The Spies

So Moses sent them out from the wilderness of Paran, as the Lord had commanded. All of them were leaders of the Israelites.

There were twelve of them, one from each tribe. Caleb the son of Jephunneh was the one from the tribe of Judah, and Hoshea the son of Nun was the one from the tribe of Ephraim.

These were the men Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses gave Hoshea the son of Nun a new name: Joshua.

“Is the land they live in good or bad? Do they live in camps, or in cities with strong walls? Is the soil rich or poor? Does it have trees, or not? Be brave, and bring back some of the land’s fruit.” It was the time of year when the first grapes were ripe.

They went up through the South and came to Hebron. There they found three of Anak’s descendants: Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai. Hebron was built seven years before the city of Zoan in Egypt.

They came to the valley of Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes on it. Two of them carried it between them on a pole. They also brought some of the pomegranates and figs.

That place was called the valley of Eshcol because of the cluster the Israelites cut down there. The name means “cluster”.

At the end of forty days, they came back from spying out the land.

This is what they told Moses: “We went into the land you sent us to. It really does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. But the people living there are strong, and their cities are walled and huge. We saw Anak’s descendants there, too.

“The Amalekites live in the land of the South. The Hittites, the Jebusites and the Amorites live up in the hills. The Canaanites live beside the sea, and along the side of the Jordan.”

Caleb quieted the people in front of Moses. “Let’s go up at once and take it,” he said. “We can do it!”

But the men who went up with him said, “We can’t go up against those people. They’re stronger than we are.”

They brought the Israelites a bad report of the land they had spied out. “The land we went through as spies is a land that eats up the people who live in it,” they said. “All the people we saw there are very tall. We saw the Nephilim there, Anak’s sons, who come from the Nephilim. We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and we looked the same to them.”

The Israelites all complained against Moses and Aaron. “We wish we had died in the land of Egypt, or in this wilderness!” the whole community told them. “Why is the Lord bringing us to this land to be killed by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will be captured or killed! Wouldn’t we be better off going back to Egypt?”

They said to one another, “Let’s choose a leader, and let’s go back to Egypt.”

Then Moses and Aaron fell face down in front of the whole assembly of the Israelites.

Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh were two of the men who had spied out the land. They tore their clothes, the way people did in grief. Then they said to the whole community of the Israelites, “The land we went through as spies is an extremely good land.

“If the Lord delights in us, he will lead us into this land, the land that flows with milk and honey, and make it ours. But don’t rebel against the Lord. And don’t fear the people who live in the land. We’ll beat them as easily as we eat bread. What protected them has been taken away, and the Lord is with us. Don’t fear them.”

But the whole community threatened to kill them with stones. Then the Lord’s glory appeared in the Tent of Meeting, and all the Israelites saw it.

“Then the Egyptians will hear about it,” Moses said to the Lord. “It was your power that brought these people out from among them. They will tell the people who live in this land about it. They’ve heard that you, Lord, are among these people, because you, Lord, are seen face to face. Your cloud stands over them. By day you go ahead of them in a pillar of cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire.

“Now if you kill all these people at once, the nations that have heard about you will say, ‘The Lord couldn’t bring these people into the land he swore he would give them. That’s why he killed them in the wilderness.’

“So now, please, let the Lord’s power be great, just as you have said: ‘The Lord is slow to anger, and rich in loving kindness, forgiving wrongdoing and disobedience. And he will never treat the guilty as innocent, bringing the sin of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.’

“Your loving kindness is great, so please pardon the wrongdoing of these people, just as you have forgiven them all the way from Egypt until now.”

“But my servant Caleb had a different spirit in him, and he has followed me fully. So I will lead him into the land he went to see. His offspring will have it as their own.

“Since the Amalekites and the Canaanites live in the valley, tomorrow turn around and set out into the wilderness, by the road to the Red Sea.”

He told them to say to the people, “As I live, says the Lord, I heard what you said, and that is just what I will do to you. Your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all of you twenty years old and over who were counted when the people were counted and who have complained against me. None of you will come into the land I swore would be your home, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.

“But I will bring in your little ones, the ones you said would be captured or killed. They will know the land you have rejected. As for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. Your children will roam the wilderness for forty years. They will carry the weight of your unfaithfulness until all of you have died in the wilderness.

“You spent forty days spying out the land. For each of those days you will carry the guilt of your wrongdoing for a year, forty years in all. And you will know that I have turned away from you.”

“I, the Lord, have spoken,” he said. “I will certainly do this to the whole evil community that has gathered together against me. They will come to an end in this wilderness. They will die here.”

The men Moses had sent to spy out the land had come back with a bad report about it. Their report made the whole community complain against Moses. Those men, the ones who brought the bad report, died of a plague in the Lord’s presence.

But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh stayed alive. They were the only two left of the men who went to spy out the land.

Early in the morning they got up and went up to the top of the mountain. “Here we are,” they said. “We will go up to the place the Lord promised. We have sinned.”

Moses said, “Why are you disobeying the Lord’s command now? It won’t work. Don’t go up, or your enemies will strike you down. The Lord isn’t among you. The Amalekites and the Canaanites are there ahead of you, and you will be killed by the sword, because you turned back from following the Lord. So the Lord won’t be with you.”

But they dared to go up to the top of the mountain anyway, though Moses and the ark of the Lord’s covenant didn’t leave the camp.

Then the Amalekites came down, with the Canaanites who lived on that mountain. They attacked the Israelites and crushed them all the way to Hormah.