Numbers 13

THE LORD SAID to Moses, 2“Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.”

3So at the LORD’s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites. 4These are their names:

from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur;

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

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

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

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

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

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

11from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi;

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

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

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

15from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki.

16These are the names of the men Moses sent to explore the land. (Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua.)

17When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? 20How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)

21So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath. 22They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, lived. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23When they reached the Valley of Eshcol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs. 24That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut off there. 25At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land.

26They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

30Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

31But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Original Meaning

NUMBERS 13 AND 14 recount a major turning point in the desert journey of the Israelites: the expedition of scouts and the impact of their reports on the willingness of the people to trust the Lord’s promise that he will give them the Promised Land. As the Israelites are rapidly approaching the southern border of Canaan and camp at Kadesh, in the Desert of Paran (Num. 12:16; 13:26; Deut. 1:19—Kadesh Barnea), the Lord instructs Moses to send a chieftain from each tribe (except Levi) to explore the land (Num. 13:1–2). Deuteronomy 1:22–23 describes the idea of scouts as originating from the people. The two accounts are not mutually exclusive. Undoubtedly Moses would have approached the Lord for approval regarding any such undertaking if members of the community suggested it. Numbers and Deuteronomy single out different aspects: divine and human initiative, respectively.1

The itinerary of the twelve scouts includes the old city of Hebron (Num. 13:22),2 near which is the cave of Machpelah, the burial place of Sarah, Abraham, and Jacob/Israel (Gen. 23:19; 25:9; 50:13). When the chieftains return to the community, they stage a much anticipated “show and tell.” “Pomegranates and figs” provide material confirmation of the land’s superlative agricultural quality, as encapsulated in the expression “flow with milk and honey” (Num. 13:23, 26–27). Most impressive is a gargantuan “cluster” (ʾešhkol) of grapes that two scouts carry between them on a pole (13:23), the way Kohathite Levites carry sacred objects belonging to the sanctuary (4:6, 8, 11, 14; 7:9).

Rather than climaxing their report with the attractive agricultural portion in accordance with the order of Moses’ instructions for their investigation (13:18–20), the scouts quickly move over agriculture to dwell on the human demographics of Canaan.3 Matching the abundant and sizeable fruits are numerous and powerful peoples with large, fortified cities (13:28). “The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan” (v. 29).

J. A. Beck points out the narrative tension created by the fact that ten of the chieftains, who have been chosen because of their credibility with the Israelites, violate their mandate by deliberately distorting data to effectively persuade their people that they cannot enter the Promised Land. Moses commissions them to go “up through the Negev and on into the hill country” (13:17), which is the focus of his interest. Archaeologists have found much of that hill country was sparsely settled at this time (Late Bronze period) and had few fortifications. So we expect the scouts to say that this territory should be easy to take. But they have expanded the geographical scope of their report to include heavily populated valley regions “near the sea and along the Jordan” and thereby make it sound as though the entire land of Canaan is densely occupied and impenetrable.4

As the people’s euphoria vaporizes, there is an uproar. Observe how Caleb, the scout from Judah, needs to silence the people before telling them that they can and should go up and take the land (13:30).

At this point the biased attitude of the other scouts bursts into the open as they categorically contradict Caleb and defame the land they have earlier praised, claiming that it “devours those living in it” (13:31–32). If they are saying that Canaan is an unhealthy place, they are contradicting themselves. How can its inhabitants be so big and strong if the land devours them? Perhaps they mean that the land metaphorically devours its people through war (Ezek. 36:13–14; cf. vv. 1–7, 10; Lev. 26:38; Num. 14:3) because it was a “land bridge whose city-states were either fighting each other or stemming invasion from Asia or Africa.”5 But if the people of Canaan are decimated and weakened by war, how can they be so numerous, prosperous, and secure as to pose an insurmountable obstacle to the Israelites?

