Numbers 13:22

And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(22) And they ascended by the south, and came.—The latter verb is in the singular number in the Hebrew text: he came. It is quite possible that the twelve spies may not always have been together, and that one only may have gone to Hebron.

Animan, Sheshai, and Talmai.—Some suppose these to be the names of tribes, not of individuals. It is quite possible, however, that the same individuals may have been still alive when the city of Hebron was assigned to Caleb, about fifty years later, and when he drove out these three sons of Anak (Joshua 15:14).

The children of Anak.—Better, the children of the Anakim. (Comp. Deuteronomy 1:28; Deuteronomy 9:2.) When Anak, as an individual, is mentioned, as in Numbers 13:33, the article is omitted.

Before Zoan in Egypt.—Zoan, or Tanis, on the eastern bank of the Tanitic arm of the Nile, appears to have been the residence of Pharaoh in the days of Moses (Psalm 78:12). Hebron was in existence in the days of Abraham (Genesis 13:18; Genesis 23:2, &c.).

Benson Commentary

Numbers 13:22. By the south — Moses having described their progress from south to north, more particularly relates some memorable places and passages. They came — Hebrew, He came; namely, Caleb, as appears from Joshua 14:9; Joshua 14:12; Joshua 14:14. For the spies distributed their work among them, and went either severally, or by pairs; and it seems the survey of this part was left to Caleb. Anak — A famous giant, whose children these are called, either more generally, as all giants sometimes were, or rather more specially because Arbah, from whom Hebron was called Kiriath-arbah, was the father of Anak, Joshua 15:13. And this circumstance is mentioned as an evidence of the goodness of that land, because the giants chose it for their habitation. Before Zoan — This seems to be noted to confront the Egyptians, who vainly boasted of the antiquity of their city Zoan above all places.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:21-25 The searchers of the land brought a bunch of grapes with them, and other fruits, as proofs of the goodness of the country; which was to Israel both the earnest and the specimen of all the fruits of Canaan. Such are the present comforts we have in communion with God, foretastes of the fulness of joy we expect in the heavenly Canaan. We may see by them what heaven is.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The progenitor of the Anakim was Arba "the father of Anak" Joshua 15:13, from whom the city of Hebron took its name of Kirjath-Arba. Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai were probably not individual warriors, but names of three tribes of the Anakim. Hence, we find them still in existence half a century later, when Caleb, who now brought tidings of them, became their eventual destroyer Joshua 15:14.

Now Hebron ... - This parenthesis explains that these two cities had a common founder, and were built, or perhaps, at least in the case of Zoan (Tanis, see Exodus 1:8, note; Exodus 2:5, note) rebuilt, by the Hyksos, to which nations, once the conquerors of Egypt, the Anakim perhaps belonged. The Hyksos fortified and garrisoned Zoan as a defense of their Eastern frontier.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

22. unto Hebron—situated in the heart of the mountains of Judah, in the southern extremity of Palestine. The town or "cities of Hebron," as it is expressed in the Hebrew, consists of a number of sheikdoms distinct from each other, standing at the foot of one of those hills that form a bowl round and enclose it. "The children of Anak" mentioned in this verse seem to have been also chiefs of townships; and this coincidence of polity, existing in ages so distant from each other, is remarkable [Vere Monro]. Hebron (Kirjath Arba, Ge 23:2) was one of the oldest cities in the world.

Zoan—(the Tanis of the Greeks) was situated on one of the eastern branches of the Nile, near the lake Menzala, and was the early royal residence of the Pharaohs. It boasted a higher antiquity than any other city in Egypt. Its name, which signifies flat and level, is descriptive of its situation in the low grounds of the Delta.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Here Moses having generally described their process and course from south to north, now returns more particularly to relate some memorable places and passages, as that having entered the land in the southern parts, they travelled then till they came to

Hebron. Came, Heb. he came, to wit, Caleb, as appears from Joshua 14:9,12,14; for, as was now intimated, the spies distributed their work among them, and went either severally, or by pairs: and, it seems, the survey of this part was left to Caleb.

