PARSHA61 -39: Parashat Devarim

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Subject: PARSHA61 -39: Parashat Devarim

YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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PARASHAT DEVARIM

The Story of the Spies:
The Contradictions Between Shelach and Devarim

By Rav Elchanan Samet

I. INTRODUCTION

A comparison between Moshe's account of the incident
of the spies in our parasha with its initial presentation
in Parashat Shelach reveals dozens of differences between
the two accounts. We may categorize these discrepancies
into four groups:

a) the omission from our parasha of many details found
in the account in Parashat Shelach;

b) changes within the details common to both accounts;

c) additional information in our parasha not presented
in Shelach;

d) outright contradictions between the two parshiyot.

We will focus on category D, the contradictions,
since they pose the most serious problems from an
exegetical standpoint. The most obvious contradiction
arises already at the outset of the two accounts,
specifically regarding the impetus behind the decision to
dispatch scouts. Whereas Parashat Shelach records the
Almighty's having initiated the mission with an explicit
command to Moshe (Bemidbar 13:1-2), in Parashat Devarim,
Moshe attributes the initiative to the people (Devarim
1:22). This contradiction yields many ramifications
regarding other issues, as well, such as the nature of
Moshe's involvement, the character of the spies
themselves, and the very content of the mission:

=B7 In Parashat Shelach, Moshe simply follows the divine
command: "Moshe sent them from the wilderness of Paran,
by God's command" (Bemidbar 13:3). In our parasha, by
contrast, Moshe acts in accordance with the people's
request, which had "found favor in his eyes" (Devarim
1:23). Here, he dispatches the scouts of his own
volition.

=B7 In His command to Moshe in Parashat Shelach, God
also singles out by name the people chosen for this
mission. Moshe complies and appoints "men, the heads of
Benei Yisrael" (Bemibdar 15:3). In our parasha, however,
the people do not recommend any individuals for the
mission, and Moshe assigns the task to "twelve people,
one person per tribe" (Devarim 1:23). Though in both
accounts Moshe sends one spy from each of the twelve
tribes, our parasha omits their names, which do appear in
Shelach, and does not even identify them as the tribal
leaders of Benei Yisrael.

=B7 Our parasha explicitly informs us as to the intended
content of the mission, recording the nation as
requesting, "Let us send men ahead to reconnoiter the
land for us and bring back word on the route we shall
follow and the cities we shall come to" (Devarim 1:22).
The nation asked for a scouting mission as part of their
preparation for the imminent conquest of Eretz Yisrael.
The purpose of the mission as presented in Parashat
Shelach, however, is far less clear. God tells Moshe
very plainly, "And they shall scout the land of Canaan
that I am giving to Benei Yisrael" (Bemidbar 13:2).
Apparently, due to the ambiguity regarding the mission's
purpose, Moshe felt compelled to present the scouts a
list of questions and instructions, directing them as to
what they should pay attention to when they scout the
land (Bemidbar 13:17-20). (Our parasha says nothing
about these questions, since in this context they would
be superfluous: the mission's purpose has already been
clearly defined by the people.) However, even Moshe's
detailed questions and instructions do not sufficiently
clarify the mission's goal. Is it military, intended as
part of the preparations for the conquest, or economic-
geographic, for the purposes of settling the land? Or is
the mission intended to serve some other function?

II. WHY IS MOSHE DENIED ENTRY INTO THE LAND?

Before addressing this critical discrepancy between
the two accounts, we must first turn our attention to yet
another question that arises from a comparison between
the two parshiyot. As part of his account in our
parasha, Moshe quotes the Almighty's oath forbidding the
current generation from entering the Promised Land
(Devarim 1:35-36). Moshe then adds two startling verses:
"Because of you God was incensed also with me, and He
said: You shall not enter [the land] either. Yehoshua,
son of Nun, who attends you, he shall enter it. Imbue
him with strength, for he shall allot it to Yisrael"
(1:37-38). Moshe then cites God's further comments
concerning the nation.

