This commentary is by Seymour Rossel from The Torah: Portion by Portion:
Scouts or Spies? Throughout history, most armies have sent spies ahead of them. Bur the people Moses sent were not normal spies; they were chieftains of the tribes. Chieftains are not trained for secret work, nor would Moses send chieftains into danger. The assignment was just to study the land and its people and to report on life in Canaan. The chieftains went out as normal travelers. They were more like scouts than spies.
The Mission: In the Midrash Rabbi Joshua compares the Israelites to the son of a king. The king looked far and wide and found a wife for his son. The girl was wise and beautiful. She came from a rich and noble family. The king told the prince, “I found you a fine wife.” But the prince did not trust his father. He said, “Let me go and see her!’
This greatly annoyed the king. The king said to himself: “What shall I do? If I say, ‘I will not show her to you,’ he will think: ‘She is awful; that is why he does not want to show her.'” At last the king said to the prince, “Go and see her, then you will know I have not lied to you! But because you had no faith in me, you shall never have her for your wife! Instead, I will give her to your son!”
Rabbi Joshua explained: The Holy One assured Israel “The land is good,” but they had no faith, and said, “Let us first send scouts to see the land.” Said the Holy One, the Blessed, “If I do not allow them to send scouts, they will say: ‘God does not show it to us because it is not good.’ Better to let them scout the land. But, since they would not take My word, not one of them will enter the land. Instead, I shall give it to their children.” As you read about the scouts, keep Rabbi Joshua’s story in mind:
Adonai spoke to Moses, saying, “Send for yourself men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people. Send one from each tribe, each one a chieftain.” So Moses, at Adonai’s command, sent [scouts] from the wilderness . . .
The name of the parashah is Adonai’s command, Shelach-lecha , “send for yourself.” As Rabbi Joshua said, Adonai knew the land of Canaan was perfect. But the Israelites still did not trust Adonai completely. They needed to see for themselves. So Adonai commands,”Send for yourself,” meaning, “for your own sake”.
——————————————————
Commentary is from Pentateuch and Haftarahs, ed. Dr. J.H.Hertz.
Numbers/Bamidbar 13
THE SPIES AND THEIR REPORT
According to some scholars, the victory of the Israelites over the king of Arad in the extreme south of Canaan, recorded in XXI,1-3, took place at this stage. The Israelites inflicted an annihilating defeat on the enemy, and called his territory Hormah, lit. ‘utter destruction.’ So striking had been their success, that Moses deemed the moment ripe for undertaking the conquest of the Holy Land from this advanced station of their march. As reported in Deut. I,22, the Israelites then came to Moses saying, ‘Let us send men before us, that they may search the land for us.’ And they would have succeeded in forcing their way into the heart of Canaan, if they had been animated by the high courage required for such an enterprise. This and the following chapter relate that such was far from being the case. Twelve men are sent to explore the land, and learn its character and that of the inhabitants. After forty days they return. The ‘majority report,’ which is entirely against the possibility of conquest, threatens to demoralize the people by fear.
The incident of the Spies is the turning-point in the lives of all those that had been born in slavery. By the cowardice and murmurings with which they receive the report of the Spies, they show themselves unfit for the tasks of a free nation. They must die in the Wilderness. During 38 years of wandering, a new generation that knew not Egypt was to be reared, in hardship and freedom, for the conquest and possession of the Promised Land.
1-24 THE MISSION OF THE SPIES
YHVH spoke to Moshe, saying:
2 Send for yourself men, that they may scout out the land of Canaan that I am giving to the Children of Israel. One man, one man per tribe of their fathers, you are to send, each-one a leader among them.
send thou men. Heb. shelach lecha; lit. ‘send for thyself’. The Rabbis stress the word lecha ‘for thyself,’ and make it imply, ‘If thou wishest to spend spies, do so.’
of every tribe. In order that the whole people might share in the interest and responsibility of the enterprise.
a prince. Not the same princes that took the leading part in the census (I,5), but men of importance, capable of grappling with so trying a task.
3 So Moshe sent them from the Wilderness of Paran, by order of YHVH, all of them men(-of-standing)- heads of the Children of Israel were they.4 And these (were) their names: for the tribe of Re’uven: Shammu’a son of Zakkur;
their names. (Chap. I,15)These names are invaluable documents of early life in Israel, and throw light on the religious feelings of the ancient Israelite. They are genuine and trustworthy, as they can each be paralleled in Babylonian and Arabian inscriptions. If, as alleged by hostile critics, these names were merely made to pattern and the product of the age of Ezra, they should be met with in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. This, however, is not the case; and, in fact, such characteristic names as those compounded with Amim, Zur, and Shaddai are never found in post-Exilic times. ‘It is quite certain that the names contained in the lists in the Book of Numbers cannot be rightly assigned to any other period than that of Moses (Hommel).