Anak; a famous giant so called, whose children these are called, either more generally, as all giants sometimes were, or rather more specially, because Arba, from whom Hebron was called Kirjath-arba, was the father of Anak, Joshua 15:13. And this circumstance is mentioned as an evidence of the goodness of that land and soil, because the giants chose it for their habitation.

Before Zoan in Egypt: this seems to be noted to confront the Egyptians, who vainly boasted of the antiquity of their city Zoan above all places.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they ascended by the south,.... When they returned, after they had searched the land, then they came into the south country again, which was in their way to Kadesh, where the camp of Israel remained; they are said to ascend, because of the hill country they again came to; for their coming to Hebron, and carrying a cluster of grapes from that place, not far from thence, was upon their return:

and came unto Hebron; which was in the hill country of Judea, in the tribe of Judah afterwards, which before was called Kirjatharba; in the original text it is, "he came" (s), Caleb, and he only, according to Jarchi and the Rabbins in Abendana; and certain it is that he was there, and he had this place on which his feet trod given him for an inheritance, Joshua 14:9; and it is very probable that the spies did not go together, but perhaps singly, and at most but two together, which seems to be the case here by what follows:

where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were; where Anak, and these his three sons, dwelt, who were giants; and perhaps from thence Hebron before this was called Kirjatharbah, "the city of the four"; or from Arba, the father of Anak:

now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt; or Tanais, as the Targum of Jonathan, whence one of the nomes of Egypt was called the Tanitic nome: it was the metropolis of that country, and may be observed, to abate the pride and vanity of that kingdom, which boasted of its antiquity. Josephus says (t), that the inhabitants of Hebron not only reckoned it more ancient than any of the cities of the land, but than Memphis in Egypt, accounting it (then in his time) 2300 years old; but who it was built by is not certain; Jarchi thinks it is possible that Ham built Hebron for Canaan his younger son, before he built Zoan for Mizraim his eldest son; which does not seem likely.

(s) "et venit", Montanus, Tigurine version, Drusius, so Onkelos; "et venit Caleb", Junius & Tremellius. (t) De Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 9. sect. 7.

Geneva Study Bible

And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of {f} Anak, were. (Now {g} Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)

(f) Which were a type of giant.

(g) Declaring the antiquity of it: also Abraham, Sarah, Isaac and Jacob were buried there.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

22. the children of Anak] lit. ‘the sons of neck,’ a Heb. idiom for the long-necked people. The natives of the Negeb were very tall and lanky. It is very improbable that Anak was thought of as a proper name of an individual. In Deut. the expression is mostly ‘sons of Anakim’ (plural). The tradition of a race of giants would easily grow up if the natives, as a whole, were taller than the Israelites. Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai are probably the names of three clans.

Now Hebron &c.] The date of the first building of Zoan (Tanis) is unknown, but was earlier than 2000 b.c. Perhaps the reference is to the re-building of it, which took place at the beginning of the 19th dynasty, i.e. shortly before the Exodus.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 22. - And came unto Hebron. This and the following details of their journey are appended to the general statement of verse 21 in that inartificial style of narrative still common in the East. On the name Hebron, and the perplexities which it causes, see on Genesis 13:18; 23:2. Where Amman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. יְלִידֵי הָעֲנָק "Anak's progeny." Septuagint, γενεαὶ Ἐνάχ (as in verse 28 and Joshua 15:14 b.), means simply "descendants of Anak." The Beni-Anak (Beni-Anakim in Deuteronomy 1:28; Anakim in Deuteronomy 2:10, &c.) were a tribe whose remote and perhaps legendary ancestor was Anak son of Arba (see on Joshua 14:15). These three chiefs of the Beni-Anak are said to have been expelled from Hebron fifty years later by Caleb (Joshua 15:14; Judges 1:20). The gigantic size which the Anakim shared with the Emim and Rephaim, other remnants of the aboriginal inhabitants, may have been accompanied by remarkable longevity; or they may have been quite young at the time of this visit; or, finally, they may not have been individuals at all, but families or clans. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zean in Egypt. Hebron was in existence at the time of Abraham. Zoan was Tanis, near the mouth of the eastern branch of the Nile (see on Psalm 78:12, 43). If it be true that the Pharaoh of the exodus had his royal residence at Zoan, Moses may have had access to the archives of the city, or he may have learnt the date of its foundation from the priests who gave him his Egyptian education. That there was any real connection between the two places is extremely problematical, nor is it possible to give any reason for the abrupt insertion here of a fragment of history so minute and in itself so unimportant. There is, however, no one but Moses to whom the statement can with any sort of likelihood be traced; a later writer could have had no authority for making the statement, and no possible reason for inventing it. Numbers 13:22

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Journey of the Spies; Their Return, and Report. - Numbers 13:21. In accordance with the instructions they had received, the men who had been sent out passed through the land, from the desert of Zin to Rehob, in the neighbourhood of Hamath, i.e., in its entire extent from south to north. The "Desert of Zin" (which occurs not only here, but in Numbers 20:1; Numbers 27:14; Numbers 33:36; Numbers 34:3-4; Deuteronomy 32:51, and Joshua 15:1, Joshua 15:3) was the name given to the northern edge of the great desert of Paran, viz., the broad ravine of Wady Murreh, which separates the lofty and precipitous northern border of the table-land of the Azazimeh from the southern border of the Rakhma plateau, i.e., of the southernmost plateau of the mountains of the Amorites (or the mountains of Judah), and runs from Jebel Madarah (Moddera) on the east, to the plain of Kadesh, which forms part of the desert of Zin (cf. Numbers 27:14; Numbers 33:36; Deuteronomy 32:51), on the west. The south frontier of Canaan passed through this from the southern end of the Dead Sea, along the Wady el Murreh to the Wady el Arish (Numbers 34:3). - "Rehob, to come (coming) to Hamath," i.e., where you enter the province of Hamath, on the northern boundary of Canaan, is hardly one of the two Rehobs in the tribe of Asher (Joshua 19:28 and Joshua 19:30), but most likely Beth-rehob in the tribe of Naphtali, which was in the neighbourhood of Dan Lais, the modern Tell el Kadhy (Judges 18:28), and which Robinson imagined that he had identified in the ruins of the castle of Hunin or Honin, in the village of the same name, to the south-west of Tell el Kadhy, on the range of mountains which bound the plain towards the west above Lake Huleh (Bibl. Researches, p. 371). In support of this conjecture, he laid the principal stress upon the fact that the direct road to Hamath through the Wady et Teim and the Bekaa commences here. The only circumstance which it is hard to reconcile with this conjecture is, that Beth-rehob is never mentioned in the Old Testament, with the exception of Judges 18:28, either among the fortified towns of the Canaanites or in the wars of the Israelites with the Syrians and Assyrians, and therefore does not appear to have been a place of such importance as we should naturally be led to suppose from the character of this castle, the very situation of which points to a bold, commanding fortress (see Lynch's Expedition), and where there are still remains of its original foundations built of large square stones, hewn and grooved, and reminding one of the antique and ornamental edifices of Solomon's times (cf. Ritter, Erdkunde, xv. pp. 242ff.). - Hamath is Epiphania on the Orontes, now Hamah (see at Genesis 10:18).