What did Moshe mean in verse 37? The Rishonim by
and large understood this as a reference to Moshe's sin
at Mei Meriva, which occurred a full thirty-eight years
after the incident of the spies. Moshe thus inserts this
verse as but a parenthetical statement. But if so, why
did Moshe mention this here at all? The Ramban answers,
"He wished to mention together the punishments of all
those forbidden from entering the land, for this all
resulted from their sins."

One must confess, however, that a reader unfamiliar
with the incident of Mei Meriva (Bemidbar 20:1-13) would,
without any difficulty, interpret these two verses as a
reasonable continuation of God's response to the incident
of the spies. He would easily read this unit (Devarim
1:34-40) as follows: God was angered by the people's
refusal to proceed to Canaan and issued two similar
punishments, sparing one individual from each. First, He
decreed that the entire generation would perish in the
wilderness, with the exception of Kalev, who did not
participate in the wrongdoing. Secondly, Moshe, the
nation's leader, is "also" punished "because of" the
nation. Among the leadership, Yehoshua, Moshe's
attendant and Kalev's partner in opposing the scouts, was
spared from the decree. He will enter the land and
inherit Moshe's position.

According to this reasonable interpretation of the
text, then, Moshe was denied entry to the land because of
the sin of the spies. If so, we must ask an obvious
question: Wherein lies Moshe's sin? After all, in the
incident of the spies, he resisted the nation's rebellion
and harshly rebuked them (Devarim 1:29-33)! Moshe
appears to attribute his punishment not to any sin of his
own, but rather to that of the people: "BECAUSE OF YOU
God was incensed also with me." His punishment thus
seems to have resulted from his "ministerial
responsibility." He was the leader and the one who stood
behind the scouting mission (verse 23).

Indeed, one exegete among the Rishonim adopts a
similar approach in explaining the verses in our parasha:
Rav Yitzchak Abarbanel. His comments here possibly mark
one of his most important, novel interpretations. We
cite here one segment from his commentary to our parasha:

Indeed, Moshe Rabbenu sinned. When Yisrael requested
scouts. this led to the decree against them that they
will not enter the land. God saw. that it is right,
just and fair that [Moshe], who brought about this,
will not enter. Since Israel sinned intentionally
while he sinned inadvertently and with good
intentions, God wanted to preserve Moshe's honor,
that his decree should not be included in the
nation's decree in Parashat Shelach. He delayed His
wrath just as. [He did] for Aharon for the incident
of the calf. When, in Parashat Chukat. Moshe became
angry by saying, 'Listen, you rebels!'. [God] saw fit
at that moment to punish them for their previous
sins. Thus, Mei Meriva served as the means towards
an end, rather than the actual cause.

Abarbanel brings thirteen proofs to confirm his
approach. He concludes that the Torah associated Moshe
and Aharon's punishment with the minor transgression of
Mei Meriva "in order to preserve their honor and not to
combine them with the sinners of Israel. so as to conceal
it, such that only the select few called by God will
sense the truth of the matter."

According to this approach, the verse in our
parasha, "Because of you, God was incensed also with me,"
seems to mark yet another contradiction between the two
parshiyot. Any responsibility on Moshe's part for the
incident of the scouts can arise onlfrom the account in
Parashat Devarim, according to which he supported the
idea and dispatched the spies based on his own
calculations. In Parashat Shelach, however, Moshe
operates only in complete compliance with the divine
imperative; by this account, Moshe cannot bear any
responsibility for what transpired.

Even within the account in Devarim, however, it is
difficult to justify the severe punishment against Moshe
and the harsh expression "hitanaf" ("[God] was incensed")
purely on the grounds of some vague "super-
responsibility" as the nation's leader, without ascribing
to him any actual guilt for something he did wrong.