5 for the tribe of Shim’on: Shafat son of Hori;6 for the tribe of Yehuda: Calev son of Yefunne;
7 for the tribe of Yissakhar: Yig’al son of Yosef;
8 for the tribe of Efrayim: Hoshe’a son of Nun;
9 for the tribe of Binyamin: Palti son of Rafu;
10 for the tribe of Zevulun: Gaddiel son of Sodi;
11 for the tribe of Yosef, for the tribe of Menashe: Gaddi son of Susi;
12 for the tribe of Dan: Ammiel son of Gemalli;
13 for the tribe of Asher: Setur son of Mikhael;
14 for the tribe of Naftali: Nahbi son of Vofsi;
15 for the tribe of Gad: Ge’uel son of Makhi.
16 These the names of the men whom Moshe sent to scout out the land -now Moshe called Hoshe’a son of Nun: Yehoshua.
Moses called Hoshea . . . Joshua. Better, and Moses had called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua. The change had already been made at the time of the victory over Amalek, Exod. XVII,9. Hoshea signifies, ‘He has helped.’ Moses, by prefixing to it a letter of the Divine Name, changed it to Joshua, Heb.Yehoshua, i.e. ‘He will help, at the same time indicating the Source of salvation. According tot he Midrash, however, Moses here pronounced over Joshua the prayer,’May God deliver thee from the counsel of the Spies.’
17 Now when Moshe sent them to scout out the land of Canaan, he said to them: Go up this (way) through the Negev/Parched-land, and (then) you are to go up into the hill-country.the South. Better, the Negeb; lit. ‘the dry land’; southern Canaan, extending northward from Kadesh to within a few miles of Hebron, and from the Dead Sea westward to the Mediterranean; the steppe region which forms the transition to the true desert.
the mountains. The hill-country in Southern Palestine.
18 And see the land-what it is (like), and the population that is settled in it: are they strong or weak, are they few or many;19 and what the land is (like), where they are settled: is it good or ill; and what the towns are (like), where they are settled therein: are (they) encampments or fortified-places;
20 and what the land is (like): is it fat or lean, are there in it trees, or not? Now exert yourselves, and take (some) of the fruit of the land now these days (are) the days of the first ripe-grapes.
of the fruit. As a tangible confirmation of their testimony.
the time of the first-ripe grapes. The end of July or beginning of August.
21 So they went up and scouted out the land, from the Wilderness of Tzyn as far as Rehov, coming toward Hamat.the wilderness of Zin. N.E. of the wilderness of Paran, and therefore the southern boundary of Canaan.
unto Rehab. In the north of the land, at the base of Mount Hermon, near the sources of the Jordan.
at the entrance to Hamath. The narrow pass between Mount Hermon and the Lebanon, often spoken of in Scripture as the northernmost border of the Holy Land (XXXIV,8).
22 They went up through the Negev a nd came as far as Hevron: there are Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of the Anakites. Now Hevron had been built seven years before Tzo’an of Egypt.Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai. Probably the names of clans, since we meet these names in the time of Joshua (Josh.XV,14).
Anak. lit. ‘neck’; the natives of the Negeb seem to have been very tall and lank, a fact that gave rise to the tradition that they were the remnants of a race of giants.
before Zoan. A city of great antiquity, older than 2000 B.C.E., and rebuilt in the beginning of the Nineteenth Egyptian Dynasty.
23 They came to the Wadi of Eshkol/Clusters and cut down from there a branch and one cluster of grapes -they had-to-carry it on a bar (held) by two- and some pomegranates and some figsvalley. Heb. nachal, denotes a stream and the gorge through which it flows–a wady.
24 That place they called the Wadi of Clusters, on account of the cluster that the Children of Israel had cut down there.25-33 THE REPORT OF THE SPIES
25 Now they returned from scouting out the land at the end of forty days. 26 They went and came before Moshe, before Aharon, and before the entire community of the Children of Israel in the Wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; they returned word to them and to the entire community, and let them see the fruit of the land.Kadesh. Was for many years the seat of encampment for the tribes during the wanderings, and the starting-point for the final march into Canaan. It has been identified with the modern Ain Kadis (‘Holy Spring’). ‘Out from the barren and desolate stretch of the burning desert-waste we had come with magical suddenness into an oasis of verdure and beauty, unlooked for and hardly conceivable in such a region. Running water gurgled under the waving grass’ (Trumbull).
27 Now they recounted to him, they said: We came to the land that you sent us to, and yes, it is flowing with milk and honey, and this is its fruit-it floweth with milk and honey. ‘Pursuing the tactics of slanderers, they began by extolling the land, so as not to arouse, by too unfavourable a report, the suspicion of the people; and knowing also that no report has a chance of being accepted, unless it contains some truth’ (Talmud).
28 except that fierce are the people that are settled in the land, the cities are fortified,exceedingly large, and also the descendants of Anak did we see there!howbeit. Now comes the announcement of the impossibility of its conquest.
