Numbers 13:24
And going forward as far as the torrent of the cluster of grapes, they cut off a branch with its cluster of grapes, which two men carried upon a lever. They took also of the pomegranates and of the figs of that place:
Open Numbers 13:24 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Pergentesque usque ad Torrentem botri, absciderunt palmitem cum uva sua, quem portaverunt in vecte duo viri. De malis quoque granatis et de ficis loci illius tulerunt :
- Septuagint (Swete)
- καὶ ἦλθον ἕως Φάραγγος βότρυος, καὶ κατεσκέψαντο αὐτήν· καὶ ἔκοψαν ἐκεῖθεν κλήματα καὶ βότρυν σταφυλῆς ἕνα ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἦραν αὐτὸν ἐπ᾽ ἀναφορεῦσιν, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ῥοῶν καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν σικύων.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Numbers 13:23
- וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ עַד נַ֣חַל אֶשְׁכֹּ֗ל וַיִּכְרְת֨וּ מִשָּׁ֤ם זְמוֹרָה֙ וְאֶשְׁכּ֤וֹל עֲנָבִים֙ אֶחָ֔ד וַיִּשָּׂאֻ֥הוּ בַמּ֖וֹט בִּשְׁנָ֑יִם וּמִן הָרִמֹּנִ֖ים וּמִן הַתְּאֵנִֽים
Haydock's commentary
Torrent. Septuagint, "vale."
Its. Hebrew, "one cluster."
Two men, Josue and Caleb; (St. Maximus) though the Rabbins say they carried nothing.
Lever, or staff, suspending it thus, in order that it might not be crushed. In that valley, Doubdan (i. 21,) was assured by the religious, that clusters, weighing twelve pounds, might still be found. Pliny (Natural History? xiv. 1,) says, there are some in Africa, larger than a male infant. Strabo (xi.) describes some in Carmania, two cubits high. Forster saw a religious man at Nuremberg, who had lived eight years in Palestine, and assured him that two men could hardly carry a bunch of grapes, such as grew in the vale of Hebron: (Calmet) but this may seem to be an hyperbole. (Haydock)
Lucas (T. i. p. 310,) assures us, that he had seen a bunch at Damascus, weighing above forty pounds. The Fathers here contemplate Jesus Christ, suspended between the two testaments, the synagogue and the Church: the juice, or blood of the grape, (Genesis xlix. 2., and Deuteronomy xxxii. 14,) denotes his passion. (St. Jerome, ep. ad Fab.; St. Bernard in Cant. ser. xliv.) (Calmet)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine Expositions on the Book of Psalms, Psalm VIII
2. There is another interpretation concerning the wine-presses, yet still keeping to the meaning of Churches. For even the Divine Word may be understood by the grape: for the Lord even has been called a Cluster of grapes; which they that were sent before by the people of Israel brought from the land of promise hanging on a staff, crucified as it were. Accordingly, when the Divine Word maketh use of, by the necessity of declaring Himself, the sound of the voice, whereby to convey Himself to the ears of the hearers; in the same sound of the voice, as it were in husks, knowledge, like the wine, is enclosed: and so this grape comes into the ears, as into the pressing machines of the wine-pressers. …
St John Chrysostom The Commentary and Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Galatians and Ephesians, Ephesians 6:14
How then is it that we shall not suffer the same things? Let us not commit the same acts, and then shall we not suffer the same punishment. They murmured, they were ungrateful; let us therefore not cherish these passions. How was it that they fell all of them? “They despised the pleasant land.” ( Ps. cvi. 24 .) “How ‘despised’ it? Surely they prized it highly.” By becoming indolent and cowardly, and not choosing to undergo any labors to obtain it. Let not us then “despise” Heaven! This is what is meant by “despising.” Again, among us also has fruit been brought, fruit from Heaven, not the cluster of grapes borne upon the staff ( Num. xiii. 23 .), but the “earnest of the Spirit” ( 2 Cor. i. 22 .), “the citizenship which is in Heaven” ( Philip. iii. 20 .), which Paul and the whole company of the Apostles, those marvelous husbandmen, have taught us. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Eustochium
11. Then immediately quickening her pace she began to move along the old road which leads to Gaza, that is to the ‘power’ or ‘wealth’ of God, silently meditating on that type of the Gentiles, the Ethiopian eunuch, who in spite of the prophet changed his skin and whilst he read the old testament found the fountain of the gospel. Next turning to the right she passed from Bethzur to Eshcol which means “a cluster of grapes.” It was hence that the spies brought back that marvellous cluster which was the proof of the fertility of the land and a type of Him who says of Himself: “I have trodden the wine press alone; and of the people there was none with me.” Shortly afterwards she entered the home of Sarah and beheld the birthplace of Isaac and the traces of Abraham’s oak under which he saw Christ’s day and was glad. …