Numbers 13:27

Summary

The scouts report back to Moses, confirming they entered the land he had sent them to explore. They describe it as a land "flowing with milk and honey" and present its fruit as evidence.

Key words

va-yesapperu ("and they recounted", H5608A) — piel narrative verb; the piel stem gives an intensive/detailed sense of "recounting," suggesting a fuller report rather than a simple statement.

banu ("we went/we came", H0935G) — qal perfect, marking completed action; the scouts speak of the journey as finished fact.

shelachtanu ("you sent us", H7971G) — qal perfect with 1st person plural suffix -nu ("us", H9035), directly recalling Moses' original command using the same verb root as the sending itself.

zavat ("flowing of", H2100G) — qal participle, feminine singular, in construct form ("flowing of X"); participles describe an ongoing state, so the land is depicted as continuously "flowing," not as having flowed once.

pir-yah ("its fruit", H6529) — noun in construct with the 3rd person feminine singular suffix -h ("her/its", H9024), tying the fruit directly back to ha'aretz ("the land", H0776G), a feminine noun.

What the text says

The verse opens with two chained narrative verbs, va-yesapperu ("and they recounted", H5608A) and va-yomeru ("and they said", H0559), both introduced by the narrative vav (H9001). This construction is typical of Hebrew narrative sequence: the first verb frames the general act of reporting, and the second introduces the direct speech that follows. The piel stem of sipper gives the sense of a detailed or extended account, distinct from a simple statement.

Within the direct speech, the scouts use two qal perfect verbs, banu ("we went", H0935G) and shelachtanu ("you sent us", H7971G), both marking completed actions. The relative particle asher ("which", H0834A) links "the land" (ha'aretz, H0776G) to the verb of sending, echoing the original commission.

The description of the land uses the feminine participle zavat ("flowing of", H2100G) in construct with chalav ("milk", H2461) and devash ("honey", H1706), a fixed construct phrase presenting the land's condition as ongoing rather than a completed event. The pronoun hi' ("it", H1931, feminine) confirms agreement with aretz. The final clause, ve-zeh pir-yah ("and this is its fruit", H2088 + H6529 + H9024), uses a demonstrative pointing to a visible object, followed by a possessive construct linking "fruit" back to "the land" through the feminine suffix.

Differences between versions

The LXX (Swete) text given here is longer, including details of the return journey ("to Moses... to the wilderness of Paran") and rendering the final clause as "they showed the fruit of the land" (ἔδειξαν τὸν καρπὸν τῆς γῆς) rather than a demonstrative statement "this is its fruit." The Vulgate similarly expands the narrative context, adding "which is in Kadesh" and stating they "showed the fruits of the land" (ostenderunt fructus terrae), using a plural where the Hebrew has a singular noun pir-yah ("its fruit", H6529).