What Were The Ma'apilim Trying to Do?

(30) not one shall enter the land in which I swore to settle you—exvept Kalev ben Yefuneh and Yehoshua Bin Nun. (31) Your children who, you said, would be carried off—these will I allow to enter; they shall know the land that you have rejected. (32) But your carcasses shall drop in this wilderness, (33) while your children roam the wilderness for forty years, suffering for your faithlessness, until the last of your carcasses is down in the wilderness. (34) You shall bear your punishment for forty years, corresponding to the number of days—forty days—that you scouted the land: a year for each day. Thus you shall know what it means to thwart Me.

When Moshe repeated these words to all of Bnei Yisrael, the people were overcome by grief.

(40) Early next morning they went up toward the top of the hill country, saying, “We are prepared to go up to the place that Hashem has spoken of, for we were wrong.” (41) But Moshe said, “Why do you transgress Hashem’s command? This will not succeed. (42) Do not go up, lest you be routed by your enemies, for Hashem is not in your midst. (43) For the Amalekites and the Canaanites will be there to face you, and you will fall by the sword, inasmuch as you have turned from following Hashem and Hashem will not be with you.” (44) They defiantly marched toward the crest of the hill country, though neither Hashem’s Ark of the Covenant nor Moshe stirred from the camp. (45) And the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that hill country came down and dealt them a shattering blow at Hormah.

כי חטאנו in that we said, “were it not better for us to return to Egypt?”

כי חטאנו, when we believed the advice given by the spies.

By defying God in this manner you will not merely be guilty of a sin due to your trying to indulge your whims, but to the sin of deliberately trying to cause God to become angry.

Why are you now transgressing. Although it is good to rectify the sin with the very thing with which he sinned, this is not so when the repentant deed is against the Will of Hashem; sacrifice of this sort is unacceptable.

They defiantly went up the mountain peak.

But they armed themselves in the dark before the morning to go up to the height of the mountain.

ויעפלו is an expression for “strength” (doing a thing by insolent force). Similar is, (Habakkuk 2:4) “Behold it is insolent (עפלה)”, engres in O. F., an expression for insolent force. Similar also is, (Micah 4:8), “stronghold (עפל) of the daughter of Zion”; (Jes. 32:14) “the forts (עפל) and towers”. The Midrash Tanchuma 4:4:19, however, explains it (ויעפלו) to be of the same meaning as אופל, darkness, i.e. they went in darkness — without permission.

ויעפילו, they stiffened their attitude, similar to Exodus 6,13 where Pharaoh is reported as stiffening his attitude, and as a result not paying heed to Moses’ and Aaron’s warning.

They defiantly. Rashi explained in the name of the Midrash Tanchuma that ויעפילו connotes darkness. The intention is that there were many of those who went up who believed and knew they would not succeed and would fall in war, but nevertheless they considered it worthwhile to be killed in the Land of Israel and be buried there and not in the desert. However, Hashem annulled their plan.