Kommentar zu Dewarim 1:37

התאנף means HE WAS FILLED WITH ANGER.

ALSO THE ETERNAL WAS ANGRY WITH ME, FOR YOUR SAKES. He is stating: “Behold, the sin you committed then in the affair of the spies withheld from you the good Land, and yet you continued to sin another time [i.e., at the waters of Meribah] until you prevented me as well, from crossing [the Jordan].” For Moses wanted to mention simultaneously that the punishment of all who were prevented from passing into the Land, was caused by their sins. Also in order to mention here the matter of Joshua,¹¹²Verse 38 here. that he would cross over because he followed G-d wholeheartedly as did his colleague [Caleb],¹¹³Numbers 14:24. and, therefore, he will yet deserve to cause the second generation to inherit the Land, because Moses was punished and it was decreed upon him that he was not to cross [the Jordan]. Thus Moses mentioned the whole affair [of the spies] except for the death by plague of the spies themselves.¹¹⁴Ibid., Verse 37. Nor did he mention the slander [of the spies that the Land eateth up the inhabitants thereof],¹⁰⁴Numbers 13:32. for he would not speak of the shame of individuals. Instead he reproved the multitude all of whom sinned and all of whom were punished.
The meaning of the expression for your sakes [Also the Eternal was angry with me, ‘for your sakes’] is that the children of Israel strove with the Eternal etc.¹¹⁵Ibid., 20:13. [at the waters of Meribah], and all this happened because of your quarrel. Or [the expression for your sakes] may allude to the fact that the anger [of G-d] with Moses and Aaron was because — when they hit the rock twice¹¹⁶Ibid., Verse 11. in front of the people [instead of speaking to it] and did not do as they were commanded — the people were critical of it.¹¹⁷See Ramban ibid., Verse 1 (towards end). This is the purport of His words, because ye sanctified Me not in the midst of the children of Israel,¹¹⁸Further, 32:51. meaning that the punishment came [not because the sin itself was so grievous, but] because it happened in the midst of the children of Israel that the Glory was not sanctified before their eyes. Thus the Rabbis have also said in the Sifre:¹¹⁹Sifre, Ha’azinu 340. “Because ye trespassed against Me.¹¹⁸Further, 32:51. — you caused [the people] to trespass. Because ye sanctified Me not¹¹⁸Further, 32:51. — you caused that I not be sanctified. Because ye rebelled against My commandment¹²⁰Numbers 27:14. — you caused [the people] to rebel against My commandment.” The Rabbis [in the Sifre] thus interpreted all these expressions as transitional to Israel, [meaning, Moses and Aaron had really not sinned in the affair of the rock, but since their action was misconstrued by the people causing the people to sin, Moses and Aaron were punished]. I have already explained the subject.¹¹⁷See Ramban ibid., Verse 1 (towards end).

גם בי התאנף ה' בגללכם, this was in order that you would have reason to cry throughout the ages, as G’d had decreed in Numbers 14,28. When that verse referred to דבריכם, “your words,” the objectionable words G’d had referred to were: “our children and wives will become loot,” (Numbers 14,5). Moses told the people at this stage the real reason for his impending death, even though the cause occurred already 38 years earlier. At that time G’d had announced His decree אם יראה איש באנשים האלה, adding that by contrastוטפכם אשר אמרתם לבז יהי, “your children concerning whom you had predicted that they would wind up as loot, as prisoners of war, would conquer the land.” The major point Moses is making, [and I am paraphrasing the author who quotes Psalms 106,26-27, Ezekiel 20,23, as well as Psalms 106,32-40, Ed] is that were it not for the fact that he also had not been allowed to enter the Holy Land, they would have been condemned to extinction. The fact that he, the innocent leader, had been included in their punishment was for the sake of the nation’s survival as such, even if traumatic exile experiences lay ahead of them. (compare our author on Deut. 4,1)

גם בי התאנף ה׳ בגללכם, "G'd was also angry at me on your account." This is difficult as we have no independent evidence of G'd having become angry at Moses on account of the sin of the spies. Nachmanides explains these words of Moses to mean: "you have continued doing evil until the result was that G'd became angry at me." I do not find this comment acceptable as Moses continued to speak about the subject of the spies even after this verse as is clear from verse 39 "and your children whom you claimed would become booty, will come there, etc." The subject is continued right until the end of this chapter. Why then would Moses interrupt in the middle of one subject to speak about an unrelated subject? As to Nachmanides' justification that Moses wanted to lump together all the reasons why the generation of the Exodus did not get to the Holy Land, I do not see what would be accomplished by this.

