Matthew Henry on Numbers 13:1-20
Here we have, I. Orders given to send spies to search out the land of Canaan. It is here said, God directed Moses to send them (Num 13:1, Num 13:2), but it appears by the repetition of the story afterwards (Deu 1:22) that the motion came originally from the people; they came to Moses, and said, We will send men before us; and it was the fruit of their unbelief. They would not take God's word that it was a good land, and that he would, without fail, put them in possession of it. They could not trust the pillar of cloud and fire to show them the way to it, but had a better opinion of their own politics than of God's wisdom. How absurd was it for them to send to spy out a land which God himself…
Read the whole note in the consoleJamieson-Fausset-Brown on Numbers 13:17
Get you up this way . . . , and go up into the mountain--Mount Seir (Deu 1:2), which lay directly from Sinai across the wilderness of Paran, in a northeasterly direction into the southern parts of the promised land.
John Gill on Numbers 13:19
And what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad,.... Whether the air is good, the climate temperate, and the earth well watered, and has good convenience of springs, fountains, and rivers, and so wholesome or healthful; or otherwise, which is the first thing they were directed to observe, though here put in the second place:
and what cities they be they dwell in, whether in tents or strong holds; whether in tents, as the Israelites now lived, and as the Kedarenes, as Aben Ezra notes, and other Arabians, who encamped in tents, or who dwelt in villages, and unwalled towns, unfortified cities, according to the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan; or whether in fortified cities,…
Read the whole note in the consoleJohn Calvin on Numbers 13:1–end
Numbers 13:1-33
1. And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying,
1. Et loquutus est Jehova ad Mosen, dicendo:
2. Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them.
2. Mitte tibi viros qui explorent terram Chanaan, quam ego daturus sum filiis Israel, singulos viros de singulis tribubus patrum suorum mittetis, unumquenque principem inter eos.
3 And Moses, by the commandment of the Lord, sent them from the wilderness of Paran: all those men were heads of the children of Israel.
3. Misit ergo illos Moses e deserto Paran, juxta sermonem Jehovae: et universi ipsi viri p…