III. THE HARMONIZING APPROACH

Most Rishonim tried to combine both parshiyot into a
single account based on the principle, "The words of
Torah are 'poor' in one place and 'rich' in another
place." Meaning, the Torah at times provides little
information about a given topic in one context and fills
in the material later. Rashi, Ibn Ezra and Ramban share
a common assumption: the nation first came forth
requesting a scouting mission, and God's command to Moshe
in Parashat Shelach constitutes a response of one type or
another to their request. (The commentaries disagree
about whether the nation's request was made in good faith
or not, and consequently disagree about the nature of
God's reply.)

In effect, these commentaries "superimpose" Parashat
Shelach onto Parashat Devarim. Thus, for example, the
Ramban explains the purpose of the scouting mission and
the series of questions given to the spies as being
military in nature, as explicitly stated in Parashat
Devarim. He therefore interprets Moshe's charge to the
scouts in Parashat Shelach in military terms, in light of
the verses in Devarim.

This general approach, in all the forms in which it
appears, raises one serious difficulty. The stones of
this mosaic, which together combine to form the single
story, ignore one another in startling fashion, such that
a reader of only one of the two parts would be completely
misled. For this reason, as well as another that we will
now see, we cannot accept this approach to resolving the
discrepancies.

IV. "TARIM" VS. "MERAGLIM"

In my VBM shiur on Parashat Shelach last year, I
analyzed Shelach as a self-contained unit. Only after
understanding the account in Shelach in its own terms can
we deal with the discrepancies between this account and
the one in Devarim. Let us therefore briefly review the
conclusions of last year's shiur.

The Hebrew verbs generally used in Tanakh to denote
spying are "r.g.l," "ch.p.r." and "ch.k.r." Yet not one
of these appears in the account of the incident of the
scouts in Parashat Shelach. Instead, that parasha
employs the rare verb, "t.o.r.," which appears twelve
times in that account and emerges as the key word
throughout the story as recorded there. This verb
generally denotes movement for the sake of identifying
and selecting a desired item or territory. Thus, in
Shelach, God commanded Moshe to send men ".to scout ['ve-
yaturu'] the land of Canaan, which I am giving to Benei
Yisrael." Meaning, the "scouts" were actually sent to
choose the land that the Almighty had already chosen to
give to Benei Yisrael.

The mission of the "tarim" did not relate to
military preparation for conquest. Rather, Benei
Yisrael, represented by one leader of each tribe, were to
join God's selection of Eretz Yisrael. The Almighty
wanted Benei Yisrael to receive the land after having
become somewhat familiar with it, thus choosing it on
their own. Indeed, the questions Moshe instructs the
spies to answer are not of a military nature. Rather,
Moshe posed these questions to outline for the people the
defining characteristics of the land. In this way, Benei
Yisrael would have some concrete picture of the good land
they would soon receive, and would then enter Eretz
Canaan enthusiastically, having selected it for
themselves.

In the end, however, the majority of those selected
as "tarim" rejected the land. They were afraid of
completing the grand historic process of the exodus from
Egypt and entry to the promised land. They chose to
abuse their position and reverse their mission: rather
than leading Benei Yisrael to choose the land for
themselves willingly, they incited the people to refuse
the land. They did this first by slightly shifting their
report from the geographical plane, the only area about
which they were asked, to the military sphere, such that
they would appear as simply responding to the questions
posed to them. They thus alluded to the perceived
impossibility of capturing the land. They presented
their case more explicitly in their disputation with
Kalev: "We cannot go up against the nation, for it is
stronger than us." They concluded their remarks with
slanderous lies about the land - "It is a land that
consumes its inhabitants," indicating that even were the
conquest within reach, it would not be worth their while.

In summary, Parashat Shelach presents the following
portrait: Rather than fulfilling their task of describing
the land in terms that would lead the nation to choose it
as their own, the "tarim" rejected God's gift,
effectively diverting the divine historical process from
its planned route.

