So they went up and spied out the land …: After Moses gave his instructions, the twelve chosen leaders fulfilled them. At the beginning of this new paragraph it may be necessary to specify that the pronoun they refers to these leaders by saying “the men” (Good News Translation), “The twelve men” (Contemporary English Version), or “the explorers.” Went up renders the same Hebrew verb translated “Go up” in verse 17 (see the comments there). For spied out, see verse 2.

From the wilderness of Zin to Rehob indicates that the men explored the whole land of Canaan. Good News Translation makes this explicit by saying “from the wilderness of Zin in the south [of Canaan] all the way to Rehob … in the north [of Canaan].” This verse is a geographical summary of the whole expedition, not just the beginning of their journey. For this reason it may be set apart as a paragraph of its own. If this is not done, the text may be read as if it were a straight narrative sequence, which is incorrect. In the verses that follow, some places of the journey between the wilderness of Zin and Rehob are mentioned more specifically. The Hebrew form of the name Zin is literally tsin, starting with a different sound than z or s. The wilderness of Zin is not to be confused with the wilderness of Sin (see A Handbook on Numbers at Exo 16.1), which was apparently located somewhere to the south of the region of Zin. For the Hebrew word rendered wilderness (midbar), see 1.1. Rehob was a town.

Near the entrance of Hamath specifies the location of Rehob. Some translations treat the Hebrew word for entrance (leboʾ) as part of the name of the city here; for example, New Revised Standard Version says “near Lebo-hamath,” and New International Version has “toward Lebo Hamath.” We recommend these renderings since 1 Kgs 8.65 indicates that “Lebo” was part of the name. This place was regarded as the northern limit of Israel (see 34.8) and may well be the same as the valley between the two ranges of the Lebanon Mountains. Through this valley a person had access to the city of Hamath (so Noth, page 105). So the rendering “near Hamath Pass” (Good News Translation; similarly Bijbel in Gewone Taal) is plausible as well. Together, Rehob and Hamath lay approximately along the northern border of what would later become the traditional territory of Israel.

Quoted with permission from de Regt, Lénart J. and Wendland, Ernst R. A Handbook on Numbers. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .