The Story of the Spies in Bemidbar and Devarim
Exegetical Approaches
Purposeful Recasting
The differences introduced in Devarim are intentional changes made by Moshe so as to best get across his message to the new generation. Moshe purposefully presents the story in a way that emphasizes the guilt of the nation rather than the sin of the individual spies.
Moshe's message – N. Leibowitz explains that Moshe wanted to ensure that the nation learned to take full responsibility for their actions and understood why they had spent forty years in the wilderness. As such, he highlighted their errors rather than those of the spies. This agenda can account for many of the changes:
Initiator – In Devarim, Moshe highlights how the initial request came from the people, not Hashem, thereby preempting anyone from saying that they were just doing what God commanded.
Description of spies – In Devarim, the spies are not given names or titles to minimize their importance and the possibility of anyone attributing all blame to their leaders.
Positive or negative report? In his review, Moshe relays only the positive aspect of the spies' report, emphasizing instead the ensuing complaints of the nation.
Prayer – In Devarim, Moshe omits his prayer where he attempts to minimize the nation's sin and achieve forgiveness, since his goal is to highlight rather than hide the nation's mistakes.
Punishment – The spies' punishment is not mentioned in the retelling, thereby emphasizing instead the wrongdoing of the people themselves.
Moshe's encouragement – Rather than repeating Yehoshua and Calev's encouragement to the nation which emphasized the good of the land, Moshe mentions Hashem's miracles, recognizing that the nation's current fear was unconnected to the quality of the land,2 but to the imminent challenges of conquest.3
Other omitted details – In Devarim, Moshe does not recount all the details of his original instructions nor the full route of the spying mission as these had no relevance to his message and his audience was familiar with these points regardless.
Two Perspectives
The variations between the two books can be explained by positing that each is telling the story from a different perspective, with Sefer Bemidbar focusing on one aspect of the mission and Sefer Devarim on another.
Sources:R. Yaacov Medan4
Dual mission – R. Medan suggests that the spies were sent on a dual mission: a military reconnaissance mission as well as a surveying mission to determine the tribal inheritances. Sefer Devarim tells of the former, while Sefer Bemidbar focuses on the latter. This difference in focus can explain many of the differences:
Purpose: לתור או לרגל / לחפר? The distinction in meaning between these two sets of verbs forms the basis for this position. Ramban5 notes that "לתור" connotes appraisal and choosing, while "לחפר" and "לרגל", the verbs used in Devarim, refer to spying for military purposes. The different verbs, thus, each point to a different aspect of the spies' mission: scouting vs. spying.
Initiator – Hashem is presented as the initiator in Bemidbar since it was He who commanded the "holy" scouting mission so that the princes could evaluate the land and allocate it among the tribes. Devarim, in contrast, focuses on the nation's request as it was the people themselves who initiated the spying mission in their desire to prepare for the conquest.
Who is sent? The scouting mission necessitated that the twelve princes of each tribe be chosen as representatives, while the military mission could have sufficed with anonymous men.
Moshe's instructions – In Bemidbar, Moshe tells the spies to appraise the quality of the land, its trees and agriculture, as the division of the land required such knowledge. In Devarim, he instead tells them to determine the route of conquest, crucial for their military strategy. It should be noted, however, that several of Moshe's instructions in Bemidbar, such as those related to the fortifications of the cities or strength of the inhabitants, also appear to relate to military rather than scouting needs.6
Keywords – The keywords7 of each chapter highlights their differing emphases. The root "תור" appears 12 times in Sefer Bemidbar (and only once in Devarim), making it one of the most significant guiding words in the story and emphasizing the scouting aspect. In Devarim, in contrast, the roots "דרך" and "עלה" serve as guiding words. These highlight how the nation focused on finding the best military route ("דרך") through which to enter the land (while simultaneously hinting that they forgot that Hashem had been guiding their path ("דרך") throughout the wilderness period, perhaps their sin).
The scouted area – The survey required that the spies scout out the entire land as described in Bemidbar, while the military mission required them to spy only on the hilly region of Chevron, the original intended site of entry for the conquest.
Who is to blame? R. Medan suggests that Moshe blames himself in Devarim because he realized that the mishap of the spies was largely due to his combining two missions which should have remained separate. Had there been two separate delegations, with appropriate men chosen for each task and each traveling to the locations relevant to them, the spies would likely have returned with a very different report.
Literary Variation
The differences between the two accounts are not fundamental, but simply the result of literary variation. When recounting events, Torah is often brief in one place and lengthy in another, relying on the reader to fill in the gaps from knowledge of the combined accounts.
The initiator – R"Y Kara claims that both Hashem and the nation requested that the spies be sent.10 The Torah omitted the nation's request in Bemidbar knowing that this detail would be supplied in Devarim. As such, the two accounts do not contradict but rather complement each other.
Moshe's encouragement – R"Y Bekhor Shor suggests that Bemidbar13:30, "וַיַּהַס כָּלֵב אֶת הָעָם אֶל מֹשֶׁה". means that Calev hushed the people so that they could hear Moshe's words of encouragement. The content of Moshe's speech is only alluded to in Bemidbar, as it is relayed in full in Devarim..
Other omissions – The other differences (omissions/additions) are explained in the same manner. Details are mentioned only in one version for brevity's sake. [The reader is either already familiar with them from Bemidbar, or will be filled in upon reading Devarim.]
Choice of details mentioned – One of the disadvantages of this approach is that it does not account for why certain details are mentioned in both accounts and others only in one. Moreover, it does not explain why each account contains the specific details that it does.
Biblical parallels
- Our story is one of many in which a character repeats an incident to another and some of the details are found only in the original story or only in the retelling. See, for example, Ramban on Bereshit 42:21, Radak on Bereshit 41:17, R"Y Bekhor Shor on Bereshit 31:3, and R"Y Kara on Shofetim13:12 who suggest that these are all cases of the same literary trend.
- Ramban notes also the similar phenomenon in which Torah might mentions a command but not its fulfillment or the opposite.11
Local Harmonization
Many other commentators relate to each difference individually, without trying to account for all of the changes together. Some examples follow:
Initiator – Rashi and Ibn Ezra harmonize the two seemingly contradictory verses (שְׁלַח לְךָ אֲנָשִׁים and וַתִּקְרְבוּן אֵלַי כֻּלְּכֶם וַתֹּאמְרוּ נִשְׁלְחָה אֲנָשִׁים) by suggesting that both are true. First the nation requested to send spies, then Hashem (according to Rashi, reluctantly) agreed.
Who is sent? R. Yosef Kara and Rashbam suggest that the words "כֹּל נָשִׂיא בָהֶם" refer not to princes, but volunteers ("שנשא אותם לבם ללכת"). Chizkuni, instead, rereads Bemidbar 13:2, "אִישׁ אֶחָד אִישׁ אֶחָד לְמַטֵּה אֲבֹתָיו תִּשְׁלָחוּ כֹּל נָשִׂיא בָהֶם" to mean that each prince chose someone from his tribe to go on the mission.12 According to both readings, none of those who went were princes, but simply "שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר אֲנָשִׁים אִישׁ אֶחָד לַשָּׁבֶט", as described in Devarim.13
The scouted area – See The Spies – Where Did They Tour for the opinion that the phrase "וַיָּתֻרוּ אֶת הָאָרֶץ מִמִּדְבַּר צִן עַד רְחֹב לְבֹא חֲמָת" does not refer to the area scouted, but only to the borders of the land in which they scouted.14 As such, according to both accounts the spies only visited the southern region of the land.