Numbers 13:25
Which was called Nehelescol, that is to say, the torrent of the cluster of grapes, because from thence the children of Israel had carried a cluster of grapes.
Open Numbers 13:25 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- qui appellatus est Nehelescol, id est Torrens botri, eo quod botrum portassent inde filii Israël.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- τὸν τόπον ἐκεῖνον ἐπωνόμασαν Φάραγξ βότρυος, διὰ τὸν βότρυν ὃν ἔκοψαν ἐκεῖθεν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ.
- Hebrew (WLC) shown from Numbers 13:24
- לַמָּק֣וֹם הַה֔וּא קָרָ֖א נַ֣חַל אֶשְׁכּ֑וֹל עַ֚ל אֹד֣וֹת הָֽאֶשְׁכּ֔וֹל אֲשֶׁר כָּרְת֥וּ מִשָּׁ֖ם בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵֽל
The Fathers on this verse
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. …
St Ambrose Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XII. The comparison, found in the Gospel of St. John, of the Son to a Vine and the Father to a husbandman, must be understood with reference to the Incarnation. To understand it with reference to the Divine Generation is to doubly insult the Son, making Him inferior to St. Paul, and bringing Him down to the level of the rest of mankind, as well as in like manner the Father also, by making Him not merely to be on one footing with the same Apostle, but even of no account at all. The Son, indeed, in so far as being God, is also the husbandman, and, as regards His Manhood, a grape-cluster. True statement of the Father's pre-eminence
168. But not only has our Lord called Himself a Vine, He has also given Himself, by the voice of the prophet, the title of a Grape-cluster, even when Moses, at the command of the Lord, sent spies to the Valley of the Cluster. What is that valley but the humility of the Incarnation and the fruitfulness of the Passion? I indeed think that He is called the Cluster, because that from the Vine brought out of Egypt, that is, the people of the Jews, there grew a fruit for the world’s good. No man, truly, can understand the Cluster as a token of the Divine Generation, or if there be any who so understand it, they leave no conclusion open but that we should believe that Cluster to have sprung from the Vine. And thus in their folly they attribute to the Father that which they refuse to believe of the Son.
St Ambrose Letter XLI: To Marcellina on the Same
24. You see how ready to teach the Lord is, that He may by His own example provoke you to piety, for He is ready to teach when He rebukes. So when accusing the Jews, He says: “O My people, what have I done to thee, or wherein have I troubled thee, or wherein have I wearied thee? Answer Me. Is it because I brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and delivered thee from the house of bondage?” adding: “And I sent before thy face Moses and Aaron and Miriam.” Remember what Balaam conceived against thee, seeking the aid of magic art, but I suffered him not to hurt thee. Thou wast indeed weighed down an exile in foreign lands, thou wast oppressed with heavy burdens. I sent before thy face Moses and Aaron and Miriam, and he who spoiled the exile was first spoiled himself. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).