Or HaChaim on Numbers 13:2/אור החיים על במדבר י״ג:ב׳

1 שלח לך אנשים, "send out men for yourself, etc." We need to analyse why the word לך was written here. I have already quoted that our sages in Sotah 34 understand the word as indicating permission rather than a command. This leaves us with the puzzle why G'd would consent to an initiative which He knew would result in disaster. Before explaining all this let me begin with an introduction to the problem. Whence did the whole terrible disaster originate? If we were to see the fact that spies were sent out as the root cause of the disaster then Joshua certainly should have learned a lesson and should not have sent out spies before capturing Jericho (compare Joshua 2,1). It follows that the idea of sending spies to help in the conquest of the Holy Land was not objectionable in itself. If the reason the mission failed was due to the calibre of the spies, this too is hard to accept seeing that the Torah testifies that Moses sent out righteous men, men of whom G'd had approved.

2We may glean a better understanding of the subject when reading the words of the Yalkut Shimoni item 742 that the Israelites came to Moses asking to send spies. Moses said that this was unnecessary seeing G'd had already given His assurance that they would defeat the Canaanites. Thereupon the Israelites countered saying that the local inhabitants were aware of the plans of the Israelites to invade their country and that is why they had hidden all their valuables. As a result the Israelites would be deprived of a great part of what G'd promised them as they would not inherit much more than the mere soil. They convinced Moses that it was in order to make G'd's words come true that they wanted to send out spies. This is why Moses is quoted in Deut. 1,23 as having given his consent to this request. This is also why in Deut. 1,22 the Torah describes the spies' mission as ויחפרו לנו, "that they may dig up for us (hidden treasures)." Moses was trapped by the words of the Israelites. Thus far the Yalkut.

3Spies may have more than one mission then. 1) They have to find out the best approach to invade a country. They also have to determine if the whole army has to be involved in the campaign or if it suffices to send a relatively small number of troops. We find evidence of this in Joshua 7,3 where the spies told Joshua that 2-3000 soldiers would be enough to capture the town of Ai. This kind of spying, or reconnaissance in our language, would be repeated each time a specific target such as a town was to be captured. 2) The other kind of spying involves something of a more comprehensive nature. The spies' mission is to evaluate whether the target is capable of being captured. This is the kind of spying that the Israelites had in mind when they requested from Moses to send out spies. This kind of mission presupposes a lack of faith in G'd's power or willingness to help the Jewish people attain their objectives. Moses perceived this and that is why the Midrash tells us that Moses reacted negatively to their request at first. The Israelites tricked Moses into agreeing to the spy scheme as it made searching all over the land of Canaan a legitimate endeavour. Joshua too sent the spies for a necessary purpose, one that did not denigrate G'd's part in the preparations to conquer each part of the land of Canaan. The only thing about the scheme of sending out spies which was flawed was the purpose, not the scheme itself.

4We may therefore understand G'd's command or consent for Moses to send out spies as G'd agreeing for Moses to send out spies provided their mission was what Moses understood it to be, i.e. to discover the hidden treasures of the Canaanites, but not if the spies' mission were to determine if the land was capable of being captured by the Israelites. I will explain that Moses may have misunderstood G'd's command as to the function of the spies. Or, he may have understood correctly but seeing that G'd had not denied him the sending out of the spies he failed to divine what G'd really had in mind when He granted His consent. G'd had given hints to Moses as He always does to His servants. As to the question why G'd gave His consent seeing that he knew what was going to happen, we must conclude that if G'd had denied the people's request the result would have been even worse.

5Another meaning of the word לך may relate to the definition of אנשים, men of valour, righteous people. G'd told Moses that these men were righteous לך as long as they were in Moses' presence, facing him. As soon as they would turn around and begin their mission the wreath of piety they wore on their heads would begin to crack wide open. Sotah 35 interprets the words וילכו ויבאו, "they went and they came" in verse 26 of our chapter as meaning that their departure could be compared to their return. They were wicked when they returned as they had been wicked the moment they set out on their mission. Moses had an uncomfortable feeling about this and this is why he gave Joshua a special blessing praying that he should not follow the advice of the wicked. Bamidbar Rabbah 16,1 states: "but the spies whom Moses sent out were wicked. How do we know this? Because the Torah wrote שלח לך אנשים." This Midrash sounds very enigmatic. How do the words שלח לך אנשים prove that the men in question were wicked? We must therefore assume that the author of that Midrash understood the word לך as we have explained it, i.e. "you Moses think that they are אנשים, righteous men, but as soon as they commence their mission they will become wicked on the way out." A simpler way of explaining the word לך is: "in your eyes Moses they may be righteous; but in My eyes they are wicked." This would again raise the problem why G'd approved of sending such men when our sages have said that G'd Himself selected the spy who was to represent each tribe (based on verse 3 על פי השם)? Perhaps the reason they were already called "wicked" at the beginning of their mission was that they shared the view of the Israelites as a whole that they should investigate if the land could be conquered by them at all. This lack of faith in G'd stamped them as "wicked."

