God had taken the people of Israel on an incredible journey. Now the time had come for them to claim the land He had promised them. The people were encamped in a place called Kadesh, which was to the south of Canaan, the Promised Land. All that remained for them to do was to follow God';s lead, go into the land, and claim it for themselves.

As God prepared His people to enter into the land, He spoke to Moses and gave him these instructions: “‘Send men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to Israel. Send one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes.'; So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He sent out twelve men, all tribal leaders of Israel, from their camp in the wilderness of Paran” (Numbers 13:1–3).

This passage tells us that Moses did exactly as God had told him, sending twelve leaders — one from each tribe of Israel — to Canaan to check out the land. Moses told them to check out the land and the people who lived there. They were to find out if the land was fertile and to see how many people lived in the land and whether they were strong or weak. And while they were at it, they were to bring back samples of the produce that grew there (Numbers 13:17–20).

The twelve spies did as they were told, heading out on a forty-day trip around the land of Canaan. When that journey was finished, two of the men — Caleb of Judah and Joshua (or Hoshea) of Ephraim — would become symbols of faith, while the other ten would become living and dying lessons of the folly of unbelief and unfaithfulness to the commands and promises of God.

Study Questions

Who were the twelve spies and what was their significance to the people of Israel?

What were the specifics of Moses';s instructions to the twelve spies?