Comentario sobre Deuteronómio 2:15

היתה בם [FOR INDEED THE HAND OF THE LORD] WAS AGAINST THEM [TO DESTROY THEM] speedily within a period of forty years, so that they should no longer be the cause for their children to tarry in the wilderness.

וגם יד ה׳ היתה בם, Moreover, the hand of the Lord was against them, etc. Moses meant that not only did the people of that generation suffer death in the desert, but they did not enjoy their sojourn in the desert while it lasted, as we have been told in Bamidbar Rabbah 19,21. The people suffered from a variety of afflictions prior to their deaths. Moses said מקרב המחנה "from the midst of the camp," to indicate that G'd made a clear separation between the people whose death had been decreed and the remainder of the camp. The former were in a constant state of groaning because of their diminution.

To be further delayed in the wilderness. For as long as any of them survived, their children could not enter the Land.

V. 15. וגם יד ד׳. Die meisten gelangten innerhalb dieser achtunddreißig Jahre an ihr natürliches Lebensende. Anderen wurde ihr Lebensende unter besonderer Einwirkung Gottes beschleunigt. המם ,להמם, eigentlich verwirren, bezeichnet wohl das Besinnung beraubende Plötzliche eines einbrechenden Verhängnisses. So hatte Haman die Absicht להמם ולאבדם (Esther 9, 24).