Numbers 13:3

“And Moses, by the commandment of the Lord, etc.] By his power, permission, and leave, as Jarchi, that there might be no delay through his means: sent them from the wilderness of Paran; from Rithmah or Kadeshbarnea, which seem to be one and the same place in that wilderness: this, as before observed, was on the twenty ninth day of Sivan: (see Gill on “<041301>Numbers 13:1”); all those [were] heads of the children of Israel; were not mean and vulgar men, but persons of rule, who bore some office of magistracy ant government among the people in their respective tribes.”

“those men were heads of the children of Israel--Not the princes who are named (Num 10:14-16, Num 10:18-20, Num 10:22-27), but chiefs, leading men though not of the first rank.”

“The wilderness of Paran, says Dr. Wells, seems to have been taken in a larger, and in a stricter sense. In the larger sense, it seems to have denoted all the desert and mountainous tract, lying between the wilderness of Shur westward, and mount Seir, or the land of Edom, eastward, the land of Canaan northward, and the Red sea southward. And in this sense, it seems to have comprehended the wilderness of Sin, and the wilderness of Sinai, also the adjoining tract wherein lay Kibroth-hattaavah and Hazeroth. In this sense it may be understood in Deu 1:19, where, by "that great and terrible wilderness," is intended the wilderness of Paran in its largest acceptation; for, in its stricter…”