Numbers 13:32

13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ²  to investigate is a land that devours ³  its inhabitants. ⁴  All the people we saw there ⁵  are of great stature.

Numbers 14:14

14:14 then they will tell it to the inhabitants ⁶  of this land. They have heard that you, Lord, are among this people, that you, Lord, are seen face to face, ⁷  that your cloud stands over them, and that you go before them by day in a pillar of cloud and in a pillar of fire by night.

Numbers 33:55

33:55 But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, then those whom you allow to remain will be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your side, and will cause you trouble in the land where you will be living.

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¹ tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

² tn Heb “which we passed over in it”; the pronoun on the preposition serves as a resumptive pronoun for the relative, and need not be translated literally.

³ tn The verb is the feminine singular participle from אָכַל (’akhal); it modifies the land as a “devouring land,” a bold figure for the difficulty of living in the place.

⁴ sn The expression has been interpreted in a number of ways by commentators, such as that the land was infertile, that the Canaanites were cannibals, that it was a land filled with warlike dissensions, or that it denotes a land geared for battle. It may be that they intended the land to seem infertile and insecure.

⁵ tn Heb “in its midst.”

⁶ tn The singular participle is to be taken here as a collective, representing all the inhabitants of the land.

⁷ tn “Face to face” is literally “eye to eye.” It only occurs elsewhere in Isa 52:8. This expresses the closest communication possible.