Numbers 13:17 - Exposition

Get you up this way southward. Rather, "get you up there ( זֶה ) in the Negeb." The Negeb, meaning literally "the dryness," was the south-western district of Canaan, which bordered upon the desert, and partook more or less of its character. Except where springs existed, and irrigation could be carried out, it was unfit for settled habitation. See Joshua 15:19 ; 1:15 , where the same word is used. Go up into the mountain. From the Negeb they were to make their way into the mountain or hill country which formed the back-bone of Southern Palestine, from the Wady Murreh on the south to the plain of Esdraelon on the north. In after ages it formed the permanent center of the Jewish race and Jewish power. Cf. 1:9 where the three natural divisions of Southern Palestine are mentioned together: חָהָר ( ἡ ὀρεινή ), the mountain; הַגֶּגֶב ( ὁ νότος ), the steppe; הַשְּׁפֵלָה ( ἡ πεδινή ), the maritime plain.