Numbers 13:27

27 and they told, and said (and they spoke to Moses, and said), We came to the land, to which thou sentest us, which land truly floweth with milk and honey, as it may be known by these fruits;

Numbers 13:27 Meaning and Commentary

Numbers 13:27

And they told him
Moses, who was the chief ruler whom they addressed, and to whom they directed their speech:

and said, we came unto the land whither thou sentest us;
the land of Canaan, which they were sent by Moses to spy; this was said by ten of them or by one of them as their mouth; for Caleb and Joshua did not join with them in the following account, as appears from ( Numbers 13:30 ) ;

and surely it floweth with milk and honey;
they own that the land answered to the description which the Lord had given of it when it was promised them by him, ( Exodus 3:8 ) ;

and this [is] the fruit of it;
pointing to the bunch of grapes, the pomegranates and figs; not that these were a proof of its flowing with milk and honey, at least in a literal sense, but of the goodness and fruitfulness of the land: though the luxury of Bacchus, the god of wine, is by the poet ^F13 described, not only by a fountain of wine, but by rivers of milk and flows of honey.

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FOOTNOTES:

F13 "Vinique fontem" Horat. Carmin. l. 2. Ode 19.

Numbers 13:27 In-Context

25 And the spyers of the land [turned again], when they had compassed all the country(side), after forty days (And the spies returned, when they had gone about all the countryside, yea, after forty days)

26 they came to Moses and Aaron, and to all the company of the sons of Israel, into the desert of Paran, which is in Kadesh. And the spyers spake to them, and showed the fruits of the land to all the multitude, (they came back to Moses and Aaron, and to all the company of the Israelites, at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. And the spies spoke to them, and to all the multitude, and showed them the fruits of the land,)

27 and they told, and said (and they spoke to Moses, and said), We came to the land, to which thou sentest us, which land truly floweth with milk and honey, as it may be known by these fruits;

28 but it hath most strong dwellers, and great cities, and walled (but it hath very strong inhabitants, and great walled cities); we saw there the kindred of (the) Anakim, that is, (of the) giants;

29 Amalek dwelleth there in the south; Hittites, and Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the hilly places; forsooth Canaanites dwell beside the sea, and beside the floods of Jordan. (and the Amalekites live there in the south; and the Hittites, and Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the Mediterranean Sea, and along the Jordan River.)