Sh'lach L'cha 2021 Numbers 13:1-15:41 Haft: Joshua 2:1-24
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Sh'lach L'cha 2021 Numbers 13:1-15:41 Haft: Joshua 2:1-24 Source Sheet by david straus Shelach is the 37th parashah in the annual cycle of Torah reading. It tells the story of the Israelite spies journeying into Canaan, their fear and lack of faith, and the resulting punishment that struck the nation. It ends with laws about offerings, the story of the Sabbath desecrator, and the commandment to wear ritual fringes Deuteronomy 1:19-46 (19) We set out from Horeb and traveled the great and terrible wilderness that you saw, along the road to the hill country of the Amorites, as the LORD our God had commanded us. When we reached Kadesh-barnea, (20) I said to you, “You have come to the hill country of the Amorites which the LORD our God is giving to us. (21) See, the LORD your God has placed the land at your disposal. Go up, take possession, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you. Fear not and be not dismayed.” (22) Then all of you came to me and said, “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.” (23) I approved of the plan, and so I selected twelve of your men, one from each tribe. (24) They made for the hill country, came to the wadi Eshcol, and spied it out. (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.” (26) Yet you refused to go up, and flouted the command of the LORD your God. (27) You sulked in your tents and said, “It is because the LORD hates us that He brought us out of the land of Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to wipe us out. (28) What kind of place are we going to? Our kinsmen have taken the heart out of us, saying, ‘We saw there a people stronger and taller than we, large cities with walls sky-high, and even Anakites.’” (29) I said to you, “Have no dread or fear of them. (30) None other than the LORD your God, who goes before you, will fight for you, just as He did for you in Egypt before your very eyes, (31) and in the wilderness, where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a man carries his son, all the way that you traveled until you came to this place. (32) Yet for all that, you have no faith in the LORD your God, (33) who goes before you on your journeys—to scout the place where you are to encamp—in fire by night and in cloud by day, in order to guide you on the route you are to follow.” (34) When the LORD heard your loud complaint, He was angry. He vowed: (35) Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land that I swore to give to your fathers— (36) none except Caleb son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and his descendants will I give the land on which he set foot, because he remained loyal to the LORD. (37) Because of you the LORD was incensed with me too, and He said: You shall not enter it either. (38) Joshua son of Nun, who attends you, he shall enter it. Imbue him with strength, for he shall allot it to Israel. (39) Moreover, your little ones who you said would be carried off, your children who do not yet know good from bad, they shall enter it; to them will I give it and they shall possess it. (40) As for you, turn about and march into the wilderness by the way of the Sea of Reeds. (41) You replied to me, saying, “We stand guilty before the LORD. We will go up now and fight, just as the LORD our God commanded us.” And you all girded yourselves with war gear and recklessly started for the hill country. (42) But the LORD said to me, “Warn them: Do not go up and do not fight, since I am not in your midst; else you will be routed by your enemies.” (43) I spoke to you, but you would not listen; you flouted the LORD’s command and willfully marched into the hill country. (44) Then the Amorites who lived in those hills came out against you like so many bees and chased you, and they crushed you at Hormah in Seir. (45) Again you wept before the LORD; but the LORD would not heed your cry or give ear to you. (46) Thus, after you had remained at Kadesh all that long time, Numbers 13:1-4 (1) The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, (2) “Send men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelite people; send one man from each of their ancestral tribes, each one a chieftain among them.” (3) So Moses, by the LORD’s command, sent them out from the wilderness of Paran, all the men being leaders of the Israelites. (4) And these were their names: From the tribe of Reuben, Shammua son of Zaccur. Numbers 13:17-33 (17) When Moses sent them to scout the land of Canaan, he said to them, “Go up there into the Negeb and on into the hill country, (18) and see what kind of country it is. Are the people who dwell in it strong or weak, few or many? (19) Is the country in which they dwell good or bad? Are the towns they live in open or fortified? (20) Is the soil rich or poor? Is it wooded or not? And take pains to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”—Now it happened to be the season of the first ripe grapes. (21) They went up and scouted the land, from the wilderness of Zin to Rehob, at Lebo-hamath. (22) They went up into the Negeb and came to Hebron, where lived Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the Anakites.—Now Hebron was founded seven years before Zoan of Egypt.— (23) They reached the wadi Eshcol, and there they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes—it had to be borne on a carrying frame by two of them—and some pomegranates and figs. (24) That place was named the wadi Eshcol because of the cluster that the Israelites cut down there. (25) At the end of forty days they returned from scouting the land. (26) They went straight to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran, and they made their report to them and to the whole community, as they showed them the fruit of the land. (27) This is what they told him: “We came to the land you sent us to; it does indeed flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. (28) However, the people who inhabit the country are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large; moreover, we saw the Anakites there. (29) Amalekites dwell in the Negeb region; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites inhabit the hill country; and Canaanites dwell by the Sea and along the Jordan.” (30) Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, “Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.” (31) But the men who had gone up with him said, “We cannot attack that people, for it is stronger than we.” (32) Thus they spread calumnies among the Israelites about the land they had scouted, saying, “The country that we traversed and scouted is one that devours its settlers. All the people that we saw in it are men of great size; (33) we saw the Nephilim there—the Anakites are part of the Nephilim— and we looked like grasshoppers to ourselves, and so we must have looked to them.” Numbers 14:1-45 (1) The whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. (2) All the Israelites railed against Moses and Aaron. “If only we had died in the land of Egypt,” the whole community shouted at them, “or if only we might die in this wilderness! (3) Why is the LORD taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Egypt!” (4) And they said to one another, “Let us head back for Egypt.” (5) Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembled congregation of the Israelites. (6) And Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, of those who had scouted the land, rent their clothes (7) and exhorted the whole Israelite community: “The land that we traversed and scouted is an exceedingly good land. (8) If the LORD is pleased with us, He will bring us into that land, a land that flows with milk and honey, and give it to us; (9) only you must not rebel against the LORD. Have no fear then of the people of the country, for they are our prey: their protection has departed from them, but the LORD is with us. Have no fear of them!” (10) As the whole community threatened to pelt them with stones, the Presence of the LORD appeared in the Tent of Meeting to all the Israelites.