Numbers · 33 verses
Numbers 13
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A single cluster of grapes gives a valley its name, while the same expedition returns with two entirely different verdicts about the land: milk and honey on one side, devouring and grasshoppers on the other.
The men sent outvv. 1–16
The LORD tells Moses to send a leader from each tribe to spy out Canaan, and Moses sends twelve men from the Wilderness of Paran. Their names are carefully recited, as though the adventure might be kept orderly by a list. Hoshea son of Nun is among them, and Moses gives him the name Joshua.
The land and its rather substantial grapevv. 17–24
Moses sends the men through the Negeb and into the hill country to inspect the soil, the trees, the cities, and the people. They travel from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, reach Hebron, and find the descendants of Anak there. At the Valley of Eshcol they cut one branch bearing one cluster of grapes, which two men carry between them on a pole; pomegranates and figs come along as supporting evidence. The cluster then lends its name to the valley, a charmingly specific act of cartography.
Two reports, one congregationvv. 25–33
After forty days the men return to Moses, Aaron, and Israel at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran, carrying the fruit and their report. The land is indeed flowing with milk and honey, but its people are strong, its cities fortified, and the descendants of Anak are there. Caleb quiets the people and says the land can be taken. The others answer that its people are stronger, then enlarge the danger until the land devours its inhabitants and the spies themselves seem like grasshoppers—a report with a fine harvest of alarm.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Num 13:2“Send out for yourself men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each of their fathers’ tribes send one man who is a leader among them.”
Num 13:3So at the command of the LORD, Moses sent them out from the Wilderness of Paran. All the men were leaders of the Israelites,
Num 13:4and these were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur;
Num 13:11from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi;
Num 13:16These were the names of the men Moses sent to spy out the land; and Moses gave to Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua.
Num 13:17When Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, he told them, “Go up through the Negev and into the hill country.
Num 13:18See what the land is like and whether its people are strong or weak, few or many.
Num 13:19Is the land where they live good or bad? Are the cities where they dwell open camps or fortifications?
Num 13:20Is the soil fertile or unproductive? Are there trees in it or not? Be courageous and bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)
Num 13:21So they went up and spied out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo-hamath.
Num 13:22They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, dwelled. It had been built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.
Num 13:23When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which they carried on a pole between two men. They also took some pomegranates and figs.
Num 13:24Because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut there, that place was called the Valley of Eshcol.
Num 13:25After forty days the men returned from spying out the land,
Num 13:26and they went back to Moses, Aaron, and the whole congregation of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back a report for the whole congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.
Num 13:27And they gave this account to Moses: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it is flowing with milk and honey. Here is some of its fruit!
Num 13:28Nevertheless, the people living in the land are strong, and the cities are large and fortified. We even saw the descendants of Anak there.
Num 13:29The 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 Jordan.”
Num 13:30Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly conquer it!”
Num 13:31But the men who had gone up with him replied, “We cannot go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are!”
Num 13:32So they gave the Israelites a bad report about the land that they had spied out: “The land we explored devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw there are great in stature.
Num 13:33We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak that come from the Nephilim! We seemed like grasshoppers in our own sight, and we must have seemed the same to them!”
01 — Also here
Who else the chapter reaches
Names written in the English are linked in the text above. These are the ones that are not: an entity the Hebrew or Greek names under a spelling the translation does not use, or one reached only by an assertion about a verse of this chapter.
Named in the Hebrew or Greek somewhere in this chapter, under a form the English renders differently — the registry's Ludim against the translation's Ludites — so there is no word in the sentence to hang the link on.
Reached by an assertion Atlas extracted from a verse of this chapter rather than by a name written in it — a pronoun, a title, or a participant the sentence carries without naming. This layer is model-read and measured at 88.6–90.3% precision, and it is kept separate from the names above for that reason.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 194 passages were voted onto 20 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 30Numbers 14:24But because My servant Caleb has a different spirit and has followed Me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he has entered, and his descendants will inherit it.
- 33Deuteronomy 1:28Where can we go? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying: ‘The people are larger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the heavens. We even saw the descendants of the Anakim there.’”
- 30Philippians 4:13I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
- 30Romans 8:31What then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
- 2Deuteronomy 1:22–25Then all of you approached me and said, “Let us send men ahead of us to search out the land and bring us word of what route to follow and which cities to enter.”
- 27Exodus 3:8I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
- 30Psalms 60:12With God we will perform with valor, and He will trample our enemies.
- 30Numbers 14:6–9Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes
- 31Joshua 14:8Although my brothers who went with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear, I remained loyal to the LORD my God.
- 33Genesis 6:4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and afterward as well—when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men. And they bore them children who became the mighty men of old, men of renown.
- 27Exodus 13:5And when the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites—the land He swore to your fathers that He would give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you shall keep this service in this month.
- 27Exodus 3:17And I have promised to bring you up out of your affliction in Egypt, into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’
- 28Deuteronomy 9:1–2Hear, O Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens.
- 31Hebrews 3:19So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.
- 32Amos 2:9Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, though his height was like that of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks. Yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots below.
- 33Isaiah 40:22He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth; its dwellers are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in.
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