike dissensions, or that it denotes a land geared for battle. It may be that they intended the land to seem infertile and insecure.
[13:32] 24 tn Heb “in its midst.”
[13:33] 25 tc The Greek version uses gigantes (“giants”) to translate “the Nephilim,” but it does not retain the clause “the sons of Anak are from the Nephilim.”
[13:33] sn The Nephilim are the legendary giants of antiquity. They are first discussed in Gen 6:4. This forms part of the pessimism of the spies’ report.