... And [Moshe] said that this thing caused God to get angry with him at the end of forty years (with the rock). For his main sin was that he did not show Israel how to fulfill their needs in a natural way... And all of this began with the story of the spies in that they [then first] sought the natural way [of doing things].

גם בי התאנף ה', “Hashem also became angry at me;” Nachmanides reconstructs the proper sequence of events at that time. After Moses had recalled the events of the sin of the spies, and the nature of their sin, in the wake of which a whole generation of Israelites had been doomed to die in the desert, he continues to relate how his own inability to enter the Holy Land was also directly linked to the sin of these people. He contrasts the good fortune of Joshua and Calev, who because of their staunch loyalty to G’d on that occasion, are the only ones of that generation that will settle in the Holy Land. He relates all that had happened on that occasion except for the almost immediate death of the ten spies by a pestilence. He continues to explain that he would not be leading the Israelites across the Jordan but his successor, Joshua. He did not want to distract the people by dwelling on the disgrace and its consequences of a few individuals. He wanted the people (new generation) to concentrate on what had happened to their parents because they had been involved in that terrible sin.

VV. 37 u. 38 sind Parenthese. V. 39 setzt die Rede fort. Indem Mosche V. 36 Kalebs als des Einzigen gedachte, der von den Kundschaftern in den Besitz des Landes kommen sollte, war es Bedürfnis, auch Josuas zu erwähnen, der ja Kalebs Genosse in der Kundschaftssendung war und gleich ihm das Land betreten sollte. Es scheint, als ob Josuas bei dieser Sendung bewährte Treue von einem unmittelbaren Jünger Mosche zu sehr sich gleichsam von selbst verstand, als dass sie ebenso wie Kalebs besonders hervorgehoben hätte werden sollen. Ganz dieser Stellung gemäss, sehen wir auch Bamidbar 13, 30 Kaleb allein für Mosche dem Volke gegenüber in die Schranken treten, und wenn daselbst 14, 6 Josua und Kaleb das aufgeregte Volk von Empörung gegen Gott abzuhalten und seinen Kleinmut in hingebendes Vertrauen zu verwandeln versuchen und infolge dieses ihres männlichen Auftretens fast vom Volke gesteinigt worden sind, so wird daselbst V. 24 doch nur Kalebs gedacht, der durch seine Treue sich des Besitzes des Landes würdig gemacht, obgleich schließlich V. 30 daselbst beide als die einzig Überbleibenden des damaligen Geschlechtes genannt werden. Auch hier bleibt Josuas bewiesene Botschaftertreue unerwähnt, und seines Hineinkommens ins Land wird nur im Zusammenhang mit seiner Stellung als Diener Mosche und seiner Bestimmung zu dessen Nachfolger gedacht.

בגללכם, “on your account;” I was forbidden to enter the Holy Land on account of your lack of faith in G–d; this happened after the death of Miriam (Numbers 20,1) as a result of which the spring traveling with the people had ceased providing water, and when we, Aaron and I asked you if you believed we could provide you with water from a rock you had pointed at, and the first time I struck the rock only a few drops of water came forth, you thought that no water could come forth from the rock the people had pointed at. I should have explained to you that it is not I or Aaron who could make a rock bring forth water but only He, the Lord, could do that. This is why G–d became angry at me, i.e. the meaning of the word בגללכם, “on your account.”

.'גם בי התאנף ה, “the Lord was angry at me also.” He took the position of leader from me and gave it to Joshua; all of this happened only on your account when you caused me to lose my temper and therefore not carry out G-d’s instructions to me to the letter. I was punished for hitting the rock instead of speaking to it.

Also at me was Hashem angry. Moshe mentioned the decree against him here, because one depends on the other. Because of the decree against the spies they were forced to remain in the desert for forty years. As a result of this the time arrived for Miriam to die. Because of her death the well ceased and there was no water. And through this Moshe ended up hitting the rock and being punished.