V. ALLUSIONS IN EACH PARASHA TO THE MISSION OF THE
OTHER

This definition of the mission of the "tarim," as
opposed to the military spying mission of the "meraglim"
outlined in Parashat Devarim, further sharpens the
contrast between the two accounts. It also explains why
God commanded Moshe to initiate the mission in Parashat
Shelach, while the nation took the appropriate and
reasonable initiative in Devarim (to which Moshe
responded favorably). Furthermore, we understand why
high-ranking officials were selected for the task in
Shelach, while anonymous individuals were appointed in
Devarim.

We should emphasize at this point that we are not
distinguishing between a positive mission in Shelach and
an illegitimate one in Devarim. To the contrary, both
were acceptable and even vital, as both served as part of
the nation's preparation for their imminent entry into
the land.

Let us therefore proceed to the next question: do
these two very different descriptions of two very
different missions "know" of one another? In other
words, does Parashat Shelach contain any allusion of the
existence of a different mission serving a different
function, and does Parashat Devarim allude to the mission
of Parashat Shelach?

Regarding both parshiyot, the answer is in the
affirmative. Parashat Devarim alludes to a non-military
assignment by mentioning the selection of "twelve people,
one man per tribe" to participate in the mission, an
entirely unreasonable method from a military standpoint.
In order to "spy" for the purposes mentioned by Benei
Yisrael in Parashat Devarim, not only is there no need to
send such a large delegation, but doing so could torpedo
the entire plan. (Case in point: Yehoshua sent only two
spies to Jericho.) Nor is there any need to send a
representative from each tribe for a military mission.
Thus, even a reader unfamiliar with Parashat Shelach
could detect in Moshe's conduct a purpose beyond that for
which the nation requested a scouting mission.

This impression grows stronger as we read the spies'
report in Devarim (1:25): "They took some of the fruit of
the land with them and brought it down to us. And they
gave us this report: 'It is a good land that the Lord our
God is giving to us.'" This report of the land's
agricultural quality seems entirely out of context here,
in the description of the military spy mission. Of what
relevance is the land's fruits to "the route we shall
follow and the cities we shall come to?" Clearly, this
segment of the scouts' report relates to Moshe's
instructions to the "tarim," as recorded in Parashat
Shelach (Bemidbar 13:18-20): "See what kind of country it
is. Is the country in which they dwell good or bad. Take
pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land."

We find the converse phenomenon in Parashat Shelach.
Moshe dispatches the "tarim" to instill a love for the
land within the hearts of Benei Yisrael. Moshe'questions
directed them to describe to the nation Canaan's
appearance and qualities. As we discussed, the "tarim"
shifted their report from the specific questions they
were asked to the military realm. But the question
arises, why did they choose specifically this method of
discouraging the nation from entering the land?
Apparently, the military issue was not altogether foreign
to their mission.

In the previous section we noted that at the
beginning of their report, the "tarim" made a point of
appearing to answer Moshe's questions. In truth, this
assertion is imprecise. They concluded their initial
presentation with the following information (13:29):
"Amalekites dwell in the Negev region; Hittites,
Yevusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and
Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan." This
demographic survey does not address any of Moshe's
questions. Why did they mention this? The answer
appears to be found in the description of the mission in
Sefer Devarim: "They will bring back word on the route we
shall follow and the cities we shall come to." In
fulfillment of this charge, the "tarim" inform the nation
of the inability to penetrate the land's borders, as it
is blocked in all directions. The military nature of
their report becomes more explicit in their second
address: "We cannot go up against the nation, for it is
stronger than us."

It turns out, then, that although each parasha
describes a mission with a clearly-defined character,
each of the accounts also alludes to the other.

VI. RESOLVING THE DISCREPANCIES

The path has now been paved to reconcile the
contradictory accounts of this incident. We, too, work
under the assumption that each of the two parshiyot
requires the other, and we may reconstruct the events
only based on both accounts. However, our approach
differs in two ways from that taken by the Rishonim.

