Commentary for Numbers 32:12

הקנזי [CALEB THE SON OF JEPHUNNEH] THE KENEZITE — He (Caleb) was the stepson of Kenaz (and therefore he is termed here the Kenezite), and Caleb's mother bore Othniel to him (to Kenaz) (and for this reason Othniel, the son of Kenaz is described in Joshua 15:17 as Caleb’s brother) (Sotah 11b).

בלתי כלב בן יפונה הקנזי, “except for Calev, son of Yephuneh the Kenizite.” Our sages (Sotah 11) derive from here that Calev was a stepson of Kenaz for whom the mother of Calev had born Othniel.

To whom Kaleiv’s mother bore Osniel. Rashi wishes to answer the question: Here it is written “Kaleiv son of Yefuneh, the Kenizite.” But if he was the son of Yefuneh then he was not the son of Kenaz, and if he was the son of Kenaz then he was not the son of Yefuneh. Furthermore, elsewhere it only writes Kaleiv son of Yefuneh. He answers that here when it is written, “Son of Yefuneh, the Kenizite” the meaning is as follows: After Yefuneh, Kaleiv’s father, died his mother married Kenaz and bore him Osniel. Thus, Kaleiv was called “son of Yefuneh” [who was his biological father] his father, and [he was also called] “the Kenizite” the name of his mother’s husband.

בלתי כלב בן יפונה, “except for Caleb son of Yephune, etc.” this line is puzzling, seeing that Yair son of Menashe also entered the Holy Land as explained by the Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin folio 44 on Joshua 7,5: where the 36 men of Israel that are reported as having been slain by the men of Ai, (in the first assault) are understood by the Talmud as having been only one man, whose moral value was equivalent to that of a majority of the members of the Jewish Supreme Court which consisted of 71 elders. This man was Yair, son of Menashe. This occurred after the theft by Achan ben Karmi of the loot from the city of Jericho, which had not been brought to the attention of the court although his family members were aware of this. We may have to answer the above query by assuming that the decree that all the men who had left the land of Egypt who had been subject to the decree of dying in the desert as a result of the debacle with the spies did not include any who had been under twenty years at the time. [Since the Torah described Joseph as having held great-grandchildren on his knees before he died at the age of 110, and more than 86 years elapsed after the death of the last of Joseph’s brothers until the Exodus, many of whom died much older than he, it is hard to believe that Yair, at the time of the Exodus, had not reached the age of twenty. Ed.]

בלתי כלב בן יפונה, ”except for Calev, son of Y’funeh.” If you were to say that also Yair, son of Menashe entered the Holy Land (crossed the Jordan) and was killed during the siege on Ai, together with 35 comrades in arms (Talmud tractate Sanhedrin, folio 44) (according to Joshua 7,8) we have to answer that the decree concerning who would not be allowed to enter the Holy Land did not apply to people under the age of twenty at the time it was decreed, nor did it apply to people over the age of fifty, as neither category would have been drafted into military service, so that the spies’ refusal to undertake a campaign against the Canaanites would not have affected them personally.