Discovery BoxNumbers 13:32 
Context13:32 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 32:33
Context32:33 So Moses gave to the Gadites, the Reubenites, and to half the tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph the realm of King Sihon of the Amorites, and the realm of King Og of Bashan, the entire land with its cities and the territory surrounding them. 6
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 Heb “the land with its cities in the borders of the cities of the land all around.”
