Midrash sobre Deuteronómio 1:2

(Deut. 1:1:) THESE ARE THE WORDS THAT MOSES SPOKE. This text is related (to Is. 35:6): THEN THE LAME SHALL LEAP LIKE A HART, AND THE TONGUE OF THE DUMB SHALL SHOUT FOR JOY. Come and see.¹Tanh., Deut. 1:2. When the Holy One said to MOSES (in Exod. 3:10): I WILL SEND YOU UNTO PHARAOH, Moses said to him: You are doing me an injustice.²Gk.: bia. (Exod. 4:10): I AM NOT A MAN OF WORDS. He said to him: Seventy languages are spoken in Pharaoh's palace.³Palterin. Gk.: praitorion; Lat. praetorium. Thus if an embassy⁴Gk.: presbeuterion. comes from another place, they may speak with them in their own language. When I go on your mission, they will examine me, asking whether I am a representative of the Omnipresent. Then it will be revealed to them that I do not know how to converse with them. Will they not laugh at me, saying: Look at the agent of the one who created the world and all its languages! Does he not know how to listen and reply? See here, something is wrong!⁵Gk.: bia. (Exod. 4:10:) I AM NOT A MAN OF WORDS. (Exod. 6:12:) {SEE} [FOR] I HAVE UNCIRCUMCISED LIPS (i.e., a speech impediment). The Holy One said to him: But look at the first Adam. Since no creature taught him, where did he <come to> know seventy languages? It is so stated: AND HE RECITED NAMES FOR THEM.⁶The citation is not found in Scripture. Cf. Gen. 2:20: AND ADAM RECITED NAMES FOR ALL CATTLE…., a reading which what follows assumes. The midrash is also assuming that the beasts already had names, which Adam merely recited. "A name for every beast" is not written here but: NAMES (in the plural). [Who gave Adam a mouth that would recite names, <i.e.,> a name for each and every <beast> in seventy languages?] The mouth that said (in Exod. 4:10): I AM NOT A MAN OF WORDS, <then> said (in Deut. 1:1): THESE ARE THE WORDS. The prophet also cries out and says (in Is. 35:6): THEN THE LAME SHALL LEAP LIKE A HART, AND THE TONGUE OF THE DUMB SHALL SHOUT FOR JOY. Why? (Ibid., cont.:) BECAUSE WATERS SHALL BREAK FORTH IN THE WILDERNESS AND STREAMS IN THE DESERT. It is therefore stated (in Deut. 1:1): THESE ARE THE WORDS.

(Devarim 1:2) "Eleven days from Chorev by way of Mount Seir to Kadesh Barnea": In eleven days they went from Chorev to Kivroth Hata'avah and from Kivroth Hata'avah to Chatzeroth and from Chatzeroth to the desert of Paran.

(Bamidbar 10:33) "And they journeyed from the mountain of the L-rd a journey of three days": Is it not written (Devarim 1:2) "eleven days from Chorev .. until Kadesh Barnea"? What, then, is the intent of "And they journeyed … a journey of three days"? They traveled on that day a three-day journey, and the Shechinah preceded them, so that they could enter the land immediately. [It is the way of men who go to war, that when they start, they rejoice, and the longer they exert themselves the more they weaken. Not so, however, with Israel — the more they exert themselves, the more they rejoice, and they say "Let us go and inherit Eretz Yisrael," viz. (Joshua 4:10) "And the people hastened and they crossed" (the Jordan). Our fathers said: Once they sinned, it was decreed against them (Bamidbar 14:29) "In this desert will your carcasses fall." But we will not sin and die; we will go and inherit Eretz Yisrael!"] (Bamidbar 10:33) "And the ark of the covenant of the L-rd preceded them." This ark that preceded them contained the broken tablets, but the ark containing the tablets moved in the midst of the encampments, as it is written (Bamidbar 14:44) "and the ark of the covenant of Moses and the L-rd did not stir from the midst of the camp." R. Shimon b. Yochai says: It is not written "And the ark of the L-rd," but "and the ark of the covenant of the L-rd." An analogy: A viceroy precedes his army to prepare a camp ground for them; thus does the Shechinah precede Israel. "to look out a resting place for them": This is the intent of (Bamidbar 21:1) "And the Canaanite heard, the king of Arad, that Israel was coming by way of Atharim, etc.": When they heard that Aaron had died, they said: "The high-priest has died and their great Lookout has gone, and the pillar of cloud that waged war for them — this is the time to go and fight them." R. Shimon b. Yochai says: It was a great degradation for Israel to say (Devarim 1:22) "Let us send out men before us and let them spy out the land for us." The L-rd said to them: If when you were in "a land of desert and pit," I looked out the way for you, how much more so, when you are entering a good, broad land, a land flowing milk and honey!