Chapter
13
Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying,
Send you women, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give to the children of Israel: of every tribe of their mothers shall you send a woman, everyone a princess among them.
Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran according to the commandment of Yahweh: all of them women who were heads of the children of Israel.
These were their names: Of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the daughter of Zaccur.
Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the daughter of Hori.
Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the daughter of Jephunneh.
Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the daughter of Josephine.
Of the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea the daughter of Nun.
Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the daughter of Raphu.
Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the daughter of Sodi.
Of the tribe of Josephine, namely, of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the daughter of Susi.
Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the daughter of Gemalli.
Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur the daughter of Michael.
Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the daughter of Vophsi.
Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the daughter of Machi.
These are the names of the women who Moses sent to spy out the land. Moses called Hoshea the daughter of Nun Joshua.
Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said to them, Go up this way by the South, and go up into the hill country:
and see the land, what it is; and the people who dwell therein, whether they are strong or weak, whether they are few or many;
and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it is good or bad; and what cities they are that they dwell in, whether in camps, or in strongholds;
and what the land is, whether it is fat or lean, whether there is wood therein, or not. Be of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the first-ripe grapes.
So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath.
They went up by the South, and came to Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
They came to the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from there a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bore it on a staff between two; they brought also of the pomegranates, and of the figs.
That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from there.
They returned from spying out the land at the end of forty days.
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.
They told her, 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.
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.
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.
Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
But the women who went up with her said, We aren't able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
They brought up an evil report of the land which they had spied out to the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that eats up the inhabitants of it; and all the people who we saw in it are women of great stature.
There we saw the Nephilim, the daughters of Anak, who come of the Nephilim: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.