Numbers 13:21

"So they went up, and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, to the entrance of Hamath. And they went up by the South, and came unto Hebron; and Ahiman, Sheshal, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were there. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt). And they came unto the valley of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bear it upon a staff between two; they brought also of the pomegranates, and of the figs. That place was called the valley of Eshcol, because of the cluster which the children of Israel cut down from thence."

"To the entrance of Hamath ..." Throughout the Bible, Hamath is repeatedly referred to as the North gateway to Palestine. Jeroboam restored the ancient Solomonic empire "from the entrance of Hamath," etc. (2 Kings 14:25).

"And came unto Hebron ..." This was a very old city, dating from a time about 1600 B.C.[14] or even as early as 2000 B.C.[15] Hebron was known to the patriarchs under its older name Kiriath-Arba. Arba was the father of Anak (Joshua 15:13), and gave Kiriath-Arba its name (City of Arba).[16] Descendants of Arba through Anak, the Anakim, mentioned here as Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, could have been descendant tribes, not merely individuals. They were still in the vicinity of Hebron when Caleb became their eventual destroyer (Joshua 15:14).

"Seven years before Zoan ..." Who but Moses could have known when Zoan, the great Egyptian city of Tanis, a magnificent city on the Nile Delta and having a summer residence of the Pharaohs, was founded? Whitelaw was correct in the discernment that such information shows that "Moses had access to the archives of Egypt through the priests who had provided his education in Egypt."[17] This comment noting that Hebron was founded even before Tanis has no connection whatever in the context, appearing as totally irrelevant and unnecessary. But this insertion into the holy record of a fragment of history so minute and unimportant proves that "No one but Moses could have written it."[18] No later writer could have had any such information, and there could have existed no reason whatever for his inventing it. Many apparently trivial things such as this afford cumulative evidence of the Divinity of the Pentateuch that defies all denials.

"One cluster of grapes ..." How big, really, was it and why did they appoint two men to carry it? Most current commentators suppose that it was carried in such a manner in order to preserve the grapes, and not because of the size of the cluster. We have no opinion about it, but the diversity of views on this is of interest. Adam Clarke testified that he himself had cut down such a cluster that weighed 20 pounds.[19] Pliny is credited with the statement that bunches of grapes were known to be larger than an infant, and "Paul Lucas declared that he had seen bunches of grapes at Damascus that weighed over forty-five pounds"![20]