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Numbers 13

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13
Chapter 13
Moses sends men to explore Canaan
1Then the Lord said to Moses, 2‘I will give the land of Canaan to the Israelites. Now you must send men to explore that land. Choose one man from each tribe of your ancestors. Each man must be a leader among his tribe.’
3So Moses obeyed the Lord's command. He sent the men from the Paran desert into Canaan. Each man was a leader among the Israelites. 4This is a list of their names:
From Reuben's tribe: Shammua, the son of Zaccur.
5From Simeon's tribe: Shaphat, the son of Hori.
6From Judah's tribe: Caleb, the son of Jephunneh.
7From Issachar's tribe: Igal, the son of Joseph.
8From Ephraim's tribe: Hoshea, the son of Nun.
9From Benjamin's tribe: Palti, the son of Raphu.
10From Zebulun's tribe: Gaddiel, the son of Sodi.
11From Manasseh's tribe: Gaddi, the son of Susi.
12From Dan's tribe: Ammiel, the son of Gemalli.
13From Asher's tribe: Sethur, the son of Michael.
14From Naphtali's tribe: Nahbi, the son of Vophsi.
15From Gad's tribe: Geuel, the son of Maki.
16Those are the names of the men that Moses sent to explore the land. Moses changed the name of Hoshea, the son of Nun, to Joshua. #13:16 Hoshea means ‘God saves.’ Joshua means ‘the Lord saves.’
17Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan. He said to them, ‘Go north from here, through the Negev desert. Then continue to go north, into the place where there are hills. 18Look at the land to see what it is like. See whether the people who live there are strong or weak. See whether few people or many people live there. 19See whether their land is good or bad. Look at the towns where the people live. See if they have strong walls or they are in the open. 20See whether the land is able to make good food grow there, or not. See whether there are forests that grow there. Then try to get some fruit from the land and bring it back here.’ (It was the time of year for the first grapes to be ready to eat.)
21So the men went and they explored the land of Canaan. They started in the desert called Zin, and they continued to Rehob, near Lebo-Hamath. 22When they had gone up through the Negev desert in the south of the land, they arrived at Hebron. That was where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were living. They had built Hebron seven years before the Egyptians built Zoan.
23Then the men came to the valley called Eshcol. They cut a branch which had one group of grapes on it. It was so large that two men carried it between them on a pole. They also brought some other fruits called pomegranates and figs. 24They called that valley ‘Eshcol’ because of the large group of grapes that the Israelites cut down there.
25The men returned after they had explored the land for 40 days.
The men bring news to Moses
26The men came back to Kadesh in the Paran desert. They brought their message to Moses and Aaron and to all the Israelites there. They told them all about the land of Canaan and they showed its fruit to them. 27They said to Moses, ‘We went to look at the land where you sent us. It is certainly a land where there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone. This is some of its fruit. 28But the people who live in the land are strong. Their towns are very big, and strong walls keep them safe. Also, we saw some descendants of Anak there. 29The Amalekites are living in Negev, the land in the south of the country. The Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hills. And the Canaanites live by the sea and by the edge of Jordan River.’
30Then Caleb stood in front of Moses and he told the Israelites to be quiet. He said, ‘We should go into the land and get power over it. We will certainly be able to do it!’
31But the men who had gone into Canaan with him said, ‘These people are stronger than we are. So we cannot go and fight against them.’ 32Those men gave to the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had explored. They said, ‘We went through that whole land and we explored it. The land seems to eat the people who live there! All the people that we saw there were very big and strong. 33We also saw descendants of the Nephilites there. And we felt like very small insects when we looked at them. And we seemed like very small insects to them too.’ (The descendants of Anak are also descendants of the Nephilites.) #13:33 See Genesis 6:4.