The Lord tells Moses to choose twelve men to send on a reconnaissance mission into the land of Canaan---the land which the Lord promised to give to Abraham's descendants. This mission is being used as part of the preparation for planning how to take the territory the Lord is giving to Israel. Remember, though He's promised on oath to provide this land to the nation of Israel, Israel must participate in its acquisition. It's human nature to want to protect and defend those things for which we have worked and fought. The things that take more effort for us to acquire are the things we tend to put more effort into keeping. It will feel more like their land if the Israelites participate in attaining it.
"The Lord said to Moses, 'Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.'" (Numbers 13:1-2) In Deuteronomy 1 we'll be told that it was the people's idea for Moses to send men to spy on Canaan. This may mean that Moses' conversation with the Lord in verses 1 and 2 took place after the people came to Moses with their suggestion. Perhaps the people brought their idea to Moses and then he went into the presence of the Lord to inquire whether this was the best course of action, at which time the Lord told him to choose twelve men to send to Canaan. Some Bible scholars have proposed the theory that Moses was out of the will of God by sending the twelve men to Canaan; they believe Moses was being led by the will of the people instead. I disagree, based on our text. It appears to me that Moses is obeying the Lord's instructions, for we'll be told in the next verse that the reconnaissance party was sent out "at the Lord's command".
"So at the Lord's command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites. These are their names: from the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zakkur; from the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat son of Hori; from the tribe of Judah, Caleb son of Jephunneh; from the tribe of Issachar, Igal son of Joseph; from the tribe of Ephraim, Hoshea son of Nun; from the tribe of Benjamin, Palti son of Raphu; from the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel son of Sodi; from the tribe of Manasseh (a tribe of Joseph), Gaddi son of Susi; from the tribe of Dan, Ammiel son of Gemalli; from the tribe of Asher, Sethur son of Michael; from the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi son of Vopsi; from the tribe of Gad, Geuel son of Maki." (Numbers 13:3-15) No one is sent from the tribe of Levi but there are still twelve men sent, for Jacob adopted his two grandsons by Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) as his own sons, and a man is sent from the descendants of Ephraim and a man is sent from the descendants of Manasseh. This keeps the number at twelve even though the Levites are excluded from military service.
"These are the names of the men Moses sent to explore the land. (Moses gave Hoshea son of Nun the name Joshua.)" (Numbers 13:16) We've seen Joshua mentioned before. He chose fighting men and led a victorious charge against the Amalekites when they attacked Israel in the wilderness. We were told he was Moses' aide and that he accompanied Moses, at least part of the way, up Mount Sinai when the Lord gave Moses the ten commandments and the law and the instructions for the tabernacle. Recently, in Numbers 11, Joshua's loyalty to Moses was demonstrated when he worried that men who were prophesying in the camp were trying to take glory and authority away from Moses. (They weren't and Moses said to let them be, but Joshua's jealousy on Moses' behalf told us that he cared about the wellbeing of Moses.) Joshua will be Moses' successor.
This young man's original name (Hoshea) meant "salvation". But Moses changed his name to Joshua (Yohoshua in Hebrew) which means "Yahweh is salvation"---or as we'd probably render it in English: "The Lord is salvation". A variation of the spelling of Joshua (Yohoshua) is Yeshua, which is the name of Jesus. The Greek alphabet did not possess some of the characters to pronounce "Yeshua" as it was pronounced in Hebrew, so in the New Testament we find the Lord's name rendered as "Jesus", which is what most English-speaking people call Him today. In the Greek the Lord's name was probably originally "Jesu" but in Greek the letter "s" was often added to words or names to add a masculine connotation. For example, almost all the names of the male Greek gods ended in the letter "s".
You'll want to remember Joshua's name because he is a very important character in the Bible. You'll also want to remember the name of a man from verse 6: Caleb, of the tribe of Judah. He is a very important Biblical character as well, and we'll begin to see why when we get to the second half of Chapter 13 in tomorrow's study.
Before Moses sends the twelve men out, he tells them what they need to look for on their mission. "When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, 'Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some fruit of the land.' (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.)" (Numbers 13:17-20)
No one in the Israelite camp has ever laid eyes on the promised land. The soldiers need to know what to prepare for. I am not sure why Moses wonders whether the land is good, considering that the Lord has promised Israel a number of times that the promised land is "flowing with milk and honey", indicating it produces crops in abundance. Does Moses' concern about the land and crops suggest doubt on his part? Some scholars think so. If that's the case I don't think we can point an accusing finger at Moses without being hypocritical. We can hardly expect we'd have done any better; if a man of great faith like Moses (who spoke with the Lord as a man speaks with a friend) felt some trepidation about conditions in the promised land, we would almost certainly have expressed far more doubts and concerns than he ever did. I decline to find fault with Moses if he was having difficulty picturing the overflowing goodness of a land he'd never seen. I don't think it means Moses doubted the Lord was going to give them the promised land. I've had the Lord promise to work out certain situations for me, and even though I believed He was really going to come through for me, I still had trouble picturing what victory was going to look like.
Ten out of the twelve men sent to Canaan will have a great deal of difficulty picturing what victory is going to look like, only their difficulty is not simply due to the limitations of the human mind in picturing what life is going to be like when the Lord fulfills His promise to give them the land. Their difficulty is going to be the result of a lack of faith in the Lord. Ten of the men will come back from Canaan convinced it is impossible to take the promised land. This is the same as saying the Lord won't keep His word. This is the same as saying the Lord isn't powerful enough to do what He's said He's going to do. We don't want to be like these ten men. We are going to want to follow the example of the two men who firmly believe the Lord will do exactly what He's said He will do. These two men are Joshua and Caleb.
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