Aaron and Miriam Jealous of Moses

12 While they were at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman),^{(A) 2} and they said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the Lord heard it.^{(B) 3} Now the man Moses was very humble, more so than anyone else on the face of the earth.^{(C) 4} Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” So the three of them came out. ⁵ Then the Lord came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward.^{(D) 6} And he said, “Hear my words:

“Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”^{(G) 9} And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them, and he departed.

¹⁰ When the cloud went away from over the tent, Miriam’s skin had become diseased, as white as snow. And Aaron turned toward Miriam and saw that she was diseased.^{(H) 11} Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, do not punish us^[a] for a sin that we have so foolishly committed.^{(I) 12} Do not let her be like one stillborn, whose flesh is half consumed when it comes out of its mother’s womb.” ¹³ And Moses cried to the Lord, saying, “O God, please heal her.” ¹⁴ But the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp for seven days, and after that she may be brought in again.”^{(J) 15} So Miriam was shut out of the camp for seven days, and the people did not set out on the march until Miriam had been brought in again. ¹⁶ After that the people set out from Hazeroth and camped in the wilderness of Paran.

Spies Sent into Canaan

13 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ² “Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites; from each of their ancestral tribes you shall send a man, every one a leader among them.”^{(K) 3} So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them leading men among the Israelites. ⁴ These were their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur; ⁵ from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; ⁶ from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; ⁷ from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; ⁸ from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun;^{(L) 9} from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; ¹⁰ from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; ¹¹ from the tribe of Joseph (that is, from the tribe of Manasseh), Gaddi son of Susi; ¹² from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; ¹³ from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; ¹⁴ from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vophsi; ¹⁵ from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Machi. ¹⁶ These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses changed the name of Hoshea son of Nun to Joshua.^(M)

¹⁷ Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, “Go up there into the Negeb, and go up into the hill country,^{(N) 18} and see what the land is like and whether the people who live in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, ¹⁹ and whether the land they live in is good or bad, and whether the towns that they live in are unwalled or fortified, ²⁰ and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be bold, and bring some of the fruit of the land.” Now it was the season of the first ripe grapes.^(O)

²¹ So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. ²² They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron, and Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites, were there. (Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)^{(P) 23} And they came to the Wadi Eshcol and cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them. They also brought some pomegranates and figs. ²⁴ That place was called the Wadi Eshcol^[b] because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down from there.

The Report of the Spies

²⁵ At the end of forty days they returned from spying out the land. ²⁶ And they came to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the Israelites in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.^{(Q) 27} And they reported to him and said, “We came to the land to which you sent us; it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.^{(R) 28} Yet the people who live in the land are strong, and the towns are fortified and very large, and besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there.^{(S) 29} The Amalekites live in the land of the Negeb; the Hittites, the Jebusites, and the Amorites live in the hill country, and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.”^(T)

³⁰ But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.”^{(U) 31} Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we.”^{(V) 32} So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great size.^{(W) 33} There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim), and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”^(X)