Numbers 13:27

27 Then they told the story of their trip:

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.


FOOTNOTES:

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

Numbers 13:27 In-Context

25 After forty days of scouting out the land, they returned home.
26 They presented themselves before Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the People of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They reported to the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.
27 Then they told the story of their trip:
28 The only thing is that the people who live there are fierce, their cities are huge and well fortified. Worse yet, we saw descendants of the giant Anak.
29 Amalekites are spread out in the Negev; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites hold the hill country; and the Canaanites are established on the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan."
Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.