translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: NUM

label: NET study note

text: Chapter provides the names of the spies sent into the land (vv. 1-16 ), their instructions (vv. 17-20 ), their activities (vv. 21-25 ), and their reports (vv. 26-33 ). It is a chapter that serves as a good lesson on faith, for some of the spies walked by faith, and some by sight.


text: The difference in the names is slight, a change from “he saves” to “the Lord saves.” The Greek text of the OT used Iesoun for Hebrew Yeshua .


text: The reference to the first ripe grapes would put the time somewhere at the end of July.


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


text: 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.


text: 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 ).


text: Kadesh is Ain Qadeis, about 50 miles (83 km) south of Beer Sheba. It is called Kadesh-barnea in Num 32:8 .


text: This is the common expression for the material abundance of the land (see further, F. C. Fensham, “An Ancient Tradition of the Fertility of Palestine,” PEQ 98 [1966]: 166-67).


text: For more discussion on these people groups, see D. J. Wiseman, ed., Peoples of Old Testament Times .


text: 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.