Numbers 13:27

27 They told him, and said, We came to the land where you sent us; and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.

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 They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days.
26 They went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, to the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word to them, and to all the congregation, and shown them the fruit of the land.
27 They told him, and said, We came to the land where you sent us; and surely it flows with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.
28 However the people who dwell in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified, [and] very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.
29 Amalek dwells in the land of the South: and the Hittite, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, dwell in the hill-country; and the Canaanite dwells by the sea, and along by the side of the Jordan.
The World English Bible is in the public domain.