29 Amalek is settled in the Negev land, and the Hittite and the Yevusite and the Amorite are settled in the hill-country, the Canaanite is settled by the Sea, and hard by the Jordan!Amalek . . . Hittite. See note at the end of the chapter.
30 Now Calev hushed the people before Moshe and said: Let us go up, yes, up, and possess it, for we can prevail, yes, prevail against it!Caleb stilled the people. In the next chapter (XIV,6,30), Joshua is associated with Caleb in his opposition to the ten faithless men. Being the attendant of Moses, he may have given place to Caleb as the one more likely to be listened to in the then temper of the people.
toward Moses. He restored silence so that Moses might be heard.
we are well able to. lit. ‘we shall certainly’.
31 But the men who went up with him said: We are not able to go up against the population, for it is stronger than we!32 So they gave-out a (false) report of the land that they had scouted out to the Children of Israel, saying: The land that we crossed through to scout it out: it is a land that devours its inhabitants; all the people that we saw in its midst are men of (great) stature,
an evil report of the land. ‘The punishment that God brought upon Miriam was meant as a lesson of the severity with which God punishes slander. Her experience, nevertheless, did not awe the sinful men who, shortly after that incident, made an evil report of the Promised Land, and by their wicked tongues stirred up the whole people in rebellion against God’ (Midrash).
that eateth up the inhabitants thereof. ‘That does not produce enough to support them; Ezekiel XXXVI,8,11-14,30 (Gray).
33 (for) there we saw the giants-the Children of Anak (come) from the giants- we were in our (own) eyes like grasshoppers, and thus were we in their eyes!the Nephilim. The primeval giants mentioned in Gen. VI,4. The Spies use that name to heighten the effect of their description of the invincibility of the sons of Anak (W.H. Green).
so were we in their sight. Or, ”so must we have been in their sight.’ Those who are in their own eyes as grasshoppers assume, and rightly so, that others have a similar estimate of them.
The Spies traversed the entire land from south to north. The length of the Holy Land is about 180 miles, and its average breadth between the Mediterranean Sea and the River Jordan about 40 miles. The country may be regarded as consisting of three strips running north and south. There is—(1) the Maritime Plain—extending inwards from the coast to a distance of form 4to 15 miles. It is very fertile. It includes the famous Plain of Sharon and the Lowlands of the Philistines. (2) Behind this Maritime Plain, and parallel to it, rises the ‘Hill Country’, the backbone of the Holy Land. On the east, it falls precipitously down to (3) the Valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. Across these lie the Highlands of Gilead and Moab, the modern Transjordania.
In the monumental records, the country is called ‘the land of the Canaanites’, or the ‘land of the Amorites’; from which it may be inferred that these were the tribes originally inhabiting it. At a very early period the Hittites, who formed a powerful kingdom to the north, established themselves in Canaan. At the time of the Israelitish Conquest the land was inhabited by a mixture of tribes. Of these, the principal were the Canaanites (.e. probably ‘Lowlanders’), dwelling in the Maritime Plain and the Valley of the Jordan: the Hittites and the Jebusites in the south, in what was afterwards called Judea; the Hivites to the north of these, in what came to be known as Samaria; and, still further north, the Perizzites. The Amorites (i.e. probably, the ‘Highlanders’) were found in the north, and also in the south, to the east of the Jordan. The Philistines had obtained a settlement in the southern part of the Maritime Plain.
Seymour Rossel in The Torah: Portion by Portion explains:
“Nephilim and Anakites” – The Nephilim were legendary people mentioned in Genesis 6:4, where it says they were heavenly beings who suddenly “appeared in the earth.” The word nephilim means “fallen ones”, but the Greek Jews of Alexandria translated it as “giants”. Anakites were legendary giants. Joshua later conquered them, leaving only a few survivors. It was said that Goliath, the famous giant slain by David, was an Anakite.
The Faith to Overcome —Rabbi Max Nussbaum (1908-1974) once taught that Caleb’s words can help us in positive ways in moments when we feel weak, doubt our strength, question our talents, and suspect our courage. In other words, when we think of ourselves as grasshoppers, we should repeat Calebs words, Ki yachol nuchal lah, “For we can only learn to have faith in the strength that God gave us, as Caleb did, then “we shall surely overcome” our problems.
[S6K comment: May we have the last word: we have written articles explaining the non-existence of fallen angels, i.e. devil, evil spirits, etc. — therefore, we subscribe to the Jewish interpretation that the Nephilim were not half-and-half beings procreated by devils with human women, if we may borrow our messianic teacher’s expression (who himself taught the half-and-half beings called Nephilim), this is “hogwash”. So what were they? Probably ‘freaks’ of nature, huge men, mighty men, taller-than-everyone-else-men, like Goliath, depending on their genetic inheritance and diet. Don’t we see such human beings today? And only in horror movies and hand-me-down superstitions do we encounter half-and-half creatures. We either believe God’s Word or men’s, that’s always our choice.]