Valley of Eshcol

The wadi in Palestine where the scouts sent out by the Israelites to explore the land found and "cut down from there a branch with a single cluster of grapes, and they carried it on a pole between two of them" (Num 13:23). The cluster was brought back to the people waiting at Kadesh Barnea as evidence that the land the Yahweh was giving them was indeed a good land.

The location of the wadi is not known, since the name of the wadi is one made up by the scouts for their own reference; it was, lit. in Hebrew, "the wadi of the cluster" (Num 13:24). The place is referred to elsewhere only at Num 32:9 and Deut 1:24. Traditions, however, place it in the vicinity of Hebron. This tradition probably arose from the close mention of the Anakites in the texts, and the Anakites are most closely associated in the texts with Hebron.

©ALBERITH
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