Numbers 13:3

13:3 So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the command ¹  of the Lord. All of them were leaders ²  of the Israelites.

Numbers 13:16-17

13:16 These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to investigate the land. And Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua. ³ 

The Spies’ Instructions

13:17 When Moses sent ⁴  them to investigate the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev, ⁵  and then go up into the hill country

Numbers 13:27

13:27 They told Moses, ⁶  “We went to the land where you sent us. ⁷  It is indeed flowing with milk and honey, ⁸  and this is its fruit.

Numbers 14:36

14:36 The men whom Moses sent to investigate the land, who returned and made the whole community murmur against him by producing ⁹  an evil report about the land,

Numbers 16:29

16:29 If these men die a natural death, ¹⁰  or if they share the fate ¹¹  of all men, then the Lord has not sent me.

Numbers 20:14

Rejection by the Edomites

20:14 ¹² Moses ¹³  sent messengers from Kadesh to the king of Edom: ¹⁴  “Thus says your brother Israel: ‘You know all the hardships we have experienced, ¹⁵ 

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¹ tn Heb “mouth.”

² tn Heb “heads.”

³ sn The difference in the names is slight, a change from “he saves” to “the Lord saves.” The Greek text of the OT used Iesoun for Hebrew Yeshua.

⁴ tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the next verb of the same formation to express a temporal clause.

⁵ 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.”

⁶ tn Heb “told him and said.” The referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

⁷ tn The relative clause modifies “the land.” It is constructed with the relative and the verb: “where you sent us.”

⁸ 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).

⁹ tn The verb is the Hiphil infinitive construct with a lamed (ל) preposition from the root יָצָא (yatsa’, “to bring out”). The use of the infinitive here is epexegetical, that is, explaining how they caused the people to murmur.

¹⁰ tn Heb “if like the death of every man they die.”

¹¹ tn The noun is פְּקֻדָּה (pÿquddah, “appointment, visitation”). The expression refers to a natural death, parallel to the first expression.

¹² sn For this particular section, see W. F. Albright, “From the Patriarchs to Moses: 2. Moses out of Egypt,” BA 36 (1973): 57-58; J. R. Bartlett, “The Land of Seir and the Brotherhood of Edom,” JTS 20 (1969): 1-20, and “The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of Edom,” PEQ 104 (1972): 22-37, and “The Brotherhood of Edom,” JSOT 4 (1977): 2-7.

¹³ tn Heb “And Moses sent.”

¹⁴ sn Some modern biblical scholars are convinced, largely through arguments from silence, that there were no unified kingdoms in Edom until the 9th century, and no settlements there before the 12th century, and so the story must be late and largely fabricated. The evidence is beginning to point to the contrary. But the cities and residents of the region would largely be Bedouin, and so leave no real remains.

¹⁵ tn Heb “found.”