Numbers 13:17

The Spies’ Instructions

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

Numbers 13:21

The Spies’ Activities

13:21 So they went up and investigated the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at the entrance of Hamath.


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

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.”

sn Zin is on the southern edge of the land, but Rehob is far north, near Mount Hermon. The spies covered all the land.

tn The idiom uses the infinitive construct: “to enter Hamath,” meaning, “on the way that people go to Hamath.”