Numbers 10 · a question people ask
Did Hobab go with them?
Numbers doesn't say. Hobab first answers, "I will not go; but I will depart to my own land, and to my relatives" (10:30). Moses asks again, "Don’t leave us, please" (10:31), and promises, "whatever good the LORD does to us, we will do the same to you" (10:32). The next verse is the march (10:33); no answer is recorded. Later, Judges says "The children of the Kenite, Moses’ brother-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah" (Judges 1:16), and it speaks of "the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law" (Judges 4:11). So Hobab's family was living in the land among Israel. When, and whether Hobab himself came, the text doesn't say.
The verses
“He said to him, “I will not go; but I will depart to my own land, and to my relatives.” Moses said, “Don’t leave us, please; because you know how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes. It shall be, if you go with us—yes, it shall be—that whatever good the LORD does to us, we will do the same to you.” They set forward from the Mount of the LORD three days’ journey. The ark of the LORD’s covenant went before them three days’ journey, to seek out a resting place for them.”
“The children of the Kenite, Moses’ brother-in-law, went up out of the city of palm trees with the children of Judah into the wilderness of Judah, which is in the south of Arad; and they went and lived with the people.”
“Now Heber the Kenite had separated himself from the Kenites, even from the children of Hobab, Moses’ brother-in-law, and had pitched his tent as far as the oak in Zaanannim, which is by Kedesh.”