פירוש על במדבר 13:24

על אודות האשכול אשר כרתו משם בני ישראל. The Canaanites were surprised about these Israelites who considered this cluster of grapes as something so extraordinary that they cut it off the vine and transported it all the way to their people without bothering to eat it. They were well aware that their country produced far bigger clusters of grapes than the one the spies had taken. The name נחל אשכול reflects the Canaanites’ amazement and who named the location thus.

למקום ההוא קרא נחל אשכול, he called that place: "the valley of the cluster." The subject in the verse is G'd who had named this place in anticipation of its significance in the future. We know this because the Torah described the spies at arriving at נחל אשכול before any mention was made about their having cut off a cluster of grapes. [Besides, the word קרא as opposed to ויקרא shows that the place had already been known by that name. Ed.]

The Torah writes: אשר כרתו משם בני ישראל, "which the Israelites had cut from there." You may well ask that many people on many occasions have cut clusters of grapes in that valley. Why would the cluster the Israelites had cut there be singled out? The remarkable thing was that though only 12 Israelites had come there at the time, the Torah describes them as if they were the whole Jewish people, i.e. בני ישראל. Seeing that these 12 men were the representatives of the people the Torah describes them as the people, i.e. בני ישראל. We find something parallel in Exodus 12,6 where the Torah writes: ושחטו כל עדת ישראל "and the whole community of Israel will slaughter." As a rule the priest slaughtered the Passover; seeing he was the delegate of the people the act of slaughtering is attributed to the people themselves.