Discovery BoxNumbers 13:17 
Context13:17 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 13:22
Context13:22 When they went up through the Negev, they 3 came 4 to Hebron where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, 5 descendants of Anak, were living. (Now Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan 6 in Egypt.)
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 tc The MT has the singular, but the ancient versions and Smr have the plural.
4 tn The preterite with vav (ו) consecutive is here subordinated to the following clause. The first verse gave the account of their journey over the whole land; this section focuses on what happened in the area of Hebron, which would be the basis for the false report.
5 sn These names are thought to be three clans that were in the Hebron area (see Josh 15:14; Judg 1:20). To call them descendants of Anak is usually taken to mean that they were large or tall people (2 Sam 21:18-22). They were ultimately driven out by Caleb.
6 sn The text now provides a brief historical aside for the readers. Zoan was probably the city of Tanis, although that is disputed today by some scholars. It was known in Egypt in the New Kingdom as “the fields of Tanis,” which corresponded to the “fields of Zoar” in the Hebrew Bible (Ps 78:12, 43).
