Spying in the Bible 7 - 1444 BC to 1442 BC

Moses' Disaster as Spymaster (1)

After wandering through the desert, Moses recalls how the operation to invade Canaan began with the Israelite people’s request to send spies to infiltrate enemy territory. They were to provide reconnaissance on both the land and the current inhabitants in the land back for the military to prepare for the invasion (Deuteronomy 1:20-22).

Then I said to you, “You have reached the hill country of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Then all of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead to spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.”

Because every able-bodied man within the community was also in the army, this was an intelligence request from the military, making this the first recorded user-originated intelligence collection requirement ever recorded. Moses continues to say that he thought it was a good idea in verse twenty three, but since God had told the Israelites just to go and take the land, Moses first had to obtain approval from Him for the operation, which God grants (Numbers 13:1-2a).

“The LORD said to Moses, ‘Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites.’”

Once the user originated collection requirement was approved, it began a process called the Intelligence Cycle. The intelligence cycle is a series of steps followed in an intelligence gathering mission from the first steps of defining the requirement of the mission to the last of evaluation and feedback of the mission. It is a cycle because often time the mission will gain insights and bring up more questions, leading to more tasking an requirements for follow up missions. A diagram of the intelligence cycle is shown in the below figure.

Policy makers begin the cycle with a request for information (“a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to”) necessary to make a policy decision on how to meet an objective (how to invade the Promised Land). This first step in the Intelligence cycle is called Tasking and Requirements. The next step is referred to as Planning and Direction, where management (Moses) develops the “collection plan” and gives instructions to the assets (the twelve spies) on how to carry it out. So Moses picked twelve spies, each a leader from a different tribe and gave them instructions (Numbers 13:17b-21a).

“Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”

Here Moses used twelve important people, who were well known leaders and even named in the Bible. The twelve spies were Shammua son of Zaccur, from the tribe of Reuben; Shaphat son of Hori, from the tribe of Simeon; Caleb son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Judah; Igal son of Joseph, from the tribe of Issachar; Joshua son of Nun, from the tribe of Ephraim; Palti son of Raphu, from the tribe of Benjamin; Gaddiel son of Sodi, from the tribe of Zebulin; Gaddi son of Susi, from the tribe of Manassah; Ammiel son of Gemalli, from the tribe of Dan; Sethur son of Michael, from the tribe of Asher; Nahbi son of Vophsi, from the tribe of Naphtali; and Geuel son of Maki, from the tribe of Gad.

There are three major problems with this decision of picking those twelve men to be the spies for the mission. First of all, the selection of tribal leaders appears to be for political reasons because as leaders they all would have had political and military responsibilities within their own tribes. This would have been a large conflict of interest, because the spies would have also been involved in any military or diplomatic action based on the information they brought back. The people collecting the intelligence should not also be the end users and they should not be in involved in political decisions regarding the use of what they learned. How could they have possibly been objective?

Second, the entire population knew about the details of the operation, including who was going and what they were doing. This is very poor operation security (OPSEC), as any foreign spies could have gotten the details of the mission from any civilian. Assets sent out for collection should remain anonymous for their protection as well as the success of the mission.

Lastly, all twelve of the spies were espionage amateurs with no training or experience, which is probably why Moses’ instructions were so detailed. It is usually best to give much broader guidance to professionals, so that they have freedom to improvise during missions. To be fair, the people were recently liberated slaves, so there probably were few to no professional spies among them. However, even with these issues the twelve spies actually, successfully completed their mission and all of its objectives, and did so without being discovered by the enemy. This information gathering to make “raw intelligence” (their overall assessment of the enemy and the territory) is the third step in the Intelligence Cycle known as collection and processing.