Hameraglim: The Spies

(31) But the other men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.”

חזק הוא ממנו [FOR] THEY ARE STRONGER ממנו — They said this, — if this were at all possible (i.e. if one may be permitted to say so of God) — with reference to the Omnipresent (ממנו, stronger than “He”, they thus uttered blasphemy) (Sotah 35a; Arakhin 15a).

לא נוכל לעלות, for they will stand up against us and will prevent us from making progress just as happened after the sin when the Torah describes the Amalekites (described as Canaanites) descending and inflicting casualties in 14,45.

לא נוכל לעלות אל העם כי חזק הוא ממנו, “we cannot ascend to that people for they are stronger than we.” The meaning of the expression is not limited to a war of aggression. The majority of the spies meant that even if the Canaanites would leave their fortified towns and wage war against the Israelites in open territory the Israelites would not be a match for them. The wording is parallel to that used by Goliath when he challenged the Israelites to a duel. (Samuel I 17,8)

(32) Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are of great size;

אכלת יושביה [A LAND] THAT EATETH UP THE INHABITANTS THEREOF — “In every place which we passed we found them (the inhabitants) burying their dead". — But, as a matter of fact, the Holy One, blessed be He, did this (caused many deaths amongst them at that time, and so the Canaanites were engaged in burying their dead) for the best, in order to occupy them busily with their mourning so that they should pay no attention to these (the spies) (Sotah 35a).

AND THEY SPREAD AN EVIL REPORT OF THE LAND. Va-yotzi’u dibbat ha-aretz (and they spread an evil report) means: and they spread a lie. This is not the meaning of va-yave yosef et dibbatam ra (and Joseph brought evil report of them) (Gen. 37:2), for va-yave (brought) is the reverse of va-yotzi (and they spread).

ארץ אוכלת יושביה, even though the people living there are strong, this is not a compliment to the land; rather it means that it is only due to their exceptionally hardy constitution that they were able to survive in that land. Ordinary people would die there because the climate is so hard to take.

וכל העם אשר ראינו בתוכה אנשי מדות, “and all the people we saw inside it are men of great size.” The spies said that they did not attribute the fact that people seemed to die like flies in that land to their having a weak constitution to start with. Alternate interpretation: “do not think that these people died from excessive drinking and eating; they are very robust persons and appear to eat and drink quite normally.”

ויוציאו דבת הארץ....אל בני ישראל, “They slandered the land of Israel ..in their report to the Jewish people.” The principal effrontery of the spies was the fact that they reported to and appealed to the people directly, instead of making their report to the commander-in-chief, Moses, who was the one who had selected them for their mission by going around to the tents of the people and telling them that the land of Canaan was devouring its inhabitants, whereas originally in the presence of Moses and Aaron they had praised the land, describing how it was flowing with milk and honey. This was a treacherous and underhanded manner of discharging their task. Originally, they had only described the people in that land as strong, which by itself was not too serious a departure from what they had been asked to report about. When Calev had assured the people of his conviction that they would be able to successfully conquer that land the people had still tended to believe him. There were at that time, still quite a number of the people who possessed either self confidence or trust in G’d’s ability and willingness to help them conquer that land. When the spies had become aware of this, they embarked on an intensive campaign to undermine the confidence of those people by spreading the stories of the many people they had observed dropping dead. This was another example of misinterpretation. G’d had allowed even giants to collapse, in order to demonstrate how tenuous was even those supermen’s hold on life, whereas the spies, bent of interpreting everything in the most negative manner, concluded that the climate of the land causes the collapse of its inhabitants. In order to counter the impression Joshua and Calev had made on the people, the spies now resorted to fabrications, deliberate exaggerations, etc. The expression להוציא דבה means more than to highlight the negative aspects of something, it means to spread tales of a negative character that are entirely fictitious, represent as facts figments of the imagination of the tale-bearer. The party spreading such untruths hopes to make them believable because he had initially told his listeners a considerable number of true facts. This is also why the Torah reports Joseph as bringing דבתם רעה, “evil reports,” about his brothers to his father. He had reported a number of facts faithfully, so that his fabrications would also be believed by his father, Genesis 37,2, It was this latter aspect of the spies’ activities that caused G’d to punish them by making these ten men die on the spot through the plague. (14,37)

וכן היינו בעיניהם AND SO WE MUST HAVE BEEN IN THEIR EYES — We heard them say one to another; “There are ants in the vineyards that look like human beings (Sotah 35a).

ענק — They were thus called because it seemed as if the sun was draped around their necks (מַעֲנִיקִים) because of their height (Sotah 34b).

וכן היינו בעיניהם, like grasshoppers, or even less significant. They did not bother to harm us as they did not think we represented a threat to them.

מן הנפילים, the original ones of which the Torah had written that they lived in antediluvian times (Genesis 6,4)

(1) The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night.

The entire community arose. According to the Sages, each one of the spies threw himself down in his tent and wept, and his entire family gathered around him, while he cried, “Woe unto you, etc.” Then the entire tribe gathered, etc. Immediately after this the spies were silent to hide the fact that they had caused the crying. What remained was, “and the people wept”.

!הלא טוב לנו לשוב מצרימה, “would it not be better for us to return to Egypt!” When an Israelite died in Egypt, at least he had someone to leave his estate to either to children, relatives, or at least to friends. Who could he leave it to in the desert? It would all go to the enemy.

(24) But My servant Caleb, because he was imbued with a different spirit and remained loyal to Me—him will I bring into the land that he entered, and his offspring shall hold it as a possession.

רוח אחרת [BUT MY SERVANT CALEB, BECAUSE HE HAD] ANOTHER SPIRIT [WITH HIM] — The word “another’ suggests that he was filled with a twofold spirit — the one to which he gave utterance (lit., one in his mouth), and another which he concealed in his heart. To the spies he said, “I am with you in your counsel”, whilst in his heart he had the intention to tell the truth, and it was only on this account that he possessed the power to silence them (the people), as it is said, (Numbers 13:30) “And Caleb silenced [the people concerning Moses]” (cf. Rashi on that verse), for they thought that he would say the same as themselves (as the spies). It is this that is alluded to in the Book of Joshua (Joshua 14:7) where it states that Caleb said “And I brought him (Moses) word again as it was in my heart” — but not as it was in my mouth (i.e. not what I had said to the spies) (Midrash Tanchuma, Sh'lach 10).

BUT MY SERVANT CALEB. He did not mention Joshua, for He explained to Caleb his reward [for his trust in G-d], namely that he would inherit the Land wherein he went, but Joshua’s reward — that he would be the successor to Moses — was not fitting to be specified at this moment [since Moses was still to be the leader for many years]. Now Scripture mentioned [Caleb’s name] first, as it says, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun, because he was the first to contradict the spies, [as it is said], And Caleb stilled the people. But Moses said, And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh lived from the men [mentioning Joshua first], because of the great degree of Joshua’s wisdom. And since [both] Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel to plead before Him, the communication here was addressed to Aaron as well, but the command was [only] to Moses, Say unto them, since he was superior in prophecy.