To drive a final nail in the coffin of hope, the ten scouts volunteer a category of information regarding which Moses has not asked: the physical size of the inhabitants of Canaan.6 The most intimidating aspect of Canaan is the (undoubtedly exaggerated) generalization that “all the people we saw there are of great size” (13:32). To traumatize overwrought imaginations, the chieftains describe some of the giants as Nephilim (v. 33), descended from the mighty men of renown who lived before the Flood (Gen. 6:4). It is not clear how the Israelites suppose that the line of antedeluvian Nephilim have survived the Flood (cf. 7:21–23). Details aside, they readily buy the idea that the Canaanite giants are a vastly more powerful class of human beings than they are and succumb to catatonic terror.

Bridging Contexts

DOGGED DETERMINATION. Caleb was born a slave in Egypt, and his name meant “dog.” But God has set him and his people free. Most Israelites of Caleb’s generation never quite get the hang of what freedom is all about. They think freedom is milk and honey and that Moses is supposed to lead them quickly and comfortably into paradise. But when obstacles loom on the horizon, their freedom becomes chaos and they miss their unadventurous life of slavery because they are still slaves at heart.

Caleb, by contrast, realizes that freedom means to serve a new, divine Master. Other Israelites look around and gripe, but Caleb is saved from cynicism as well as from sin.7 He looks up to the radiant divine cloud and praises the Lord, who has set him free. He lives in the same environment as the others, but he views it with a different perspective. As the German statesman Konrad Adenauer sagely observed, “We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.”8 Caleb is like a much later man of courage amidst adversity who declared, “I don’t let nobody blow no black smoke on my blue skies!”9

Sooner or later, Caleb’s worldview is bound to collide with that of other members of his community. It happens at Kadesh, when he returns from scouting Canaan with eleven other chieftains. Ten scouts accentuate the negative: numerous powerful people, fortified cities, giants. All of a sudden the fabulous Promised Land seems unpromising. The Israelites quail with qualms and grouse: “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us” (Deut. 1:27). First John 4:18 says that “perfect love drives out fear,” but in their case, perfect fear drives out their trust in God.

When the clamor of complaining crescendos, Caleb steps forward and calls for the people to hush (Num. 13:30). He urges, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” Let’s roll!

Isn’t it unrealistic to say, “We can certainly do it”? Caleb knows what the inhabitants and fortifications of Canaan are like because, unlike most Israelites, he has seen them. He is aware that his people lack the personnel, resources, infrastructure, and budget to overcome the obstacles on their own. But when Caleb says, “We can certainly do it,” he includes God in the word “we” because the Lord is with his people. “Faith is the grit in the soul that puts the dare into dreams.”10

So why doesn’t Joshua, the scout from Ephraim (13:8, 16), also make a speech at this time? He agrees with Caleb (14:6–9), but because he is Moses’ assistant (11:28), everyone knows he has vested interests. Caleb, however, could easily have sided with the majority.11

Theocracy, not majority, rules Caleb’s heart. Democracy may apply to other kinds of situations, but not even a landslide vote shakes his dogged determination to follow the Lord.

If Caleb’s courage kindled a spark of hope for one brief, shining moment, it was quickly quenched when the oral majority took over the podium and began to filibuster. Determined to depress, they characterized Canaan as a jurassic park inhabited by humansauruses (Nephilim), who made them look like grasshoppers (13:33).12

In the opposing attitudes of Caleb versus the ten scouts, we see two basic orientations that are exemplified throughout the Bible: faith in the Lord to overcome impossible odds versus lack of belief that makes people think they must save themselves. Faith is courage that conquers. Disbelief is cowardice that correctly assesses the impossibility of a situation but fails to take God into account, thereby snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Can human beings be saved from evil? Impossible! True in human terms, but as the angel Gabriel said to the virgin Mary, “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37).

Even if victory is eventually achieved, cowardice and failure to seize a crucial opportunity along the way can radically increase the cost of success. After rejecting their blueprint for rapid victory, the Israelites did finally conquer Canaan (see the book of Joshua), but only after unnecessary years of misery and thousands of deaths.

