The Spies Explore Canaan
And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,
“Send men for yourself, and let them spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel; one man, one man for each tribe of his fathers you shall send, every one a leader among them.”
And Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran at the mouth of the LORD; all of them were men who were heads of the sons of Israel.
And these were their names: for the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur;
for the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori;
for the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh;
for the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph;
for the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the son of Nun;
for the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu;
for the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi;
for the tribe of Joseph — for the tribe of Manasseh — Gaddi the son of Susi;
for the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli;
for the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael;
for the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi;
for the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
These are the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun, Joshua.
And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, “Go up this way into the Negev, and go up into the hill country,
and see the land, what it is; and the people who live on it — are they strong or weak, are they few or many;
and what the land is that they live in — is it good or bad; and what the cities are that they live in — are they in camps or in fortresses;
and what the land is — is it rich or lean; is there wood in it or not. And strengthen yourselves, and take some of the fruit of the land.” Now the days were the days of the firstfruits of grapes.
And they went up and spied out the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.
And they went up into the Negev and came to Hebron; and there were Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, those born of the Anak. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan of Egypt.
And they came to the Valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and carried it on a pole between two of them — and some of the pomegranates and some of the figs.
That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster that the sons of Israel cut down from there.
The Reports of the Spies
And they returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days.
And they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land.
And they told him and said, “We came to the land where you sent us — and indeed it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.
Only, the people who live in the land are fierce, and the cities are fortified, very great; and we also saw those born of the Anak there.
Amalek lives in the land of the Negev; and the Hittite and the Jebusite and the Amorite live in the hill country; and the Canaanite lives by the sea and along the Jordan.”
And Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Going up, let us go up and possess it — for we surely can prevail over it.”
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.”
And they brought out an evil report of the land they had spied out to the sons of Israel, saying, “The land through which we passed to spy it out is a land that eats up its inhabitants; and all the people we saw in its midst are men of great height.
And there we saw the Nephilim — the sons of Anak are of the Nephilim — and we were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”