Or HaChaim on Numbers 26:54/אור החיים על במדבר כ״ו:נ״ד

1 לרב תרבה נחלתו, "to the more numerous you will give a larger share in his inheritance, etc." Baba Batra 117 has Rav Pappa ask Abbaye: "according to the theory of Rabbi Yoshiah that the land was distributed to the people who partook in the Exodus, this verse makes sense; however, how does one explain these instructions according to the view of Rabbi Yonathan who holds that only the generation who was counted in the wilderness would share in the distribution of the land? What purpose was there for the Torah to distinguish between the numerous ones and the less numerous ones?" Whereas Abbaye is not reported as having furnished Rav Pappa with an answer, this question is not so serious that no answer could have been found in the very text itself. Moreover, these words (Rabbi Yonathan's) were not the ones of an Amora (teacher of the Talmud) but of a Tanna, a teacher of the Mishnah. As an Amora, Rav Pappa was not allowed to challenge the words of a Tanna, hence it was not urgent to answer a question which would not result in changes of the halachah even if it went unanswered. We have a principle that whenever the Talmud concludes a question with the word קשיא (as in this instance), there is an answer but it did not suit the editors to provide it at this point.

2According to my commentary that the words במספר שמות mean that the land should be distributed amongst the 57 families enumerated in the count here in our Parshah, the words לרב תרבה mean that they were not to make 57 equal shares according to the number of the families, but that they were to consider also the size of the respective families before distributing land to each family. A family comprising 20,000 souls was to receive a share twice as large as a family comprising only 10,000 souls.

3Furthermore, if we adopt Rashi's approach that Rabbi Yonathan included only people who were counted -meaning they had reached the age of twenty- at the time of the present census, the following situation could arise. Suppose a father had ten sons each above the age of 20 at this time, and another father had 8 sons, 4 of whom were above the age of twenty the other 4 being younger. By the time they all entered the Holy land the first father had lost 4 of his sons because they had died, whereas the other father's sons by then had all reached the age of 20, the last mentioned family would have received a larger share than the family which had ten eligible sons at this time. To prevent such a mistake from being made the Torah wrote לרב תרבה, i.e. that the determining criterion was the respective number of eligible sons a family comprised at the time the commandment was given, i.e. at the time of this census. Any change in the status of the family between now and the actual time of distribution was to be disregarded. Perhaps Rashi's commentary was designed to answer this question before it was even articulated.

4איש לפי פקודיו, each one according to those that were numbered of it, etc. Sifri on this verse comments as follows: "the land was distributed to the tribes in accordance with their present number." This does not contradict what I have written that the words "according to the number of names" refer to the 57 families enumerated in this count. The distribution of the land between the tribes on the one hand and the families on the other may have proceeded along the following lines: The land was divided up into 12 sections, one each for each tribe. These sections in turn were divided up into 57 parcels. A tribe which comprised 2 families would receive 2 parcels whereas a tribe comprising 4 families would receive 4 parcels of land. According to Rabbi Yoshiah each parcel would be sized in accordance with the number of families at the time of the present census, whereas according to Rabbi Yonathan it would be sized according to the number of families at the time of the Exodus. As to the question that if the families were the decisive factor, why was the number of tribes relevant to the distribution at all, the answer is that each tribe was accorded a parcel in accordance with the lottery, something that would not be the case if the only factor determining the distribution would have been the total number of families. Without the lottery families of different tribes might wind up being situated next to each other instead of their parcel of land being situated within the tribal area allocated to each tribe separately.

5Baba Batra 121 raises the point that the scholars were not certain whether the land was distributed in accordance with the number of tribes or in accordance with the number of individual people. They tried to answer this by reference to the verse in our portion where the Torah said "be they numerous or few" meaning that it was not divided in accordance with the number of individuals over the age of twenty (verse 36). They quoted a Baraitha according to which the land of Israel will be divided up amongst 13 tribes in messianic times, whereas in Joshua's time it was divided amongst 12 tribes. Thus far the Talmud there. The Talmud apparently was unaware of the Baraitha we mentioned in the Sifri, where this point is derived from the words איש לפי פקודיו. It is reasonable to assume that the scholar in the Talmud who said that in the future the land of Israel would be shared out between thirteen tribes also based his opinion on these words.

6According to Rabbi Yonathan who holds that the division was based on the people actually entering the land, we still need to find out if he referred to people over twenty only or if he meant that even youngsters who had not attained that age were qualified to receive a separate share in the land. The Torah therefore had to write the words לפי פקודיו to let us know that only men over the age of twenty were assigned separate shares.