The Twelve Sent to Scout the Land
1Yahweh spoke to Moses. He said, 2“Send men to scout out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. Send one man from each of their ancestral tribes, each one a leader among them.” 3So at Yahweh’s command Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran; all of them were leading men among the Israelites. 4These were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; 5from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; 6from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; 7from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; 8from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun; 9from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; 10from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; 11from the tribe of Joseph — that is, from the tribe of Manasseh — Gaddi son of Susi; 12from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; 13from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; 14from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi; 15from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi. 16These are the names of the men Moses sent to scout out the land. And Moses renamed Hoshea son of Nun, Joshua.
Moses’ Instructions to the Scouts
17Moses sent them to scout out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up through the Negev, and on into the hill country. 18See what the land is like, and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19See what kind of land they live in — is it good or bad? And what of the towns they live in — are they unwalled camps or fortified strongholds? 20See whether the land is rich or poor, whether there are trees in it or not. And be courageous, and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” Now it was the season of the first ripe grapes.
The Scouting of Canaan
21So they went up and scouted out the land, from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath. 22They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were living. (Hebron had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23They came to the Valley of Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which two of them carried on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs. 24That place was named the Valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster the Israelites cut down there. 25At the end of forty days they returned from scouting out the land.
The Report at Kadesh
26They went and came to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of the Israelites, in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh. They brought back word to them and to the whole congregation, and showed them the fruit of the land. 27They told him, “We came to the land where you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit. 28Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large. We also saw the descendants of Anak there. 29Amalek lives in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.” 30Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession of it, for we are well able to overcome it.” 31But 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 are.” 32So they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had scouted, saying, “The land we passed through to scout out devours those who live in it, and all the people we saw there are men of great size. 33There we saw the Nephilim — the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim — and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
