---
title: Numbers 13:23
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/numbers-13-23/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/numbers-13-23.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Numbers 13:23
testament: OT
section: Law
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Numbers 13:23

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which they carried on a pole between two men. They also took some pomegranates and figs.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, there they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes, which two of the men had to carry on a bar, as well as some of the pomegranates and figs."

## JW Usage

Numbers 13:23 receives no specific JW apologetic engagement. The verse is a narrative detail in the Israelite spies' report on the land of Canaan — the cluster of grapes from the Valley of Eshcol carried on a pole between two men. The Hebrew word zemorah ("branch, vine-shoot") is what makes this verse apologetically relevant: it appears in Ezekiel 8:17 ("the branch to their nose") in a passage the rs book treats as evidence that the cross was a phallic pagan symbol.

## Protestant Usage

Numbers 13:23 is one of the standard counter-references to the rs book's claim that Ezekiel 8:17's "branch" (zemorah) is evidence of phallic sun-worship and that the cross is therefore a pagan phallic symbol. The Hebrew zemorah here in Numbers 13 describes a literal vine-branch holding a cluster of grapes, carried by Israelite spies on a wooden pole. There is no conceivable phallic association — the word is being used in its ordinary horticultural sense. The same word appears in Isaiah 17:10 and Ezekiel 15:2 — also without sexual overtones. H. Cutner's 1940 *A Short History of Sex-Worship*, the Rationalist-Press freethought pamphlet on which the rs book's phallic-cross argument depends, has no standing in modern Semitics. The phallic reading of Ezekiel 8:17 is Hislop-style parallel-hunting that real scholarship retired long ago.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Cross Is Not Pagan — And Paul Boasted In It](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/cross-pagan-symbol-rebuttal.md) — Galatians 6:14 / 1 Corinthians 1:18 / Colossians 2:14 [Practice]