A) We suggest reversing the sequence conventionally
suggested by the Rishonim. God's command to dispatch the
twelve tribal leaders preceded and is independent of the
nation's request of spies.

B) We do not view the two accounts as part of a single
story describing a mission for one specific purpose. To
the contrary, the key to resolving the discrepancies lies
specifically in the vast difference between the two
initiatives and the two missions that served such
different functions. Nevertheless, we will claim that
the two discrepant missions were combined in fact, as
will be explained.

After Moshe received the divine command to send the
twelve tribal leaders to survey the land, and after he
assigned them by name, the nation submitted their request
to send military spies. Moshe decided to use the
existing delegation for this purpose as well, in order to
obtain the information necessary for the imminent
military campaign.

This mixing of responsibilities proved disastrous.
True, each of the two purposes was necessary in itself,
but combining the two was like mixing meat and milk: two
permissible entities combine together to form a forbidden
compound.

If Moshe had assigned two or three qualified
individuals - not necessarily tribal leaders - as spies,
they would have reported their findings to Moshe alone,
as spies would normally do (see Yehoshua 2:23). Then,
even if they would have reached the same conclusions as
did ten of the "tarim," i.e. that Benei Yisrael could not
feasibly conquer the land, they would not have
discouraged the entire nation. Moshe would have
explained to them that the Almighty has unlimited power
with which to assist them, and the disheartening report
would have stopped there without ever reaching the
public.

More likely, however, if Moshe had sent a small
handful of military personnel to spy, they would never
have arrived at this conclusion. They would have
concentrated on reporting the suitable routes of entry,
as their mission required, without ever addressing the
chances of victory, an issue regarding which they were
never asked.

It is hard to imagine how the second mission, that
of the "tarim," would have proceeded were Moshe to have
kept the two missions apart. Even if the ten "tarim"
would have sought to discourage the people, they would
not have had the opportunity to do so as easily as they
did as a result of their combined mission. The added
military responsibilities allowed them to shift their
report away from Moshe's questions towards the issue of
military feasibility without arousing suspicion or
criticism. After all, the military information was now
included in their mission. Moreover, they intentionally
blurred the lines between the two areas, the land's
external qualities and the military situation, so that no
single report would be entirely positive.

In addition, the double mission allowed them to
present their military assessment to the entire nation,
rather than to only Moshe, since their first report,
which God commanded them to deliver, was intended from
the outset for the public's ear. Thus the ten "tarim"-
spies benefited from favorable conditions under which to
incite the nation and execute their plan.

One final question remains. Why does Moshe, in
Parashat Devarim, focus on the military spy mission
underlying the entire incident? We can suggest several
reasons:

I. Moshe may do so in order to complement the account
in Parashat Shelach and to clarify the complex background
to the mission. He does this by creating a "mirror
image" of the story presented in Shelach: just as the
"tarim" strayed from the endearing description of the
land to the military report, so did the spies deviate
from their strictly military role to describe the quality
of the land.

II. Moshe may have wished to underscore the people's
fickleness as manifest in this incident. At first they
speak with a fervent military spirit and preparedness to
enter the land, prompting them to initiate action to
further the cause of conquest. Just forty days later,
fear and mistrust bring them to refuse defiantly to
proceed.

III. Most importantly, Moshe's description of the
events provides the background necessary to understanding
his responsibility for what transpired. Assigning the
spy mission to twelve men previously appointed to an
entirely different task constituted a grave error on
Moshe's part, on account of which the sin occurred.

One of the important results of the sin of the
scouts, which Moshe seeks to emphasize, is the divine
decree barring his entry into the land and Yehoshua's
appointment as successor. Moshe reiterates this point
time and time again throughout his monologue in Sefer
Devarim: from here, at the outset of the sefer, through
his final remarks in Parashat Vayelekh (chap. 31).

(Translated by David Silverberg)

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YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH
ALON SHEVUT, GUSH ETZION 90433

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