Numbers 13:28

Summary

The verse reports the spies' assessment of Canaan: despite the land's qualities, the people inhabiting it are strong, its cities are large and fortified, and the scouts specifically saw descendants of Anak there. The sentence is structured as a concession introduced by 'Efes ("nevertheless", H0657A), signaling a contrast with what was said before.

Key words

• 'Efes ("nevertheless", H0657A) — a construct-form noun used here as a discourse particle marking strong contrast or limitation to what precedes.
• 'az ("[is] strong", H5794) — masculine singular adjective describing ha'am ("the people"); no copula verb is needed in Hebrew, the adjective itself functions as the predicate.
• yoshev ("dwells", H3427) — qal participle, masculine singular, from the verb "to sit/dwell"; participles in Hebrew denote ongoing or characteristic action, here describing the people's continuous presence "in the land" (ba'aretz, H0776G).
• betzurot ("[are] fortified", H1219) and gedolot ("large", H1419A) — both feminine plural adjectives agreeing with he'arim ("the cities", H5892B), stacked without a conjunction between them to intensify the description.
• ra'inu ("we saw", H7200G) — qal perfect, first person plural, indicating a completed, witnessed action; paired with sham ("there", H8033G) to anchor the observation spatially.

What the text says

The verse opens with 'Efes ki ("nevertheless... for/that", H0657A + H3588A), a construction that pivots the report toward a qualification or objection. The core clause "'az ha'am" ("the people [is] strong") uses a simple adjective-noun predicate typical of Hebrew nominal sentences, requiring no explicit verb "to be." The relative clause "hayoshev ba'aretz" ("the one dwelling in the land") uses the participle yoshev (H3427) with the article ha- (H9009) functioning almost like a relative pronoun, characterizing the people as permanent inhabitants rather than describing a single event.

The second clause repeats the pattern with the cities: two adjectives, betzurot ("fortified") and gedolot ("large"), both feminine plural to agree with arim ("cities"), are stacked and then intensified by me'od ("very", H3966). The particle gam ("also", H1571) introduces an additional, escalating detail — the sighting of the yelidei ha'Anaq ("those born of Anak", H3211 construct + H6061), a construct phrase literally meaning "offspring of Anak." The verb ra'inu (H7200G), a qal perfect, marks this as a direct, completed observation by the speakers themselves, reinforced by the locative adverb sham ("there", H8033G).

Differences between versions

The Greek (LXXSWETE) and Latin (VULCLEM) texts provided do not correspond to this verse; they render material about entering the land and its produce ("flowing with milk and honey"), which belongs to the preceding verse in the chapter's narrative sequence. No direct comparison of divergences for Numbers 13:28 itself can be made from the data supplied.