Commentaire sur Les Nombres 14:8

'אם חפץ בנו ה, if the Lord has taken a liking to us. True, the goodness of the land depends in great measure on G’d taking a liking to us, as we know that this is a land which is constantly under G’d’s supervision so that disobedience to His laws will be promptly punished. All of this had been spelled out in Deuteronomy 11,12-13.

אם חפץ בנו השם, "If G'd delights in us, etc." They were clever to present G'd's attitude to the Israelites as something still doubtful. They did this in order to have a chance to finish what they had to say without hostile interruptions. They succeeded in this and the people waited with their attempt to stone them until after they had completed their speech. This is where we ought to ask why the Israelites did not try and stone them already at the beginning of their words seeing they said nothing different in the course of their speech than what they had said at the beginning. We must therefore assume that the conditional word אם at the beginning of Joshua's words gave the people hope that he too would come up with something negative before concluding what he had to say.

V. 8. אם חפץ וגו׳ und sein Besitz hängt nur davon ab, dass wir des göttlichen Wohlgefallens würdig bleiben. ארץ אשר היא וגו׳ drückt den ganzen Grad aus, in welchem sie über die Verlästerung des Landes empört sind. Sie haben das Land gesehen, es ist in Wahrheit, wie es ihnen immer verheißen worden: זבת חלב ודבש.

'אם חפץ בנו ה, “if Hashem had really been fond of us, He would not allow us to die in the desert.”

והביא אותנו אל הארץ הזאת, the very reverse of what our colleagues testified when they claimed “we cannot ascend against this people.” (13,31) The fact is that these people will not even offer us any resistance, as mentioned already in Exodus 15,16 “they will keep as silent as a stone until Your people o Lord have passed.” In fact, even forty years later when the people finally were poised on the borders of the land they did not encounter a single security fence of other defensive structures which these people had erected during the forty years that they had expected the Israelites to invade their land.

ונתנה לנו, we are certain of this because we have seen that not a single one of them has enough spirit left to confront us, they are only thinking of fleeing.

הוא זבת חלב ודבש, "it flows with milk and honey." They underlined their statement with the word הוא, to show that no other country could claim to match the excellence of the land of Canaan.

ארץ אשר היא זבת חלב ודבש, the land itself is productive without input by farmers”. The expression: “flowing with milk and honey” is applied to produce growing in the forest in Samuel I 14,25 וכל הארץ באו ביער ויהי דבש על פני השדה, “everybody came to the forest and the field was full of honey.” This would not have been possible if there had been anything inferior in that soil. [the author, of course, understands the word “honey” as hyperbole for excellent produce, in contrast to most commentators who understand it literally. Ed.]