Chapter 13

The 12 spies sent in to the promised land.  Their names are given.  I would say this indicates the level of responsibility placed on each one.  We need to know that they were assigned an important and critical role in fulfilling God's promises to Abraham. 

2025 - I noticed this "qualification" for those that were to be picked by Moses.  In vs 2, NASB95 says "Send out for yourself...", indicating that it would be up to Moses to pick.  And as for those chosen, they were to be "...every one a leader among them".  So these were not random guys.  These were up and comers, recognized leaders of each of their tribes. 

They are given seven specific questions to answer as they spy in the Land.  These seven are in vss 17-20:

17 Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, "Go up into the Negeb and go up into the hill country, 18 and see what the land is, and whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, whether they are few or many, 19 and whether the land that they dwell in is good or bad, and whether the cities that they dwell in are camps or strongholds, 20 and whether the land is rich or poor, and whether there are trees in it or not. Be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land." Now the time was the season of the first ripe grapes. [Num 13:17-20 ESV]

So if my geography is correct, they moved in from the south to spy out the land.  The Negev is the southernmost part of present day Israel.

They spend 40 days spying, surveying, assessing, and collecting.  40 shows up so very often.  It would be my first choice for a numerology study in the Bible.  Why always 40???  It rained 40 days, Jesus tempted 40 days, I think there's a 40 in Acts, Moses on Sinai 40 days at least two different times.  Who knows how many  others.  Would be nice to compile them all. 

10 say they are too weak to take large fortified cities occupied by giants.  Two say they can do it.

2021 - They saw the sons of Anak there.  Also, they saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim.)  We haven't seen Nephilim since before the flood.  This is the only other verse where the word is used:

4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. [Gen 6:4 ESV]

There are also these people:

10 (The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many, and tall as the Anakim. 11 Like the Anakim they are also counted as Rephaim, but the Moabites call them Emim. [Deu 2:10-11 ESV]

11 (For only Og the king of Bashan was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. Behold, his bed was a bed of iron. Is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits was its length, and four cubits its breadth, according to the common cubit.) [Deu 3:11 ESV]

4 and Og king of Bashan, one of the remnant of the Rephaim, who lived at Ashtaroth and at Edrei [Jos 12:4 ESV]

12 all the kingdom of Og in Bashan, who reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edrei (he alone was left of the remnant of the Rephaim); these Moses had struck and driven out. [Jos 13:12 ESV]

8 Then the boundary goes up by the Valley of the Son of Hinnom at the southern shoulder of the Jebusite (that is, Jerusalem). And the boundary goes up to the top of the mountain that lies over against the Valley of Hinnom, on the west, at the northern end of the Valley of Rephaim. [Jos 15:8 ESV]

15 And Joshua said to them, "If you are a numerous people, go up by yourselves to the forest, and there clear ground for yourselves in the land of the Perizzites and the Rephaim, since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you." [Jos 17:15 ESV]

The phrase "Valley of Rephaim" is used many times. 

So it seems there were these Rephaim first, and that the sons of Anak were later.  The sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim is how it is stated in the parentheses in Num 13:33.  This ties them back to Gen 6:4.

2024 - This verse:

So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, "The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. (Num 13:32 ESV).

Note the lie here.  It is NOT grue that ALL the people they saw were giants of great height.  If you go back and read the report in 20-24, only one place is said to be inhabited by the Anakim.  And yet these 10 said they were EVERYWHERE and spooked all Israel into refusing to go in and conquer the land.  This is a lot of why God was so angry at them.  And surely we know from later in this story that the first city conquered, Jericho, was NOT full of giants!!!