Similarly, timid Union General George McClellan postponed Union victory in the American Civil War at the cost of many lives. Two of his soldiers discovered a copy of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s battle plans wrapped around cigars that a Confederate officer had lost. With this astounding luck and a numerical advantage of 80,000 troops against Lee’s 45,000, McClellan could quite easily wipe out the five parts into which Lee’s army had divided by attacking them separately. With the blueprint to rapid victory in hand, McClellan nevertheless moved slowly because he was convinced by the false report of his spies that he was outnumbered. This gave Lee time to regroup most of his force in a strategic location along high ground east of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The result was the bloody battle of Antietam, which included the deadliest day in American history, with 6,000 killed or mortally wounded and 16,000 injured.13

Contemporary Significance

THE POWER OF positive believing. A man driving by a cornfield stopped to chat with the farm boy who was working there, and the following exchange ensued:

“It looks like all your corn is turning yellow.”

“Yes,” said the boy, “we planted yellow corn.”

“Well,” said the man, “It looks to me like you’re not going to get but about half a crop.”

“That’s right,” said the boy, “we planted on halves.”

In anger the man shouted, “You are not far from a fool, are you, son?”

“No sir,” he said, “just a fence between us.”14

They were looking at the same corn, but the boy was inside the fence and the man was outside. Having participated in planting a certain way, the boy trusted in a corresponding reward. The man, by contrast, was bent on promoting the weakness of negative thinking.

A farmer cannot expect God to bless efforts that are not performed, but without God’s power, no amount of plowing, planting, watering, fertilizing, and weeding can produce a crop (cf. 1 Cor. 3:6–7). Similarly, an elderly Christian woman prayed every day, “Lord, if you’ll furnish the grace, I’ll furnish the grit.”15

For the person of faith, obstacles are temporary because God is real. For the disbeliever, obstacles are permanent because God is not real enough. Thus, the key to exegesis of exigencies is an existential question: Is God real to me? Do I believe, act, and live as if he is alive?

In an open letter to God, Philip Yancey asked: “Do I act as if you are alive?” He responded:

Sometimes I treat you as a substance, a narcotic like alcohol or Valium, when I need a fix, to smooth over the harshness of reality, or to take it away. I can sometimes ease off from this world into an awareness of an invisible world; and most of the time I truly believe it exists, as real as this world of oxygen and grass and water. But how do I do the reverse, to let the reality of your world—of you—enter in and transform the numbing sameness of my daily life, and my daily self?16

Do we have evidence that God is real? In Scripture we have an accumulated record of divine activity, including descriptions by human beings who experienced it. Most impressive is the testimony of eyewitnesses regarding the incarnate Christ (1 John 1:1).

What about something that we can personally experience? Paul cites the evidence of creation as basic for all inhabitants of Planet Earth: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse” (Rom. 1:20; cf. Ps. 19:1; Heb. 11:1–3). If God is really our Creator (cf. Rev. 14:7), those who trust in the Lord can claim the motto of French World War I hero Marshal Ferdinand Foch: “There are no hopeless situations; there are only men and women who have grown hopeless about them.”17

If God is really our Creator, he can answer Yancey’s question by bringing his reality into the “numbing sameness” of our daily lives and recreating our attitudes. The key to this transformation is accepting the influence (i.e., the flowing in) of his Spirit, who gives us “the washing of rebirth and renewal” (Titus 3:5) and who pours God’s love into our hearts (Rom. 5:5). We may never experience a dry path through a body of water, food from the sky, or an awesome voice from the top of a mountain. But if we pray to treat someone with more unselfish love than yesterday and if that prayer is answered, we have the most important miracle of all.

George Herbert wrote:

Then have we too our guardian fires and clouds;

Our Scripture-dew drops fast:

We have our sands and serpents, tents and shrouds;

Alas! Our murmurings come not last.

But where’s the cluster? where’s the taste

Of mine inheritance? Lord, if I must borrow,

Let me as well take up their joy, as sorrow.18