פרשת שלח לך תשכ"ו - הפטרה

And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two spies secretly, saying: ‘Go view the land, and Jericho.’ And they went, and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lay there.

And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two spies secretly, saying: ‘Go view the land, and Jericho.’ And they went, and came into the house of a harlot whose name was Rahab, and lay there.

And the woman took the two men, and hid them; and she said: ‘Yea, the men came unto me, but I knew not whence they were;

And she hid them.⁸The word וַתִּצְפְנוֹ is singular but the verse is said regarding the two men and should be plural. There are scriptural verses that speak of the plural as if it were singular. Since she was in a hurry to hide them and she hid them in a narrow place⁹She hid them in a place that normally would have sufficed for one person. it was as though they were one person. The Midrash of Rabbi Tanchuma states ‘That these two men were Pinchos and Caleiv, and Pinchos stood before them¹⁰Before the pursuers. but they did not see him because he was [invisible] like an angel.’¹¹Therefore there was no need to hide him and thus she actually hid only one man. Another interpretation: She hid each of them separately.¹²Therefore it is correct to say: she hid him. We find a similar verse: ‘Oil and incense gladden the heart’¹³Mishlei, 27:9. and it does not say יְשַׂמְחוּ לֵב, in the plural.

and she said unto the men: ‘I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

and she said unto the men: ‘I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you.

Then were the chiefs of Edom affrighted; The mighty men of Moab, trembling taketh hold upon them; All the inhabitants of Canaan are melted away.

תפל עליהם אימתה THERE SHALL FALL UPON THEM DREAD — upon those of them who are far away (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 15:16:1), ופחד AND HORROR — shall fall upon those of them who are near by; and all this really happened just as the matter is stated, (Joshua 2:10) “For we have heard how the Lord dried up [the waters of the Red Sea]” (Mekhilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 15:16:1).

And as soon as we had heard it, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more spirit in any man, because of you; for the LORD your God, He is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath.

’Send thou men, that they may spy out the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel; of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a prince among them.’

And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said: ‘Let us send men before us, that they may search the land for us, and bring us back word of the way by which we must go up, and the cities unto which we shall come.’

את כל הדברים אשר תעשון [AND I COMMANDED YOU …] ALL THE THINGS THAT YE SHOULD DO — These are the ten things that constitute the difference between civil cases and capital cases (Sifrei Devarim 18:1; cf. Sanhedrin 32a).

And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them, and said unto them: ‘Ye are spies; to see the nakedness of the land ye are come.’

And when she could not longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch; and she put the child therein, and laid it in the flags by the river’s brink.

And he looked this way and that way, and when he saw that there was no man, he smote the Egyptian, and hid him in the sand.

They shall call peoples unto the mountain; There shall they offer sacrifices of righteousness; For they shall suck the abundance of the seas, And the hidden treasures of the sand.

’Take the girdle that thou hast gotten, which is upon thy loins, and arise, go to Perath, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.’

Oh how abundant is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee; Which Thou hast wrought for them that take their refuge in Thee, in the sight of the sons of men!