Numbers 13

13 ¹ Our Father said to Moses,

² "Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send one man, every one a leader among them."

³ So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command of our Father; all of them were leaders of the people of Israel. ⁴ 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 from the tribe of Judah, Caleb 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 were the names of the men whom Moses sent to explore the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua. ¹ 1 v16 Moses changed Hoshea’s name to Joshua, which means “our Father saves” — the same name later given to Jesus, through whom our Father brings his people into their true inheritance.

¹⁷ When Moses sent them to explore the land of Canaan, he said to them, "Go up here into the Negev, and go up into the hill country, ¹⁸ and see what the land is like, and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, few or many, ¹⁹ and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns they live in are open camps or fortified strongholds, ²⁰ and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be courageous, and bring back some of the fruit of the land." It was the season of the first ripe grapes.

²¹ So they went up and explored the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. ²² They went up into 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.) ²³ And they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them; they also brought some pomegranates and figs. ²⁴ That place was called the Valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes that the people of Israel cut down there.

A Land of Promise and Fear

²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from exploring the land. ²⁶ They came to Moses and Aaron and to the whole community of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They reported back to them and to the whole community, and showed them the fruit of the land.

²⁷ And they told him, "We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. ²⁸ But the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw the descendants of Anak there. ²⁹ The Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev. The Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites dwell in the hill country. And the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan."

³⁰ Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, "Let us go up at once and take possession of it, for we are well able to overcome it."

³¹ But 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 are."

³² So they spread among the people of Israel a bad report of the land they had explored, saying, "The land through which we went to explore it is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. ³³ And there we saw the Nephilim (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim), and in our own eyes we were like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes." ² 2 v33 The Nephilim were legendary giants first mentioned in Genesis 6:4.