After the general statement, that the spies went through the whole land from the southern to the northern frontier, two facts are mentioned in Numbers 13:22-24, which occurred in connection with their mission, and were of great importance to the whole congregation. These single incidents are linked on, however, in a truly Hebrew style, to what precedes, viz., by an imperfect with Vav consec., just in the same manner in which, in 1 Kings 6:9, 1 Kings 6:15, the detailed account of the building of the temple is linked on to the previous statement, that Solomon built the temple and finished it;

(Note: A comparison of 1 Kings 6, where we cannot possibly suppose that two accounts have been linked together or interwoven, is specially adapted to give us a clear view of the peculiar custom adopted by the Hebrew historians, of placing the end and ultimate result of the events they narrate as much as possible at the head of their narrative, and then proceeding with a minute account of the more important of the attendant circumstances, without paying any regard to the chronological order of the different incidents, or being at all afraid of repetitions, and so to prove how unwarrantable and false are the conclusions of those critics who press such passages into the support of their hypotheses. We have a similar passage in Joshua 4:11., where, after relating that when all the people had gone through the Jordan the priests also passed through with the ark of the covenant (Joshua 4:11), the historian proceeds in Joshua 4:12, Joshua 4:13, to describe the crossing of the two tribes and a half; and another in Judges 20, where, at the very commencement (Judges 20:35), the issue of the whole is related, viz., the defeat of the Benjamites; and then after that there is a minute description in Judges 20:36-46 of the manner in which it was effected. This style of narrative is also common in the historical works of the Arabs.)

so that the true rendering would be, "now they ascended in the south country and came to Hebron (ויּבא is apparently an error in writing for ויּבאוּ), and there were הענק ולידי, the children of Anak," three of whom are mentioned by name. These three, who were afterwards expelled by Caleb, when the land was divided and the city of Hebron was given to him for an inheritance (Joshua 15:14; Judges 1:20), were descendants of Arbah, the lord of Hebron, from whom the city received its name of Kirjath-Arbah, or city of Arbah, and who is described in Joshua 14:15 as "the great (i.e., the greatest) man among the Anakim," and in Joshua 15:13 as the "father of Anak," i.e., the founder of the Anakite family there. For it is evident enough that הענק (Anak) is not the proper name of a man in these passages, but the name of a family or tribe, from the fact that in Numbers 13:33, where Anak's sons are spoken of in a general and indefinite manner, ענק בּני has not the article; also from the fact that the three Anakites who lived in Hebron are almost always called הענק ולידי, Anak's born (Numbers 13:22, Numbers 13:28), and that הענק בּני (sons of Anak), in Joshua 15:14, is still further defined by the phrase הענק ולידי (children of Anak); and lastly, from the fact that in the place of "sons of Anak," we find "sons of the Anakim" in Deuteronomy 1:28 and Deuteronomy 9:2, and the "Anakim" in Deuteronomy 2:10; Deuteronomy 11:21; Joshua 14:12, etc. Anak is supposed to signify long-necked; but this does not preclude the possibility of the founder of the tribe having borne this name. The origin of the Anakites is involved in obscurity. In Deuteronomy 2:10-11, they are classed with the Emim and Rephaim on account of their gigantic stature, and probably reckoned as belonging to the pre-Canaanitish inhabitants of the land, of whom it is impossible to decide whether they were of Semitic origin or descendants of Ham. It is also doubtful, whether the names found here in Numbers 13:21, Numbers 13:28, and in Joshua 15:14, are the names of individuals, i.e., of chiefs of the Anakites, or the names of Anakite tribes. The latter supposition is favoured by the circumstance, that the same names occur even after the capture of Hebron by Caleb, or at least fifty years after the event referred to here. With regard to Hebron, it is still further observed in Numbers 13:22, that it was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. Zoan - the Tanis of the Greeks and Romans, the San of the Arabs, which is called Jani, Jane in Coptic writings - was situated upon the eastern side of the Tanitic arm of the Nile, not far from its mouth (see Ges. Thes. p. 1177), and was the residence of Pharaoh in the time of Moses. The date of its erection is unknown; but Hebron was in existence as early as Abraham's time (Genesis 13:18; Genesis 23:2.).