By Irvin H. Jacobs, MD, MPH, MFA
LA JOLLA, California — This week’s Torah portion, Shelah-Lekha (Numbers Chapters 13-15), deals largely with an expedition of twelve men chosen by Moses to scout the promised land, for its attraction and likelihood of conquest by the wandering Israelites. Two scouts, Joshua and Caleb, reported the land was conquerable. The other ten gave a negative, fearful report. This is the Torah’s reason for the delay of the invasion for forty years, i.e. till that generation died out and was replaced.
I. Numbers, Chapter 13, verse 16: “…Moses changed the name of Hoshea (means ‘God rescued’), son of Nun, to ‘Joshua’ (means ‘May God save you’). Medieval scholars tortured themselves to explain this sudden disclosure, with various rationales, some far-fetched. In fairness to them, they were handicapped by the absence of the literary tools of today’s scholars.
The new name anticipates hostility by the majority of scouts who disagreed with Joshua. Ancients believed a name change to be protective. Even today some observant Jews continue this practice of providing a new name, for persons ill or in danger!
It is important to note that the Hebrew Bible is notorious for ‘predicting the past.’ Often Biblical passages were written in long after the events described, enabling the writers to write as if they predicted what happened. In the case of Joshua, his name is mentioned multiple times earlier in the Torah, long preceding the scouts’ episode. This alone makes the name change inconsistent with the overall text.
Modern scholars now understand the scout story to come from a combination of two traditions, an E source and a P source. The P version didn’t include the list of twelve scouts, which is added later. The two versions were inconsistent with each other, specifically with two different names of Joshua. An editor had to account for this, so he inserted the above statement that Moses changed the name.
II. Numbers, Chapter 13, verse 6 Caleb, the other favored scout was “From the tribe of Judah,…son of Jephuneh,” Here too is a conflation of two circulating stories. In one version, Caleb is head of a reconnaissance mission to the Hebron area. Here, he alone opposes a consensus negative impact of the resident Anakites, in return for which he and his progeny are promised to inherit Hebron. (Numbers, Chapter 13, verses 22, 28, 30 and Chapter 14, verse 24). Conquest of Hebron is attributed to him alone. To boot, he is not even an Israelite, but a Kennizzite from Edom. David, later to become the famous monarch after Saul, married Abigail of Caleb’s tribe. Voila! David is listed as a descendent of Caleb, thereafter to be be crowned king of this Judean area, of which Hebron was named the capital. David later moved the capital to Jerusalem, after its conquest.
A feature of such recorded ancient stories is that the editors of the Torah did fancy footwork to achieve the final version of our received Torah.
III. Numbers, Chapter 13, verses 17-23: Let’s go back to the scout project. Moses: “Go up there into the Negeb and on into the hill country, and see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”
Dr. Jacobs regularly delivers commentaries on the weekly portion at Congregation Beth El and at a Torah discussion group.