וַֽתַּעֲמֹ֜דְנָה לִפְנֵ֣י מֹשֶׁ֗ה וְלִפְנֵי֙ אֶלְעָזָ֣ר הַכֹּהֵ֔ן וְלִפְנֵ֥י הַנְּשִׂיאִ֖ם וְכָל־הָעֵדָ֑ה פֶּ֥תַח אֹֽהֶל־מוֹעֵ֖ד לֵאמֹֽר׃
Y presentáronse delante de Moisés, y delante del sacerdote Eleazar, y delante de los príncipes, y de toda la congregación, á la puerta del tabernáculo del testimonio, y dijeron:
Or HaChaim
When Rabbi Yoshiah insisted that our verse does not describe matters in the order in which they occurred, he made it plain that he holds that one does not accord honour to the subordinates in the presence of their superiors regardless of whether the superior accords honour to them or not. We find a similar argument between these scholars in the paragraph dealing with the daughters of Tzelotchod where the Torah describes them as standing in the presence of Moses and Eleazar (Numbers 27,2). The Sifri on that verse asks how it was possible that the daughters of Tzelofchod expected Eleazar to know something that Moses himself did not know? The answer given in the name of Rabbi Yoshiah is that we must read the verse in a reverse order, i.e. that the daughters of Tzelofchod only approached Moses after the High Priest Eleazar had been unable to give them a satisfactory answer. On the other hand, Abba Chanan gives the same answer that he gave in connection with our verse, i.e. that the daughters of Tzelofchod went looking for Moses and they found both Moses and Eleazar as well as the elders and the community at the entrance of the Tabernacle where they were engaged in studying Torah. The fact that Rabbi Yoshiah saw himself forced to rearrange the sequence of the words in Numbers also clearly shows that he held that the princes were not in the habit of showing honour to the people at large while they were in the presence of Moses. It is even less likely that Rabbi Yoshiah could conceive of Moses, the king of Israel, going out of his way to accord honour to the entire congregation. Nonetheless Abba Chanan held that even when the superior, i.e. Moses, did not accord special honour to his subordinates, outsiders must accord honour to their superiors even in the presence of a king who himself had not accorded honour to such people who were at one and the same time superior to the multitude but subordinate to Moses. The reason the argument between Rabbi Yoshiah and Abba Chanan is reported on two different occasions in connection with two separate events is that the two scholars were so far apart in their viewpoints.