This sheet on Numbers 15 was written by Moshe Sokolow for 929 and can also be found here
The phrase with which our chapter begins: “When you arrive in the land of your settlement that I am giving you” (v. 2), recurs in v. 18: “When you arrive in the land to which I am bringing you.” While this phrase appears several times in the Torah (seven, to be exact), this is the only instance in which it appears twice in the same chapter. Such a statistic calls for an explanation.
To get to the answer, I believe, we need to turn one page back—to the concluding portion of the previous chapter. There, we see that the Israelites, demoralized by the information that they would be wandering in the desert for the better part of forty years, staged a desperate attempt to enter the land, prematurely, by force. They were routed by the Amalekites and the Canaanites.
It seems to me that at this point they could well have despaired of ever reaching the Promised Land, as indicated by the cry they took up: “Let us about face and return to Egypt” (14:4). In consideration of this, perhaps, God prefaced His next remarks to them with the reassurance that this was, indeed, a setback, and deservedly so, but that it, too, would pass, and one day they and/or their children would “arrive in the land” which had been vouchsafed to them.
To get to the answer, I believe, we need to turn one page back—to the concluding portion of the previous chapter. There, we see that the Israelites, demoralized by the information that they would be wandering in the desert for the better part of forty years, staged a desperate attempt to enter the land, prematurely, by force. They were routed by the Amalekites and the Canaanites.
It seems to me that at this point they could well have despaired of ever reaching the Promised Land, as indicated by the cry they took up: “Let us about face and return to Egypt” (14:4). In consideration of this, perhaps, God prefaced His next remarks to them with the reassurance that this was, indeed, a setback, and deservedly so, but that it, too, would pass, and one day they and/or their children would “arrive in the land” which had been vouchsafed to them.
(ב) דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ אֲלֵהֶ֑ם כִּ֣י תָבֹ֗אוּ אֶל־אֶ֙רֶץ֙ מוֹשְׁבֹ֣תֵיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י נֹתֵ֥ן לָכֶֽם׃
(2) Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: When you enter the land that I am giving you to settle in,
Dr. Moshe Sokolow is Associate Dean of the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, Yeshiva University
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