Numbers 13:17

The Spies’ Instructions

13:17 When Moses sent ¹  them to investigate the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev, ²  and then go up into the hill country

Numbers 13:27

13:27 They told Moses, ³  “We went to the land where you sent us. ⁴  It is indeed flowing with milk and honey, ⁵  and this is its fruit.

---

¹ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb of the same formation to express a temporal clause.

² tn The instructions had them first go up into the southern desert of the land, and after passing through that, into the hill country of the Canaanites. The text could be rendered “into the Negev” as well as “through the Negev.”

³ tn Heb “told him and said.” The referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁴ tn The relative clause modifies “the land.” It is constructed with the relative and the verb: “where you sent us.”

⁵ 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).