6Alternatively, the reason they are referred to as wicked was that they carried out a mission initiated by the people who delegated them and whose intent was wicked. When a messenger allows himself to be used by a wicked person for a wicked mission he himself becomes wicked. On the other hand, when a messenger is sent on a sacred errand, then by accepting the errand he himself shares in the sanctity of the person who has delegated him. This enables us to understand why people who, individually, had been known as righteous people at that time became "wicked" when they became tools of the ones on whose behalf they accepted the mission.

7Still another way of understanding the word לך is that G'd wanted this mission to be known as something Moses had initiated not as something He Himself had initiated.

8Or, the word לך means that the mission ought to be the one Moses perceived it to be as contrasted with what the Israelites wanted it to be. The comment by the Talmud that לך means בדעתך, means "according to what you, Moses, have in mind, not according to what they, the Israelites, have in mind."

9The word לך may also be an allusion to what our sages said in Shemot Rabbah 5,23 on the words עתה תראה, after Moses had complained about the ways of G'd's conduct when the Israelites' fate worsened after his appointment as their leader (compare Exodus 5,22-6,1). The Midrash says that the word "now" means that whereas Moses would live to experience G'd's war against Pharaoh, he would not live to experience what He would do to the 31 kings of the Canaanites. In order for G'd to fulfil this prophecy without Moses being demoted as king and leader of the Israelites, the entry of the Israelites would be delayed by 40 years as a result of the failure of the mission of the spies whom he sent out. According to this interpretation Moses would benefit by this mission. This is in line with the usual understanding of the word לך when it appears in a context similar to the one here.

10ויתרו את את ארץ כנען, "they shall tour the land of Canaan, etc." why did the Torah write ויתורו instead of לתור, "in order to tour?" The words אשר אני נותן are also difficult. Once G'd had mentioned the name of the place the spies were to tour there was no need to write: "which I am about to give to the children of Israel." Who did not know that this is what G'd was about to do?

11According to our commentary that the whole scheme of sending out the spies was made Moses' project by the Torah's using the word לך, as well as the other alternatives which we suggested as possible explanations, plus the other condition, that the spies be אנשים, men known as righteous people, the Torah added yet another condition to make this mission an acceptable one. It is that the people doing the spying be aware that it was G'd who was about to give them this land. The words mean that the spies were not to evaluate whether the Israelites (by themselves) would be able to conquer the country and to disinherit its inhabitants. There was no question that they would not be able to do that. They would not be able to conquer even a single town in that land by themselves. The only way the Israelites would be able to do that would be if אני נותן להם, "if I give it to them." Seeing that the land was to be a gift to the Israelites from G'd, it was up to the Donor to ensure the recipients would not face difficulties in obtaining their gift. To this end G'd would have to do the fighting on behalf of the Jewish people. It would be one of the objectives of G'd to show the spies during their tour of the country that G'd would subdue even the most powerful people. In order for the people to appreciate the power of G'd, the people He would subdue had to appear as invincible by natural means. This is why G'd showed the spies the strength of the Amalekites and the giants that still lived in that land. He showed them cities which were fortified beyond one's imagination so as to convince them that G'd certainly did not expect the militarily inexperienced Israelites to wage such a war. He wanted to drive home the point that conquest of that country and its people was G'd's task, not theirs.

12This is the reason that the Torah wrote the otherwise unnecessary words אשר אני נותן, "which I am about to give." The spies were quite correct when they reported that the country could not be conquered by the Israelites. We still need to explain why the Torah wrote ויתרו instead of the expected לתור, and why the word ארץ כנען had to be mentioned. I have seen that Yalkut Shimoni was aware of this difficulty and explains that the Torah wanted to allude to who the person was through whose merit the Israelites were going to receive this gift. Isaac had been born to Abraham and Sarah when his parents had a combined age of 190 years which is the numerical value of the word כנען. This is, of course, a homiletical comment. I believe that more to the point is the verse in Deut. 9,5 that Israel did not inherit the land of Canaan due to their own merit but due to the wickedness of the people dwelling there and to G'd's desire to keep His promise to the patriarchs. The other reason was that it was ארץ כנען, the land named after Canaan who had been cursed by his grandfather Noach for his behaviour and whose descendants had followed in his footsteps so that now their measure of guilt had overflowed and called for divine retribution.

13תשלחו, "you (pl) shall despatch." In this instance the singular שלח used by the Torah in verse 2 was not adequate. The reason may have been that the Torah wanted the men chosen to be listed in this order, i.e. one man per tribe, not more and not less.