Bilangan 13:25-26

13:25 They returned from investigating the land after forty days.

The Spies’ Reports

13:26 They came back ¹  to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. ²  They reported ³  to the whole community and showed the fruit of the land.

Bilangan 13:32-33

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ⁴  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ⁵  to investigate is a land that devours ⁶  its inhabitants. ⁷  All the people we saw there ⁸  are of great stature. 13:33 We even saw the Nephilim ⁹  there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves ¹⁰  and to them.” ¹¹ 

[13:26]  ¹ 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]  ² 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]  ³ tn Heb “They brought back word”; the verb is the Hiphil preterite of שׁוּב (shuv).

[13:32]  ⁴ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  ⁵ 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]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[13:33]  ⁹ 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.

[13:33]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “in our eyes.”

[13:33]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in their eyes.”