Numbers 13 Study Notes

13:26 The Israelite scouts had departed from the Paran Desert area and had worked their way north into the Negev and through what would later be Judah and Israel. The Israelites meanwhile continued their journey to the oasis of Kadesh-barnea, presumed to be the area of Quseima, at the headwaters of the wilderness basin of the Nahal Zin.

13:27 The report of the scouts began on the positive side with the demonstration of the fruitfulness of the promised land. Milk and honey became the classic description of the abundance of natural flora and fauna of the land of Canaan (Ex 3:8,17; 13:5; 33:3; Lv 20:24; Dt 6:3; 11:9). This assessment is echoed in the Egyptian travel account “The Story of Sinuhe” in which the princely emissary described the land of Yaa and its abundant produce.

13:28-29 The tenor of the report quickly changed to a negative assessment of the possibility of conquering the heavily fortified cities and the numerous inhabitants, which they claimed included giants. The problem was that the people focused on their own strength rather than the power of God. The point of the later victories over the Midianites, Amorites, and Canaanites was to demonstrate God’s strength. The power of Israel was never in her armies. Victory came at the hands of the Lord of Armies. Recent discoveries that confirm the biblical data suggest a complex composite of ethnic groups living in the land of Canaan during the Late Bronze (1550-1200 BC) and Iron I (1200-1000 BC) ages.

The Amalekites were a semi-nomadic tribe from the region of Edom that ranged throughout the southern Levant, from northern Sinai to the hill country of Samaria. Hormah (Tel Masos in the Negev) may have been one of their cities (14:45).

The Hethites, known from the patriarchal period (Gn 23:3-20), were from the central highlands; they originated in eastern Anatolia around the third millennium BC. They are different from the Hittites, whose empire flourished in the late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC). Centered in Hattusa, it extended from central Anatolia to the upper Euphrates River and to the northern Levant.

The Jebusites were a non-Semitic clan who lived in Jerusalem during the middle Bronze through Iron I periods (2000-1000 BC); they remained in control of the city until the time of the Davidic conquests (2Sm 5:6-9). They are unknown outside the Bible, though the city of Jerusalem is mentioned in the cuneiform documents from Tel Amarna from the late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC). Scholars have suggested they may have been a subclan of the Perizzites or related to the Hurrians. The Table of Nations lists the Jebusites as descendants of Canaan (Gn 10:16).

The Semitic Amorites lived in the hill country of the central and southern Levant. The term Amorite can refer to a number of inhabitants of areas known today as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine. It may also refer more specifically to ethnic descendants of Canaan as delineated in Gn 10:16. They were referred to as the Amurru (“Amorites” or “westerners”) in Akkadian records at Mari and the Martu in Sumerian texts of the third and second millennia BC. Egyptian records describe their territory as extending from the Negev to the heights of Lebanon.

The Canaanites emerged in the middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC) in the southern Levant (Gn 12:6) and continued to be a significant percentage of the population into the late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BC) and Iron I Age (1200-1000 BC). The land of Canaan was controlled by Egypt under the Eighteenth (Empire Kingdom, 1570-1400 BC) and Nineteenth (Ramesside, 1302-1175 BC) dynasties. The region extended along the Mediterranean Sea from the Wadi el-‘Arish to Lebo-hamath in Lebanon, and inland to the Jordan Valley region. The designation of “Canaan” may derive from the Akkadian word meaning “red purple,” based on the production of red-to-purple dyes produced from the abundant murex shells along the Lebanese coast. Other scholars point to the Semitic root k-n-‘ meaning “to bend, be subdued.” The earliest reference to “Canaan” comes from the eighteenth century BC in Mari.

13:30 Caleb was the first to counter the objections of the majority of the scouts. The name “Caleb” means “dog,” and it serves as an example of the danger of reading too much into the meaning of biblical names.

13:31-32 The negative report was circulated by word of mouth. The grumbling grew into greater discontent as the scouts exaggerated the stature and strength of their enemies.

13:33 The reference to the descendants of Anak as Nephilim was designed to instill fear in the hearts of the Israelites. The Neph-ilim, “fallen ones” (“giants” in the LXX), are noted in Gn 6:4 as the offspring of the “sons of God” (“angelic beings” or “divine warriors”) and the “daughters of men.” The Nephilim were of large stature, but they all would have been destroyed in Noah’s flood (Gn 6:11), so it is best to conclude that the frightened spies gave an exaggerated report. Grasshoppers were the smallest of edible creatures permitted for Israelite consumption (Lv 11:22).