Bilangan 13:27--14:4

13:27 They told Moses, ¹  “We went to the land where you sent us. ²  It is indeed flowing with milk and honey, ³  and this is its fruit. 13:28 But ⁴  the inhabitants ⁵  are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large. Moreover we saw the descendants of Anak there. 13:29 The Amalekites live in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the banks ⁶  of the Jordan.” ⁷ 

13:30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses, saying, “Let us go up ⁸  and occupy it, ⁹  for we are well able to conquer it.” ¹⁰  13:31 But the men ¹¹  who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against these people, because they are stronger than we are!” 13:32 Then they presented the Israelites with a discouraging ¹²  report of the land they had investigated, saying, “The land that we passed through ¹³  to investigate is a land that devours ¹⁴  its inhabitants. ¹⁵  All the people we saw there ¹⁶  are of great stature. 13:33 We even saw the Nephilim ¹⁷  there (the descendants of Anak came from the Nephilim), and we seemed liked grasshoppers both to ourselves ¹⁸  and to them.” ¹⁹ 

The Israelites Respond in Unbelief

14:1 ²⁰ Then all the community raised a loud cry, ²¹  and the people wept ²²  that night. 14:2 And all the Israelites murmured ²³  against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died ²⁴  in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished ²⁵  in this wilderness! 14:3 Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn’t it be better for us to return to Egypt?” 14:4 So they said to one another, ²⁶  “Let’s appoint ²⁷  a leader ²⁸  and return ²⁹  to Egypt.”

[13:27]  ¹ tn Heb “told him and said.” The referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[13:27]  ² tn The relative clause modifies “the land.” It is constructed with the relative and the verb: “where you sent us.”

[13:27]  ³ sn This is the common expression for the material abundance of the land (see further, F. C. Fensham, “An Ancient Tradition of the Fertility of Palestine,” PEQ 98 [1966]: 166-67).

[13:28]  ⁴ tn The word (אֶפֶס, ’efes) forms a very strong adversative. The land was indeed rich and fruitful, but….”

[13:28]  ⁵ tn Heb “the people who are living in the land.”

[13:29]  ⁶ tn Heb “by the side [hand] of.”

[13:29]  ⁷ sn For more discussion on these people groups, see D. J. Wiseman, ed., Peoples of Old Testament Times.

[13:30]  ⁸ tn The construction is emphatic, using the cohortative with the infinitive absolute to strengthen it: עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה (’aloh na’aleh, “let us go up”) with the sense of certainty and immediacy.

[13:30]  ⁹ tn The perfect tense with vav (ו) consecutive brings the cohortative idea forward: “and let us possess it”; it may also be subordinated to form a purpose or result idea.

[13:30]  ¹⁰ tn Here again the confidence of Caleb is expressed with the infinitive absolute and the imperfect tense: יָכוֹל נוּכַל (yakhol nukhal), “we are fully able” to do this. The verb יָכַל (yakhal) followed by the preposition lamed means “to prevail over, to conquer.”

[13:31]  ¹¹ tn The vav (ו) disjunctive on the noun at the beginning of the clause forms a strong adversative clause here.

[13:32]  ¹² tn Or “an evil report,” i.e., one that was a defamation of the grace of God.

[13:32]  ¹³ tn Heb “which we passed over in it”; the pronoun on the preposition serves as a resumptive pronoun for the relative, and need not be translated literally.

[13:32]  ¹⁴ tn The verb is the feminine singular participle from אָכַל (’akhal); it modifies the land as a “devouring land,” a bold figure for the difficulty of living in the place.

[13:32]  ¹⁵ sn The expression has been interpreted in a number of ways by commentators, such as that the land was infertile, that the Canaanites were cannibals, that it was a land filled with warlike dissensions, or that it denotes a land geared for battle. It may be that they intended the land to seem infertile and insecure.

[13:32]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “in its midst.”

[13:33]  ¹⁷ tc The Greek version uses gigantes (“giants”) to translate “the Nephilim,” but it does not retain the clause “the sons of Anak are from the Nephilim.”

[13:33]  sn The Nephilim are the legendary giants of antiquity. They are first discussed in Gen 6:4. This forms part of the pessimism of the spies’ report.

[13:33]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “in our eyes.”

[13:33]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “in their eyes.”

[14:1]  ²⁰ sn This chapter forms part of the story already begun. There are three major sections here: dissatisfaction with the reports (vv. 1-10), the threat of divine punishment (vv. 11-38), and the defeat of the Israelites (vv. 39-45). See K. D. Sakenfeld, “The Problem of Divine Forgiveness in Num 14,” CBQ 37 (1975): 317-30; also J. R. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word רֹאשׁ as a Title in the Old Testament,” VT 19 (1969): 1-10.

[14:1]  ²¹ tn The two verbs “lifted up their voice and cried” form a hendiadys; the idiom of raising the voice means that they cried aloud.

[14:1]  ²² tn There are a number of things that the verb “to weep” or “wail” can connote. It could reflect joy, grief, lamentation, or repentance, but here it reflects fear, hopelessness, or vexation at the thought of coming all this way and being defeated by the Canaanite armies. See Judg 20:23, 26.

[14:2]  ²³ tn The Hebrew verb “to murmur” is לוּן (lun). It is a strong word, signifying far more than complaining or grumbling, as some of the modern translations have it. The word is most often connected to the wilderness experience. It is paralleled in the literature with the word “to rebel.” The murmuring is like a parliamentary vote of no confidence, for they no longer trusted their leaders and wished to choose a new leader and return. This “return to Egypt” becomes a symbol of their lack of faith in the Lord.

[14:2]  ²⁴ tn The optative is expressed by לוּ (lu) and then the verb, here the perfect tense מַתְנוּ (matnu) – “O that we had died….” Had they wanted to die in Egypt they should not have cried out to the Lord to deliver them from bondage. Here the people became consumed with the fear and worry of what lay ahead, and in their panic they revealed a lack of trust in God.

[14:2]  ²⁵ tn Heb “died.”

[14:4]  ²⁶ tn Heb “a man to his brother.”

[14:4]  ²⁷ tn The verb is נָתַן (natan, “to give”), but this verb has quite a wide range of meanings in the Bible. Here it must mean “to make,” “to choose,” “to designate” or the like.

[14:4]  ²⁸ tn The word “head” (רֹאשׁ, ro’sh) probably refers to a tribal chief who was capable to judge and to lead to war (see J. R. Bartlett, “The Use of the Word רֹאשׁ as a Title in the Old Testament,” VT 19 [1969]: 1-10).

[14:4]  ²⁹ tn The form is a cohortative with a vav (ו) prefixed. After the preceding cohortative this could also be interpreted as a purpose or result clause – in order that we may return.