בגללכם, “on your account;” Moses makes it plain that if 40 years later, when there was no water the people had quarreled with him and with Hashem, if he had mistakenly struck the rock instead of speaking to it, and the result was that G’d forbade him to enter the Holy Land, none of this would have happened if on an earlier occasion the people had not been punished by having to wander in the desert all these years. They would have long been settled in that land, and the occasion on which Moses made his unpardonable error would never have presented itself. Hashem Himself had stressed that Moses and Aaron had missed an opportunity to sanctify Him amongst the Children of Israel, in other words, Moses’ punishment was due to the Children of Israel.

I believe the correct meaning of these words must take into account what the Talmud in Taanit 29 said in connection with Numbers 14,1 that the people cried during that night. The Talmud says that because of their needless weeping on that night the Jewish people were condemned to weep on that date with good reason for many many years when they would mourn the destruction of both Temples which occurred on the anniversary of that fateful night. The Talmud Sotah 9 adds that if Moses had been allowed to enter the Holy Land the very first Temple would have been the final Temple, i.e. there never would have occurred a destruction of the Holy Temple. In this connection there is an interesting Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 79,1 where Assaph appears to have dedicated a hymn to the destruction of the Temple. The Midrash asks, predictably, that instead of dedicating a hymn to such an event Assaph should have written an elegy, a song of mourning! The answer is that Assaph composed the hymn in gratitude to G'd who had vented His wrath on buildings of wood and stone such as the Holy Temple and the city of Jersualem instead of on human beings. If we extrapolate on the reasoning of the Midrash and consider the fact that the Temple Moses would have built would have become indestructible, then every time the people sinned G'd would have had to pour out His wrath at the people themselves instead of at the Temple. In order to avoid such a thing from ever occurring, G'd decided to let Moses die on the East Bank of the Jordan. This is what Moses meant when he said that G'd's anger at him worked in Israel's favour, i.e. בגללכם, "for your sake." Had the sin of the spies not occurred, Moses would have entered the Holy land with the result we have just described. The word בגללכם is derived from גלגול, "revolving," or in the metaphysical sense "transmigration (of souls)." When G'd decreed death on Moses which would result in his ultimate reincarnation, He did the Israelites a great favour by venting His wrath at Moses at that time. Alternatively, the meaning of the words: "G'd was also angry at me on your account," may be that Moses implied that 'if you would not have become guilty of this sin and I would have been allowed to enter the Holy Land and to build the Holy Temple, there never would have arisen an occasion for G'd to become angry at you at all as you would have retained your level of righteousness permanently.' Had it not been for this sin, the power of evil would never have become as great. Now that this had happened, G'd realised that once the Israelites would enter the Holy land they would not be able to maintain their spiritual high. We can derive all this from a study of the song Moses composed in Parshat Haazinu.

גם בי התאנף: später, am Ende der vierzig Jahre bei den מי מריבה zu Kadesch (Bamidbar 21).

You may counter that this may be fine homiletics, but that the fact remains that Moses' death in Transjordan was caused due to his failure to speak to the rock at the waters of Merivah (Numbers chapter 20) not to the sin of the spies. The answer which I have mentioned already on that occasion is that had Moses spoken to the rock at that time the Israelites could have recovered the spiritually high level they possessed prior to the sin of the spies by means of watching that great display of G'd's power. In that event G'd would have cancelled His oath not to let Moses enter the Holy Land seeing that he had become the instrument of sanctifying the name of G'd on such a scale. As a result, Moses would have entered the Holy Land, would have built the Temple, and the Jewish people would have lived there permanently, trouble free. Israel's sin at this stage then had prevented all these scenarios from occurring.

בגללכם: in eurer Veranlassung (siehe Bereschit 12, 10-13).

העמד לפניך: Stehen ist die zur Tätigkeit bereite Stellung, Stehen vor jemandem: seiner Gebote, Anweisungen, Aufträge gewärtig sein. So drücken Elijahu und Elischa ihre Stellung im Dienste Gottes durch ׳עמד לפני ד aus (Kön. I. 17. 1 und II. 5, 16). So die Stellung der Leviten im Dienste der Gemeinde: עמד לפני העדה לשרתם (Bamidbar 16, 9 u. f).